Tour of Duty advice and PBEM wanted

[Mad_Dog]

1) My vehicles seem to become immobile after only a few moves, is this normal?
2) Is it okay to assault pinned units?
3) Been playing for about a week now and I have yet to see anyone die from mortar fire? I have pinned a unit with mortar fire but I don't see anyone getting killed.
4) Illumination? How do I tell if it is nighttime, there is a mission called "Night Patrol" but I don't see any difference.
5) Attacking a hill seems you have to get lucky with 500lbs and napalm, VC with 3 guns and a trench at the top of the hill and I'm at the bottom pinned :(
6) What is the deal with the HUGE maps and only 12 turns you will never be able to get across most of the action is within a 30 hex area.
7) I have not seen any tunnels or snipers, where are they?

and finally if anyone has any general advice for someone new to this game, thanks.

I'll try out some answers for you....
1) The terrain affects when your vehicle becomes immobile. Sticking to the roads is best, and jungle can immobilize you pretty quickly.
2) You always want to pin enemy units before you assault them. Their morale is lower, and they've usually taken some casualties, so blast them for a few turns to try to pin them before you assault. It's very difficult to win one without pinning them first. If you play the Americans, a good way to do this is to fire off all of your LAWs (most squads carry seven of them) and when you are within range, switch your M79s to canister load, which is pretty effective as well. (Open the 'Command Menu' up top, and pick 'Select Weapon Load' to do this. It's a good idea to try this out for all your weapons to see your options, and then right click on the bottom bar to see how each load affects range, lethality, etc.)
3) It's pretty rare to get many kills with mortars, unless you are lucky enough to hit someone in a clear hex.
4) Nightime doesn't have any graphical changes, but holding your mouse over the buttons on the top bar will tell you what each one does. Click the one called 'Visible hexes' to see what the line of sight is from your current hex. You can check it out from any hex on the map, not just the one your occupying. I reccomend surveying the map on the first turn, just to see the lay of the land. Also go to the 'View' menu and turn on 'Map Contours' to help distiguish elevation.
5) No answer here, sometimes the game is tough... ;) The ToD scenarios aren't the best balanced ones either.
6) Just the way they are... Different designers like to use different map size.
7) There are not too many of either in ToD.

A few more tips; on the first turn, I always check the victory conditions, the number of turns, the support and the reinforcements I have coming. This lets you come up with a plan that might work. ;) Send me a game if you like (I'd prefer a short one) and we can get you out of bootcamp.