Hello Ridley and BaldEagl,
Land Mode (and Sea Mode) firing does still work, but there are some tricks to it. The first thing I'll address is what I think causes the most confusion which is the "sights".
The first thing to remember that there are TWO "sights". The yellow horizontal sight shows where the rounds will land. The grey cross-hair "sight" in the center of your screen is not really a gunsight, but actually more of a "viewing" cross-hair (although they can be used together to help measure longer lead distances when firing in Sea Mode -- but that is another topic). More on that later...
To avoid the guns rotating the wrong way when first entering Land Mode (Shift+Q), the best thing to do is have your map open with the target zoomed in on the map. Press Shift+Q and then immediately click on your target on the map so the guns don't take as much time possibly rotating in the wrong direction. Pay attention to which way your guns move, because you then want to move your VIEWING crosshair (the grey ones in the center of the screen) onto the yellow gunsight. To do this, CLOSE THE CLIP-BOARD, then move your mouse in the direction the guns moved until you can see the yellow gunsight.
Start by lining up the two (move the grey cross-hairs on top of the yellow sight) as closely as you can. Remember, the grey sight is only where you are LOOKING, not where you are firing. The yellow sight is where your rounds will land. (Note: You will usually start by looking in a different direction than the guns are pointing. I think this is the most common cause for confusion.)
Once you are looking (grey cross-hair) the same way as the guns (yellow sight) you can then zoom in (hit Z key and the brackets keys to zoom all the way in and out). I suggest zooming all the way in (right bracket key) for most precise aiming. Once you get good with manual aiming while zoomed in, you will be able to target specific buildings in a town, individual ack guns on a field or even aim for GVs along the shore or on a field (if the CV is close enough). If you have the same problem I do, which is occasionally bumping the mouse and moving the grey cross-hairs, just open the clip-board while zoomed (push the clip-board off to the left or right, so it's not covering your zoomed view) and then the mouse cursor won't move the viewing cross-hairs.
Another tip: when you are zoomed all the way in and multiple gunners are engaging the same target, sometimes it is hard to determine whose rounds are whose, which makes it hard to adjust your fire. In this case, before you fire, hit the Z key to zoom out. Fire and watch your outgoing rounds (zoomed out) until they get close to target (well inside the grey viewing crosshair) then hit the Z key to zoom in before they land and you will know the landing rounds are yours.
Just a few tips off the top of my head.
Hopefully this is helpful.
<S>
