i am actually playing the whole WC series again, 30 years later after first play ;-)
everything was fine but now i reached WC4 and WTF ?

i always played difficult level ace. and WC 1,2,3 everything was fine.
but in WC it is simply impossibe. its not difficult its unfair.

what is wrong with the rockets in this title ?
one hit, instant death.
and whats the problem with the wingman. in almost every mission they give up at first enemy contact.
is this kind of a glitch ?

I just started WC4 up for the first time in yeah....similar to what you wrote...almost 30 years since I last played it and I also noticed how insanely difficult the enemy AI is also. I played just on Veteran (I think) level of difficult that one missile hit = instant death. I really don't remember the game being that difficult when I first played it all those years ago but then again maybe i had turned down the difficulty to Rookie back then.

Kudos to whoever is able to play the game on Ace difficulty. I already got burned retrying the same mission (the rescue the scientist from the planet surface mission) over three or four times - ground SAM launches missiles at me non-stop and one hit means instant kill. I turned on Invulnerability but then that does take away the fun of getting through the missions.