Potential new recruit to the game

How do the rules handle different skill levels of troops?
For example, Veterans would be less likely to get themselves killed, and would be more effective at firing.

There are no skill levels as such in game. All shooting for example is based on range and weaponry, units them self don't have "shooting skill". What comes to troop experience levels morale is the only thing affected. Veterans are less likely to get pinned by opponent than regular troops. Only veteran bonus that I'm aware of is "panzer ace" witch gives bonus modifier to shooting.

Thanks for the reply. I see how the Pin thing would be very beneficial.

But surely having a group of say German SS having the same firepower as Russian conscripts cannot make sense. Can it?

The way shooting works is kinda balanced IMO. based on my humble experiences I would say that 70% of my infantry shooting is area/support fire just to get those enemies pinned. It's a really rare case where I go for kills because games are won when morale runs out (You hit the BR cap), not when all opponents are gone. So forcing the opponent taking chips is more effective way to lower opponents morale. What comes to aimed fire, most of the time I use it I found myself in a situation where I have moved and range is 10-20", that makes me needing 5's to hit giving me a low chance to inflict casualties. Now changing that would make killing stuff with aimed fire easier for sure but the way I see the game system is not to destroy but break the morale and for me that's a biggest catch in this game and not knowing how close your opponent is from breaking makes it even more interesting. Now for how the unit experience system works in this game. I play mostly with British armoured division from Normandy so I really don't have many veterans to choose from in the first place. So when my opponent pushes me to roll morale test I have 67% chance to pass it. When my opponent's veterans need to take the test his chance of success is 83% and that's a huge thing! Keeping troops able to fight without getting pinned is the thing because morale (or the lack of it) will destroy you battleforce.

Oh, and one more thing. This is a game where you simply can't build a "powerplay" armylist to smash any opponent. Taking chips to keep morale from collapsing and the way you get orders are never the same and since game relies heavily for actual history it's never sure victory for either side. (Unless you forgot to take scouts for recce screen mission... But that's another story.)

Sorry for long rant!

Thanks for that!