Learning it the hard way

Sup guys!

I`ve recently started playing coh2 (but I got quite a lot of rts background), this match is a small bragging, since I was playing against a much higher lvl player and won, what made this victory feel awesome

Now for the real part, here are few moments that made me feel weird:
1. In streams I normaly see that players have their ammunition level close to zero, somehow they manage to spent it all, while I had over 1.5k left at the end of game. Actually I was seraching for some "big" ability to spent it, but turned out I didnt have anything like IL-2 assault, which costs a lot of munition, so how is it best used with the general I was using?
2. While I was somewhat holding the middle, I still felt like it wasnt fortiified enough, but I didnt have machineguns or mortars, how would you suggest me to fortify the center?
3. M3 car, afaik, should restock unfull squads, so I bought one, but it didnt, it was staying in the middle for quite a while, and the sniper near it wasnt getting reinforcement to fullfill empty places in squad...
4. Um, I dont know what makes me wonder more - historical reasons or balance issues, but for me it felt quite wrong when Ostwind won a fight against t-34 in the middle... Maybe there was something more that I couldn`t see? But I`m prtty sure Ostwind took at least 4-5 shots from T-34 and was still feeling ok, at same time his low-caliber gun, theoretically shouldnt penetreate T-34 at all, or am I wrong?
5. One more about snipers - I assumed that they are invisible all time except for a few seconds window after shot, am I wrong? caz I`m pretty sure he was able to spot my snipers when they were getting close to his positions

Hmm, well thats all for now, I`d really apreciate for advices and shared knowledge on above topics, cheers ^.^

P.S. Oh and one more thing - starting from mid game I was really struggling with manpower, double T-34/85 costs 720! Is there anyway to increase manpower income?

I didn't watch it but here are some basic answers to your questions:
1) Use mines! And maybe a few upgrades if possible (e.g. for the LMG upgrade on guards, or flame throwers). If you have AT guns, their artillery barrage is also good vs. infantry/weapon teams/snipers...
2) Use mines! Also the 120 mm mortar of your doctrine (dual T34-85) is very good.
3) The M3 does not act as a reinforcement point because it really is just a transport vehicle with some good MG damage and a open top that is ideal for putting flamethrower units or a sniper in it. If you want to reinforce in the field as Soviets, you'll have to either use the conscripts' merge ability (doesn't work for snipers, I think) or get a M5 halftrack from the T34/T70 building.
4) Don't expect the T34 to kill anything except infantry and light vehicles. In its current form it is only good in huge numbers or to speed around the map and kill infantry (T70 is better for that, however). They are also good for ramming enemy tanks, slowing them and taking out their gun to allow your AT guns, tank destroyers, ISU152 etc. to take them out.
If you go for this building, I'd suggest getting T70s instead. Also you shouldn't get this building if you went for the Infantry command (snipers, M3, penal battalion) because you'll lack anti tank options.
With your commander choice you can get away with not building any of the T3 or T4 buildings and just get two T34-85 instead.
5) Soviet snipers are only invisible while they are in yellow or green cover. German snipers stay invisible for 3 seconds or so after leaving their cover, so they can in theory stay invisible while moving from cover to cover (takes a lot of micro).
Units also detect invisible snipers at short range.


Manpower: The only way to "increase" your manpower income is to reduce your manpower consumption. This means you have to be careful to not lose too many men and also not have too many units in general because those will reduce your income.
Managing your manpower consumption in late game can often be taxing, especially when saving up for something big.