[_Tim_]

Some suggestions:

Use scouts, on the ground or airborne, to find enemy positions at your chosen point of attack. Hit these for several turns with artillery to cause suppression, some enemy squads may not fire at all, those that do will fire with less accuracy, which hopefully means less casualties so less chance of your squads backing out. Lots of artillery is good, especially core units off-map because after a few battles their response time will be quick.

Buy lots of sacrificial infantry with support points, unload these first to take the brunt of the enemy fire, then send in the core infantry.

Have some supporting armour with plenty of HE rounds, but don't advance too close to infantry equipped with RPGs. Enemy armour or AT guns will need to be cleared first or LOS denied with smoke. APCs or light armour with 2 or 3 MGs are effective against infantry so this support role doesn't need tanks. Again, use support units rather than core because the first in are likely to take casualties. Weight of numbers has certain benefits, which favours cheaper APCs.

Don't commit core troops to the fight for too long. If they have taken a beating get them out of the fight and save them for another day rather than risk losing the whole unit and starting from scratch. Knowing when to withdraw units is good leadership - play to win the war not the battle. There is no point fighting to the last man in every battle. I look at the battlefield and judge the relative points score for both sides, if I think I've done enough to get a marginal victory I won't risk core troops for the sake of one more victory hex.

Try to take one set of victory hexes to trigger an AI counter-attack, then you have the benefit of first shot as their units advance. But have your defensive perimeter set before taking the victory hexes and don't leave units near those hexes, AI artillery on flipped hexes is guaranteed.

A lot of players (myself included) use the preferences screen to adjust the infantry rating for the AI. If you don't like the balance try lowering the AI. One of the strengths of this game is the ability to adjust preferences like this - it is not cheating, it is about playing the GAME so that you enjoy it, that is the point after all.

At the extreme end of modifying gameplay the experience values of units, yours and AI, can be edited in CampaignHack, but it sounds like you want to earn the experience of your troops so this would be an option of last resort.

cheers,

Tim