Gkenny

To be honest, I find myself somewhat underwhelmed by this expansion. The content I have tried so far is fine, but it falls short of expectations in terms of scale.
What it is missing is that "big thing" that gets you excited about it. In Fire and Rubble that was the Volkssturm stuff, which was completely new to CM and really unique. Downfall is a big content upgrade to Final Blitzkrieg, but in terms of the Combat Mission series as a whole, it does not actually add that much new stuff, with most of the formations and assets being ported over from other game families. Sure, the Volkssturm guys are still cool, but certainly not new anymore and frankly, I find it a bit weird that Downfall leans so heavily on those scenario and campaign wise, considering that they tended to surrender or go home on the western front, compared to the east.
Obviously there is not much new stuff you can realistically do with the Germans, but if you had asked me about this module before it came out, I would have bet that the new "big thing" was amphibious vehicles and river crossings, the capability of which exists in the engine, with various LVTs, maybe footbridges and campaigns at Walcheren and during Operation Varsity to use these new systems. That would have been cool and exciting and, at least to me, the obvious direction for the game to take. All of this is completely absent though. I guess the Schwimmwagen was added, but no allied amphibious gear? This timeframe would also be perfect for adding Commandos and Rangers (which already exist in Italy BTW).
There are the new super late war vehicles and weapons like the Pershing and Comet, but even in that area there is lots of unused potential that would have made the module feel way more unique and interesting. Just from the top of my head: Sherman Tulips, Sherman Crocodiles with fuel trailers (used at Juelich, another river crossing), Super Pershing... personally I am more of an infantry guy, so for those few of us: Why not add M1 Carbines modified for full auto capability, a common field modification, with kits being shipped officially?
I could even think of some more German stuff that could be used to spice those up a bit, like the PAW-600 AT gun that was actually used at the Aller against British forces. In a similar vain, heavy AA gun formations that the allies overran (anti bomber positions), 10.5cm, 12.8cm AA guns... Maybe the 8.8cm improvised AT guns made from unused Jagdpanther guns, used at the "Düren belt"? And of course, since the MP40 was being phased out of production, some Beretta M38/42 for the Volksgrenadiers.
Anyway, my point is, the module feels light on exciting new content and like more could have been done with the scenario.

I couldn't see any images of British vehicles with infantry riding on them externally, will that be possible in the module (like you can with US and German tanks)?

Now that we have so much late WW2 equipment, It doesn't seem so impossible that a CM Korean war title could be announced. Definitely has not been beaten to death and with the amount of nations that participated it could have quite the variety!

Did none of the Allied amphibious vehicles (DUKW, LVT etc) make it in? Could have sworn we got renders but I don't see them in the TOE page.

Now that we have so much late WW2 equipment, It doesn't seem so impossible that a CM Korean war title could be announced. Definitely has not been beaten to death and with the amount of nations that participated it could have quite the variety!

Now that we have so much late WW2 equipment, It doesn't seem so impossible that a CM Korean war title could be announced. Definitely has not been beaten to death and with the amount of nations that participated it could have quite the variety!

Now that we have so much late WW2 equipment, It doesn't seem so impossible that a CM Korean war title could be announced. Definitely has not been beaten to death and with the amount of nations that participated it could have quite the variety!

Yeah I share the sentiment. It's unfortunate that we'll probably have to wait a few more years until the German factions can be added to fight on their own turf. It feels a bit like a CM Korea game without North and South Korean forces.
 
Oh well, at least we'll get some Leo 1s with the Canadians. And hopefully some Sheridans, which were strangely absent from the main release.

Yes, definitely some good news announced, though I hope we can get some new info on the new engine upgrade as well. Perhaps some new features coming? Optimization for larger maps?

Interesting, I thought the M-47 dragon that we have in game only has the daysight and night sight (no thermals). How would the gunner see through smoke?

Man some of these features are really cool, and I definitely would love to see them come to the commerical version. I would always try to include a munitions counter in my arma missions at the end screen, it was wild seeing just how many bullets/grenades/shells would be fired in a scenario. The other stuff, like a stitched together replay system would definitely also be appreciated. And multiple players per side - CM COOP has been a dream for my friends and I for years.

He is talking about the external fuel tanks on the back of the tank.

For game included scenarios in H2H, I've enjoyed: "Halt! Hammerzeit!", "Tactical Vignette 99-2", "Al-Amarah". For user created ones, "Daraya Tank Raid" and "RvR Field Trials" should also be pretty good.

Interesting, I thought the M-47 dragon that we have in game only has the daysight and night sight (no thermals). How would the gunner see through smoke?

That is why.

Check the EW settings: 

I'm not sure about the behavior, but the soviet (and modern russian squad) was designed to be split into two teams in the offense, a fire and maneuver element. 

 

I just did a test with a purpose made map. Soviet scout cars and German Kubelwagens separated by a mortar smoke screen. The scout car HMG gunners see and shoot through the smoke screen.
This was also reported as bug for Cold War v1.00 and current v1.01, as shown with M113 HMG gunners, just this week. I don't know if the problem is isolated to just M2 .50 cal HMG gunners.

Interesting, I thought the M-47 dragon that we have in game only has the daysight and night sight (no thermals). How would the gunner see through smoke?

When can we expect to see this released on steam?

I think some improvements that would be relevant to pretty much all games would be:
Allow the firing of smoke rounds after HE rounds are spent Allow for repeating of firemissions already called without spotting rounds or LOS (especially when using the same battery) Allow for more flexibility in firemission types : HE/SMK mix missions, creeping barrage, etc. More granularity in parameters for fire support: Instead of Heavy, Medium, Short, Long etc, let us specify number of rounds to fire and rate of fire (4 rpm, 2 rpm, etc). Or have the existing parameters give approximate rounds to fire and their ROF. Heavy, medium, short are meaningless when every indirect asset has different base rates of fire. Increased fidelity of damage modelling for nearby vehicles (Artillery should be more dangerous to lighter armored vehicles like IFVs and APCs, and should be more damaging to external tank subsystems)  

Will we ever see briefing templates released for CW like for the other games to use in user made scenarios to have more of a consistent feel? (For example, from BS:https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/combat-mission-black-sea/cmbs-other/battlefront-official-briefing-templates-cmbs/).

Will we ever see briefing templates released for CW like for the other games to use in user made scenarios to have more of a consistent feel? (For example, from BS:https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/combat-mission-black-sea/cmbs-other/battlefront-official-briefing-templates-cmbs/).

From CptMiller's Soviet TB Mission: https://streamable.com/ivd7th

BTR-60PA is supposed to have a DSHK, and has it modelled visually, but the weapon is actually listed as a KPV (And vehicle carries 14.5 ammo instead of 12.7):