From my one play I have a couple of suggestions for pre-planned use of pyrotechnics.

As suggested in the manual, declaring some of the starshells to mean "cease fire" is a great idea. When you are ready to move into the same zone (card) with an enemy unit, you NEED some way to get all of your units to quit firing into that zone.

Also declare at least one smoke color to mean 'cease fire' and give that smoke to the first sergeant or XO. This was very useful to me as I had one squad at long range to the German HMG which was occupying all of the attentions of the Germans, and firing back with 'pinned only' VOF. The XO in the zone adjacent to the germans popped the red smoke which meant 'cease fire' and all of the units which could see that smoke obeyed. But the long range pinned unit could not see it, and continued to fire with their piddly "pinned" VOF. Perfect, this will nearly always keep the german unit, sans leader, from switching his fire to the nearby units which are more threatening. (Naturally, though, my bazooka team which successfully infiltrated the enemy zone was, after an initial miss, Paralyzed by the friendly fire! Drat !)

Another use for starshells which occurrs to me is one meaning 'make a grenade attack'. On a couple of occasions I had fire teams or scout squads in the same zone as the enemy with no leader to order them to use grenades, so they could only fire with their small arms. A starshell so pre-designated would then cause all american units in enemy occupied zones to try using grenades. SHOULD be very effective.

I'll list others as they occurr to me.

Chick