Tactics and Correct use of Scouts ?

[PPoS]

Hello, the other day I played a random battle between Canadian (me) and German forces in Normandy 1944. I was supposed to assault the German positions and I decided that I should use some foot-borne scouts to find the german lines before rushing straight into them. I bought a Scout Platoon and went on looking for the Germans, NOTE I moved only 1 Hex/turn so I wouldn't let the Germans spot me first. Guess what happend ? I was slowly advancing my scout platoon, squad by squad, hex by hex, through some pretty heavy forested area on top of some hills. First I stumbeled into some German minefields and luckily I avoided them without casualties, next I was starting to close on a large open field just infront of the hill slope/treeline. At the start of the turn I moved ONE hex, right into the treeline (still in cover by the trees) when suddenly German fire erupted on my squad. Well that was that, all my cover blown, I didn't retreat, istead I picked the German squad off (a VB squad) and continued (dunno why I did this 'cause the next few turns all types of artillery shells hit my scouts).

Now, I kept to the tree line and moved ONE hex at a time all the time, still pretty soon a German SS MG squad fired at me from across the field, my scouts couldn't spot them but they could apparently spot my "stealthy" scouts.
Doesn't trees give you cover ? Doesn't one hex movement equal crawling or the like ? Shouldn't my scouts be able to actually scout out the German static positions before the Germans actually spotted me ? Sure, the first encounter was a German VB squad and surely they are better at spotting than ordinary squads, but still while keeping my troops in cover and moving really slow, the German SS squad could fire at me. Second, my recon mission took me about 60% of the total game turns, this meant that I couldn't finish the game in time. I didn't bring the main forces behind the scouts since I reckon the sound of tank engines will be heard by the enemy. So I kinda missed the whole battle just by trying to find the enemy lines. Do you have to stop you're scouts for one turn and "look" around manually by pressing the right-button in all directions, or do the scouts automatically spot the enemy on the same turn ?

Does anyone have any good hints or a "guide" on how to use scouts most efficiently ? And know the answer to the questions above ?