Some Tactical Questions

[Flibby]

Many thanks for your answers, that sounds pretty straight forward and something that I will take into my next battles. take into my next battles. A couple of other things have come up however that are possibly obvious questions but I haven't been able to find the haven't been able to find the solution thus far.

1.  Whilst I appreciate the notion of attacking against a small[ish] front, thus making a focal point and concentrating fully on this and concentrating fully on this point to get into the enemy's rear, should direct fire be directed against the enemy on the other points on the line, or is this just needlessly taking casualties when they could be idle? And in fitting with this very point, in a full campaign that I have going in Moscow '41 there is clearly the front nearest Moscow where the main force is located and the main effort taken forward, however there is a salient in the north that is many miles from Moscow, is there much point in directing local attacks on areas not vital to the main objective?
Recon: In order to find the enemies' line and in the absence of aerial recon, it's often the case of aerial recon, it's often the case that I find my motorcycle that I find my motorcycle battalions coming face to face with any enemy and becoming disrupted before the chance for a usual 'spotting' comes along. In this case (low visibility) is it beneficial just to move larger inf battalions forward, because their losses will not be as significan

Finally (phew) engineer battalions appear to me to have the same, and sometimes more amount of personnel as a rifle battalion, with the same combat strengths however in some of the guides I have read it's dis-couraged to use them in a combat role, why is this? That's it for the questions I promise, I'm just going to have to put some more hours in!