Warts 'n' all

I have used them successfully to close with the enemy as to a approach when no other option is available.
First, you need something else to give the cover fire or aided concealment like additional smoke.
Second break up your infantry into fire teams, spread them out and rush them in quick burst then drop and hide., Then crawl side ways from any expected area fire from the enemy you might receive, maybe one or two action squares.
The trick I find that works best is rush all units at the same time, the enemy will likely only fire on one or two units, then make sure to shift when hidden to prevent any area fire that the opponent might try to place on you.
Concealment is a powerful tool if used correctly in the game, area fire is hard to place on you in wheat fields, so learn to use that. Don't give the enemy a target.
So do not bother trying to fire from a wheat field, you are just exposing yourself, Keep hidden, and remember short bust when moving.
Only after crossing the field and closing in on the enemy will I pop them up and use them in the attack. And that means I am pretty sure that I will have such a fire power advantage that I can expose them to such a move.
So in other word, it is a way of approach, not a terrain to use to fight from.  Using my method, you can cross and use wheat fields without exhausting your troops. As for fighting from them, think of them as clear ground with no cover. Because showing your troops from them is placing them in that exact situation.
Hopes this helps

One problem with good ideas is there have been too many of them!   I have my own wish list for new/different orders, myself. But the game currently is pretty much at the saturation point for number of orders/menus/buttons/commands that can be reasonably juggled at the same time. Maybe they could add one more, maybe two more, but soon the commands menu starts looking like a wall of text. I'm reminded of a survey some years back on healthcare options. If you give people a choice of five or six plans they're happy with their choices, if you give them an option of forty plans they're numbed into inaction. Sensory overload kicks in.

Did you forget to log into your other account before complimenting your self?

Bulletpoint... You have to remember that in Normandy there was very little of what the French would call "Foret". i.e. hunting grounds which been cleared to a certain extent so that the upper classes could ride around at high speed in pursuit of their prey. What is called "forest" in the game is really dense unmanaged woodland full of fallen branches, bracken and even dead trees. Very unlike your picture. 

No one has mentioned ground conditions.  But now that you guys are talking ecology and not war games ...
Well, CM I believe allows just one ground condition per map (other than tile properties).  But wouldn't an open field tend to dry out much more quickly than a forest floor?
Relevant when considering bogging, I think.

Bulletpoint... You have to remember that in Normandy there was very little of what the French would call "Foret". i.e. hunting grounds which been cleared to a certain extent so that the upper classes could ride around at high speed in pursuit of their prey. What is called "forest" in the game is really dense unmanaged woodland full of fallen branches, bracken and even dead trees. Very unlike your picture. 

Personally, anyone playing the game with charts have issues as far as I am concerned.
Winning the game is more important than playing the game for what its enjoyment factor should be.
Now, do solders in real combat  use charts and data, Actually they do. There is always a study as to best engagement distances with the enemy and what weapon match ups do and to try to engage at ranges that best suites what you have to fight with.
But there is no terrain charts, soldiers cannot measure wall thickness and know for sure what building gives the best cover. But players in the game sure will go to any length to know that and other similar stuff.
What is better, that group of woods or the building for cover, in real life is there a answer for that. Not really. But here you are wanting it in the game.
Play the game enough and you know what the terrain does as to protecting you, stop making it a math test. that is not the point of the game anymore.
Terrain cannot move with you on the battlefield, your units have to deal with what terrain options there are with where they are going, their choice should not be a percentage number. but should be for the logical sense of what they likely will be engaged by from the enemy with.
I love buildings if the enemy is throwing light mortars and small arms fire at me. I hate them is there is a big gun that has direct fire on them.
I would prefer a wheat field vs a large gun just for the fact it has a terrible time getting a bead on anything lying in the grass.
One of the good things about the game now is just that, terrain choices can now be made for the sake of terrain. Its not a numbers game any more and its time to stop trying to make it one again.
 
 
 
 

That's where it starts. "Why can't we have hit decals?" It's a simple question, and the answer is just as simple, "Because it's stupid."
Personally I never understood why we need vehicle hit decals either. What's the point of having black circle holes showing where your tank got shot? Your tank is already dead, and all the postmortem analysis in the world isn't going to change that fact. The same goes for infantry: why does it matter WHERE your Pixeltruppen get shot? Dead troops are dead troops, and all of the hit decals in the world won't change the fact that when you get hit by bullets, you usually die.
The origins for having a visual feedback when an entity gets hit with weapons traces all the way back to the original DOOM. Whether it be hit decals, or fully rendered 3D 'Blood and Guts', visual feedback has long been the domain of the first person shooter. This feedback is intended to be a reward to the player to congratulate them for nailing that 'Sweet Headshot', or landing a grenade perfectly at their opponents feet.
In tactics games however, there is no practical need for that type of feedback. The player is not personally shooting the enemy troops, he is commanding AI troops to do that for him. There are a few exceptions, such as the Men of War series, which allow the player to take direct control of vehicles and troops, but those games are hardly realistic.
Combat Mission is a tactical wargame, it's meant to exercise your brain to defeat your opponent. No one who takes this game seriously is asking for blood and gore to be added, because in the end, it doesn't matter that your sniper got a sweet headshot, it matters that he is effectively inflicting casualties. You might as well ask the guys playing the Silent Hunter series, "Why can't I see drowned, dismembered bodies when I sink a ship? It's more realistic!"
It's because that's not what the game is about.

TBH, the icon doesn't make much difference to the FoW in even Iron mode, playing WeGo or pause-heavy RealTime. It'd be a convenience, sure, and doubly so if AT teams got their icon properly (though Scout teams split off getting a Scout icon might be as confusing as helpful when there are actual recon troops on-map). You see the equipment a team has when you click on it anyway. While the icon change is an element of the difference between levels, it's not a big one, IMO.

Converting from CMx1 to CMx2 games is not a easy task.

But the first thing to remember is not to compare.

There is many differences besides how you give commands or control the camera.

I Found I had to re-address how to use my units and what type of commands to give them also.

But the truth is, the CMX2 game plays much more realistically than the older games.

Just be patient and remember to do proper things and the game will be rewarding. With time you will not think about the interface and how you have to use it, all that stuff becomes second nature with time.

I don't even think about how I control the camera anymore, its just second nature.

It can be considered "expensive". But, if you keep on playing it for years like I do, then it is certainly value for money.

God, seeing that face just makes me want to Whap!

Pshah. Who needs FIFA when you've got Monty Python?
 
And Now for Something Completely Different:
 

Boy, that makes zero sense. So far BFC has been pretty consistent if they call it a patch it just has bug fixes. If they call it an upgrade it just adds features that were not in the game before.

I don't see why you guys insist on wilfully ignoring the evidence and making yourselves unhappy.

Daz, as you can probably tell by now, this type of whine isn't going to get you far here on these forums.

Yes initially the games are expensive to purchase but its a game that lasts a lifetime... its not like you complete it and put it on eBay.  I have clocked thousands of hours playing the CM games and in my opinion money well spent and well worth supporting the company financially if need be.

I can't help but think that the more you call the "Tommies", "Brits" then the harder they will fight. Stubborn buggers.

They cannot run forever. If they are in the "yellow", and especially in deep woods, and i want them to keep moving instead of stopping I use MOVE.
 
Units spot better with MOVE than QUICK. Stopping spots better than Moving, but if I do not want them to stop all together i will give them MOVE. All the orders have their time and place.

Ah, nice to hear "Shorty and The Weird One", as they are known in the derelict recording studio that I call my home.

Nothing strikes fear in the hearts of men like a spoken word version of a Simon and Garfunkel classic.
 
Imagine that. A German and a Jew working together. For the benefit of mankind.

Kangaroo. 

I love the M20 and some of the Kiwi and Canuck light armor. Like the infantry carrier the defrocked priest. forget its name.

This is simply untrue. LOS is reciprocal, yes: as soon as you might see the enemy, they might see you. If they're both the same number of high quality troops in poor concealment, then there's a high chance that the two elements will see each other at the same time. But there are many occasions when one side or the other has a spotting advantage and will succeed their "roll to acquire" sooner (on average) than their reciprocate. An obvious example is a two man Elite sniper team with binos in a church tower at 600m from a green rifle team with no binos in an open field: the poor grunts will get picked off one by one without ever seeing the sniper. In the last campaign turn I played, an element of mine stumbled upon a lone straggler and it was a good quarter minute before they were spotted back, and they were Quicking across an open field (it's KG Engel, and the player Germans are quality troops, against piss poor Amis).
 
If the AI always spots you at the same moment you spot them, then you need to work on your cover exploitation. If it's not "always" then what's the problem? It's plain to see that "sometimes" two units will spot each other simultaneously.
 
 
Then you need to work on your movement drills and understanding of how concealment works. It is entirely possible to generate lopsided spotting situations where you can see and spot the enemy well before they see and spot you. The AI sometimes even manages to reverse the tables. But you have to generate them, they won't just happen. Both sides use exactly the same LOS and spotting algorithms; there's no "AI spot you when you spot them" rule (I know that for sure, because I constantly get situations where my troops shoot first, against the AI).
 
So, some advice to help you get on the right side of the spotting algorithms (in no particular order): 
Small teams are harder to spot (because there's less of them to spot, and they fit more easily behind concealing terrain features What's between the target and the spotter (every metre of it) matters more than what terrain the target is in. Example: Light Woods tiles give a concealment advantage; if you are in the "last" tile before open ground, your element has an average of 4m (anywhere from 0-8m, depending on where the individual troopers position themselves in their AS) of "Light Woods tile level concealment", whereas if you're in the next row back into the Light Woods patch, you'll still be able to see out, but you will have, on average 12m  (a guaranteed 8m, for the complete AS, plus the 0-8 for the AS the unit is in) worth of Light Woods between you and the observer, or three times the concealment advantage. Often, you'll be able to be even further back and still see out. Tree models do not give a good indication of the concealment they provide. The tree trunks block LOS, but if they're planted in "short grass", the concealment offered versus eyes on the same level by being underneath them will be minimal; if the canopy is high enough, so that the foliage doesn't preclude spotting, fire can completely ignore a "well-kept orchard" if it's aimed down the rows. Shooting teams are much easier to spot than teams which hold their fire. If your intention is "looking, not reaching out to touch", give your unit a short Target Arc, either circular or oriented the way you want them to bias their cover and shooting opportunity seeking. That way, they won't open fire the instant they see an enemy inside their effective range, giving away their position and attracting attention, causing an instant recipro-spot and return fire. If you're coming up to the "last piece of cover" between you and potential eyes (a bocage line, or clump of bushes at a crest, say) use Slow to move the last AS or two into the cover. This will minimise the chance of your arriving team being spotted by the observing enemy on the other side, because you're moving slowly and keeping low. If you want to spot without being spotted, give the moving unit a short covered arc as above so your scout team doesn't instantly engage the platoon they spot forming up in the field they just got eyes onto. Barns are poor concealment (and negligible cover, but that's a different issue). If you're moving about inside a building the enemy can see, you'll be spotted unless you Slow (or maybe Hunt). If you take this advice in consideration, you might find that you can ambush the enemy a little bit* more than 2-5% of the time.
 
* If there's such a thing as hypobole, this is an example of it...

Wasn't southern France where Audie Murphy stood on a knocked out US tank and manned a .50  against overwhelming odds?

I can recall quite a few instances of facing down a lone panther with my two Shermans, one of them a Firefly ... guess which of mine the Panther targets first?
 
Yep, always plinks the Firefly first - even when, from a front on aspect, it shouldn't be *that* obvious which is which - leaving the 75mm armed Sherman to be finished off next at leisure.
 
Definite threat priortisation taking place in my experience ....