AncientForest

Wow, thanks.
The dev should be ashamed of himself.
Not fixed in years. Major issue.

The technique of having reinforcements that may even arrive after the scenario time limit is reached is a way to stop the AI surrendering "prematurely".  Players used to complain that the game would end abruptly just as they were about to execute their wonderful final assault plan and it was a let down - like coitus interruptus.

Wow, thanks.
The dev should be ashamed of himself.
Not fixed in years. Major issue.

So here is an example of the problem I was talking about on the Stavelot map. 
The problem affects these two white buildings highlighted here, just off the town square:

 
Here is a close-up. As you can see I have men stacked up right in front of the doors. Neither the front nor the rear doors are functional for these buildings, and it seems the only way in is to go through the inside of the adjacent buildings. Also, this is not the only building type affected by this bug. Some of the really narrow buildings on this exact same block are also affected by this, but for now I'll just point out these.

 
Here are the movement orders I have given. I had two separate teams try to enter the buildings side by side at the same time to illustrate the problem.


 
When I hit the big red button, both teams ignored the doors and then started running off to the right:

 
They circled around the corner, made a U-turn, and then entered the adjacent building at the end of the block.

 
Naturally, this meant that they ran right into the bullets of the Americans across the street.

 
So as you can see, it can be a bit of a game-breaking bug when it ends up like that, especially when playing a long campaign where every casualty you take matters. Luckily I save the game at the beginning of every turn anyway just in case something like this happens. I have multiple other examples and screenshots of this happening to other buildings on this same map as well.

There have been quite a few threads about this problem in recent years, so you are definitely not alone in your frustration. All doors are real doors, but sadly don't always work as they should.If you use the "search" facility you should find the answers you need regarding the different modules that the problem occurs in.

Normally my troops go through the door I want them to use. There are a couple of buildings that are problematic. Then of course, there are sometimes cases when elevation comes into play. A building on a slope can have a door blocked without the scenario designer even noticing. Grrrrrrrrr. 

I like the idea.  Suicidal pathing is a repeated headache and by far the main justification for a restart of the game (assuming you have a recent save).

One "fix" - to my mind - that I've mentioned over the years and seems to me (well, it would, wouldn't it!) to be easier to implement is to be able to select a unit and its movement waypoint(s) as plotted by you and then hit a command to "force' the pathing algorithm to run and show you the route and waypoints that will actually be plotted by the A.I. for that unit only ...
 
If it shows that the unit will actually take a path that's different to what you want / expect, you can "think again" ...
 
As the intended route will only be based on what the unit already knows before the turn starts (and before it reacts during the turn to enemy fire), it doesn't seem to contradict FOW?
 
And its using only the pathing routine that will run when you hit go ... so requires no new features as such; and is voluntary and for use as you decide or not, so will slow down moves only as much as you let it?
 
Cures AFVs thinking they won't fit through gaps in buildings, impassable terrain, etc and going the long way around via LOS to the enemy? And building entrances, like this?
 
Unless the pathing routine won't work in a "preview" mode like that?

We've all been there with pathing bro, feel ya pain.
While not a comprehensive pathing fix, one of my 'top 5' wishlist items is for designers to be able to paint AI 'don't go here, known threat!' (mined, fire lane, wevs.) squares. The unit TacAI for the affected side (even if player controlled) would 'see' these squares as marsh or sumfink, and avoid entering them. During setup, perhaps these threat zones would highlight in red and could also be labeled.
Yes, one could also use actual marsh or mud squares (I've been tempted at times, believe me) as a crude hack, but they are ugly and have other effects. They also affect both sides.

I belive BFC have been struggeling with a number of pathfinding/tac  AI behavior issius for the last few years...
The fix does not seem to be all that simple though unfortunatelly...
If it was...it would have been fixed by now

Make an extra save and ceasefire. See what's going on.

The Italians had lots of excellent designs for many weapon systems. The issue was they proved utterly unable to produce enough of them to matter frequently. The Italians may have had the best AAA gun of the war for instance, the Cannone da 90/53...but built less than 600 of them. Just about all of the fighters built by Macchi were not only competitive with Allied designs, but lethal to them in the hands of a good pilot. How many were built though? Between all the types of fighter Macchi built they just couldn't build enough of anything. 
One of the issues facing Italian war production was that the more the Italians tried to ramp up production, the more they came into competition over resources with Germany. At first the Germans tried to just pass engines and resources to the Italians but as the war's prospects turned against the Axis Germany began to turn partnership into exploitation. 
The lack of output meant that Italian forces were frequently unable to execute the mostly sound combined-arms theories their forces were constructed around. This imbalance led to lack of flexibility, the lack of flexibility led to lack of realistic force projection, lack of realistic force projection led to defeat on the battlefield which further constrained Italy's options to better balance its forces. Strategic failures caused tactical failures, then tactical failures backfired into the strategy causing its failure. 

I think you'd be correct in your assumption. I find FB to be extremely difficult as the allies when facing the Volksgrenadier's with all their MP44's. They also get a nice selection of heavy armor in late 44. I would also include playing as the fallshchirmjager in Battle for Normandy in the hedgerows is a nice advantage unless it's against other airborne soldiers. But the main question is why do you want to play as overpowered? Where's the fun in that? Play as the Italians in Sicily! Play against the odds and come out in victory!

Well Shock Force 2 - NATO features Germans. And BLU vs. RED is pretty much seal clubbing.

That would be Marco's UI mod. Brings the UI in some respects back to the CM1 days with more information for each weapon. Can be a touch time consuming up front to set up yourself but if you want some help with ranges etc then this one is for you.
http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?page_id=5#search/text=marco
The other big UI mod for the WW2 titles is JuJu's but they don't be default include range information.

All CM2 games (except CMBS for some reason) have mods that give the caliber, range and even penetration data of all weapons (incl small arms).  Hopefully found at CMMODS.

1) For small arms, it's in the manual. For lighter vehicular ordnance and guns (up to maybe 40mm), and for heavy weapons, it'll be listed in the UI, just under the silhouette of the vehicle/weapon. Anything heavier than that, I think they don't tell you because the assumption is it can reach anywhere on an ordinary map. But there is a little bit of flex in these values; bazookas and Panzerschrecks, for example, can fire beyond their listed ranges in some cases, especially if they're uphill from the target.
2) those are quick commands for (respectively): Pause, Stop, and Evade. The manual discusses them briefly but not in a lot of detail. A useful thread on the Evade command: 
 

Since Final Blitzkrieg is set towards the end of the war, do German tanks have an inbuilt armor disadvantage in this game? ...to represent the metal shortage of Germany.
Also are the devs still planning DLC for FB as I have noticed for their other games. I also may get fortress italy eventually.

A physical manual that you get in the mail. Exactly the same content as in the digital .pdf

The manual is included in the download