No.
A shell hits a tank and penetrates. The game:
- Applies the shell's damage to tank HP. [Damage roll bounded by +/-25% from the average damage for that round.]
- Checks if the shell's trajectory through the tank hits any crew/modules.
- For each crew/module hit by the round's trajectory, rolls to see if the crew/module gets a crit.
-- The first successful crit roll on a module "stops the shot". The first successful crit on a crewman does not, i.e. the shot continues into the next module (or out of the tank if no other modules are present).
-- By the way, if you hit an external module and the shell's trajectory takes it through that module and into the hull - and the external module does not "absorb" too much of the shell - then you can also damage the hull. But that's still less efficient than shooting straight into the hull (avoiding any external modules) and penetrating.
For avoidance of doubt: each shell does SEPARATE damage to hitpoints and modules. This is a basic game mechanic that was confirmed by the devs ad infinitum (to say nothing of in-game experience - ever shoot a Lowe through the engine and do damage while setting it on fire?).
When you crit with no damage, that means you've hit an external module - e.g. optics or tracks (especially the middle track hitbox, which has about 3x the hitpoints of the "front" and "back" hitboxes). This gets filed under a "don't shoot at optics or tracks" (unless you explicitly want to damage them) heading.
Now, the other thing to remember is that the shell might do too little damage to an individual module to even get it to "yellow" status - this in part is due to widely differing module HP values even within the same tank. But the first task is to get a crit, then worry about the results...
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For those who care, I believe Storm had previously said that the chance to crit any module is 30%. Fully-ranked Deadeye would therefore increase this to 33%. [I've also seen 36% as the "final" number on some blogs, but suspect that's not correct.] Assuming your Panther makes 10 penetrating shots per game, that increase is not nothing, though it's also not big enough to be game-breaking.
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Separately, if you honestly believe that a 10-15 meter differential in the distance at which you're being spotted doesn't matter enough to make Camo your third skill after Repair...well, that's your playing style. Skills are purchased in descending order of importance. That's why +Vision is first (on the Panther), and Repair is second. Please feel free to explain why you would not use Camo as the third.