"Input on drop-pod aesthetics?" Topic

So, along with the umpteen gazillion shiny things my ADD draws me to each day, I was pondering making drop-pods in 15mm. Thing is, all that comes to mind are the 40K drop pod, the Star Wars escape pod, and the spherical Vostok reentry capsules.

I could really use some creative input. Should orbital drop-pods be one-man affairs (like Spock's photon-torpedo-slash-coffin in STII, or as in the book "Starship Troopers"), or carry fire teams such as in 40K? Personally, I really like the aesthetic of the 40K Marine drop-pod, but I don't want to just make a 15mm derivative of that. I had thoughts about making panels, engine cowlings, etc., that could be glued to a plastic Easter egg, but I don't think I'm good enough in Sketchup to make the right curves and whatnot.

So… anyone want to weigh in? I'd appreciate input in the following:

- General Aesthetic (smooth, panelled, rounded, angular, windows, no windows, tastes great, less filling, etc.)
- Shape
- Size
- Passenger Capacity
- Braking Method (parachutes, grav plates, rockets, spinning blades like the red matter torpedo in the 2009 Star Trek, etc.)
- Armament or lack thereof
- Hatches/Ramps/Doors, etc.

Any insight is appreciated!

Thanks,
jav98

Single person, unarmed shaped like a flying wing.

Imaging a single person shuttle shaped drop pod with chute for landing after retros fire.

Defence by chaff, ECM and flares.

Top pops off for exit after throwing smoke / ECM out on landing.

Honestly I'd like to see several different versions.

I'd love to see some singe man versions like from the beginning of Quake 2. Basically torpedos that punch through the atmosphere and have limited attitude adjustment, before retro-rockets fire off and and maybe a small parachute brings it to a "safe" landing.

These would be for mass invasion style forces, with regular troopers in them to blanket and area and hopefully reduce losses due to AA fire.

Elite forces and Power armored forces I could see in a larger 40k or Starship troopers style landing boat/pod. It would be slightly more resistant to incoming fire, and in the event of a small breach power armor would prevent total loss of the squad.

Forget my first wish try this link

I sorta like this one. link

While larger pods keep a unit together when they land, I think smaller pods offer better survival ability. Small fast targets with lots of decoys. I just reread Starship Troopers and the practice of decoys will help get more troops to the ground.

With that in mind I have been looking at using a ping pong ball as the basis for my drop pods in 15mm. One man in power armor or 2 standard troops.

Of course with advanced grav technology just seal the apc and kick it out of an airlock.

from: link

It depends on your tech-level and the psychology of your forces.

In WWII the united states drove open-front higgins boats onto the beach into machinegun fire to disable minefields with explosives on the end of a stick. They did it en masse, pretty much on one LARGE front, and accepted the losses.

In desert storm the marines came in on armored tanks and LCAC, with gunship support and disabled minefields by throwing linecharges at them with stand-off rockets. Oh, and the did it as a DISTRACTION, while the main forces snuck around the flanks and seized objectives, all under air supremacy.

Which type of landing are you envisioning? A theatre grade "Saturate the holy hell out of them, block out the sun with our steel rain" landing? or something more sneaky, like the 2nd 3rd of a tom clancy novel "Lets find a way to get clark and chavez into the action… STEALTH PODS!" kinda thing.

The steel rain thing is good for theatre-level play with battalions and companies. In it i'd use "squadpods" with specops "packages" in one man cocoons. Also have the "cloud" of drop pods liberally seeded with jammers, decoy pods, smartbombs, cluster munitions and the XXth century version of the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon.

If you're doing a squad-level game with individual minis representing individual figs, individual pods with one or two "squad pods" would be the way I'd do it.

Another consideration is the launch. are these pods being dropped from orbit, or further out because "marines are expendable but out spaceships aren't".

If i was stuck in a can for 2-3 days because the transport kicked me out somewhere near the moon, i'd sure feel better if i had someone else to talk to…

I would go with unarmed.

I have always seen drop pods as a quick and throw-away entry system without the intent of it providing anything but point A to B transit.

I favour squad based pods, because I imagine plummeting into the battlefield from orbit would leave you somewhat disorientated to start with, and then having to crawl through the war looking for your squadmates would really suck. Also, what about a drop pod that acted as bunker once it landed?
mounted weapons, slits for firing through, designed to be retrieved after the battle and re-used?

Worm

For me drop pods are more space opera sf than hard sf, if that makes sense. 40k's pods are one of the few things I rather like, and would start there.

I can always make more than one version -- the solo pod, the squad-pod, the improvised-bunker pod. I just really need some ideas of where to start. Thanks for everyone's feedback!

Operationally, drop pods are somewhere between parachutes and assault gliders. They might be reusable if they haven't taken too much damage, but nobody really plans on it.

The SST pods work as a one-man drop because each man is armed at the level of a modern tank. If you aren't armed that heavily, it needs to be a squadpod (or bigger).

I can also see a couple different approach designs: one is the 40k/parachute style (direct drop, block out the sun with our steel rain); another is a bit more subtle, where the drop cocoon burns off and leaves a stealthy glider to arrive.

For me drop pods are more space opera sf than hard sf, if that makes sense. 40k's pods are one of the few things I rather like, and would start there.

I can see that. There's a lot of problem associated with dropping a man from orbit at high speeds. It was brought up in Halo actually that the pods are one and the ODST battalions are VOLUNTEER ONLY for several reasons.

1. Drop pods will get hit by incoming fire.

2. A certain percentage of pods *may* burn up if their cooling gel coating on the exterior burns away too rapidly.

3. A certain percentage of occupants may or may not die or suffer bodily harm upon normal impact.

4. Some pods may fail to deploy grav chute. (Read as "May cause marine stains on planet surface.")

5. You have to be 80 kinds of insane to want to be dropped from orbit at high speed into the ground all while evading a roughly 1/4 chance you'll die before you even get out of the pod, if you make to the ground.

As for 40K's squad complement… I always found that both silly, yet makes a degree of sense for them. Marines fight best as a squad, so drop the whole squad. Yet, what if the pod gets blown up? You just lost an 1/100th of your entire chapter and 1/10th of your company. 10 man loss from one lucky shot is unacceptable to me personally. The marine pods do have the advantage of being guided though. The pods in SST and Halo are just shot down like bullets.

The idea of a dropped bunker pod sounds pretty neat though.

Underverse comes to mind…. big n' bad, aerodynamicly challenged and extremely intimidating… so the last thing you see is something you would never forget…. just before it lands on you.

I'd think that a cross between a squad based version and a personal drop pod would work great.

The tricky part of reentry can be handled by a larger dropship like craft. Most AA will not reach that high and the stuff that does would most likely be missile based. So the ship could have anti-missile defenses and better armor.

The dropship jettisons smaller drop pods after the really intense heat of reentry is past. The dropship would be easier to hit because it is slower and rather large. So it breaks up and dumps a few dozen pods that continue the drop to the ground. This will minimize the scatter affect because the pods only drop for a short time. The broken up Dropship would provide additional cover from AA as well.

I'd also make the pods carry at least two guys. That way the trooper has someone to watch his back after they land.

I'll throw in my 2cents, I'd love to see SST (book) 1man capsule droppod, squad sized (say 6 man) small toboggan like unarmed dropship as well as something bigger i.e. SST (film) dropship/thunderbird 2 which drops/leaves pod behind as weapon/hardpoint/command bunker.

I really kinda like the ones in Halo…

If your looking to create a one man drop pod I would suggest checking out IWM Battletech spheroid dropships in 1300th scale, they have loads of different variants with fine panel detail and they are normally tear drop or oval in shape, although their cargo is usually meant to be a lance of mechs the 1300th scale miniatures are about 15-20mm tall which would be about right for a single manned drop pod.Follow the link to see some examples….
link

I also associate drop pods with, well, a certain lack of efficiency. Which I am fine with in scifi. But, for me, it brings to mind a different aesthetic, one either less advanced technologically (but still good enough for space travel,) or less concerned about the economics of efficiency.

I like the idea of a space-bourne Higgins boat, though. But then again, I always wanted my Imperial Guard Chimeras to have the big Higgins-style front door too. It's just such an evocative look.

@CorSecEng: You mean like the Dropship used in the Roughnecks SST cartoon? Dropship gets the entire platoon through the hot part of re-entry and provides anti-missile protection, then drops the individual troopers once it's down to (just above) gun-range from the surface…

I agree that the Halo ODST pods are excellent, aesthetically.

And I disagree that drop pods are a sign of inefficiency. They are a sign that the users recognize that some losses are inevitable, and that they are trying to minimize those losses. The fastest way to get lots of troops to the battlefield is via drop (or amphibious assault). Using a large ship like an LST threatens an entire battalion+ with destruction due to a single lucky hit, so you make each platoon or less an individual target.

Javelin-

What level of tech are the troops packing?

Part of the reason SST used single-trooper pods was that the pod didn't carry the trooper to the ground. Really they were just a reentry shield (with some extra goodies, like chaff) for the Marauder armor.

If your troopers are in light armor (more like the <shudder> movie version of SST), you probably are looking for them to land with the pod. That, and the lower mobility of these troops, means you probably will land them a squad per pod.

If you are talking super-high tech forces (anti-grav and the like), the idea of drop pods really becomes kind of moot, as your pods are really mini-spaceships, and you just need to decide how big you want those pods/shuttles to be.

Short answer – you can justify just about anything based on your setting, and you could just leave it up to the situation/scenario you want to run.

Scenario: isolated troops trying to reform into squad cohesion while under fire.
Use: Individual Pods

Scenario: Arrival of a reinforcing squad on turn 3 in a single random location.
Use: Squad Pod

Scenario: Regeneration area for reinforcements that also serves as an evac area for wounded troops.
Use: Improvised Dropship landing site

I think the ideas of drop pods are great, and probably quite practical.

Even if 25% of them get shot down on entry into an atmosphere, I'd take that chance over the percentage of dropships that will be eliminated on their way down to the planets. Little targets are much harder to hit, and there presumably will be a lot more of them, in many cases.

I think one – two man pods are probably best, but can see an argument made for 3 – 4, or more people in one too. Costs are reduced for larger numbers in them, but are more inviting targets too.

I suspect in an era where these can be made, and transported to far away planets for assaults, costs and resources for these are minor issues, since they can be mined for almost no cost from asteroid belts. Fuel will be the big concern.

I see them as being unarmed, but with decoys to aid survival on entry, e.g. hologram projectors, chaff, flares, balloon decoys, etc.

I prefer one-man pods.

In Heinlein, the pods broke up completely and the men parachuted the rest of the way down (with a very quick jumpjet pulse at the end).

Don't forget the possibilities of lithobraking. Take a guy in a powersuit, surround him with cushioning and little else, then a heat shield and aerobraking system. Terminal velocity much higher than with just a parachute, so you're a much faster target. Just before impact, pop some very large airbags. Bouncy landing.

The mars rovers use a variation on this. In superscience settings, replace airbags with stasis fields, or force shields.

These types always worked for me …

The only problem with a squad ACL in a drop pod is if you loose a pod you loose a squad. But the same can be said for modern day helos. So it's a risky business … regardless …

I liken the drop-pod concept to modern airborne doctrine -- get troops onto the ground quickly, in areas the ground forces have yet to reach, and have them conduct operations in the enemy's rear areas, well behind the FEBA. I plan on using them in 15mm Stargrunt, because I believe they can be workable even with the hard-SF feel of SG2.

Thanks for everyone's input!

I once did a scenario using "interface gliders".

Essentially unpowered, stealthed out, trans-atmospheric gliders that were used for stealthy drops of troops onto planets with a bit more control than a drop pod.

-Eli

As emu2020 says, the best (safest) insertion is via something with a very high glide ratio. With almost any insertion, you want to enter the atmosphere and drop below hypersonic well uprange of any hostiles with AA. Contrary to what most SF shows, you cover thousands of kilometres even in a steep descent.

Space Marine type drop pods which are essentially capsules have little cross range capability – hence it is easy to predict where they will go and forces your dropship carrier to potentially pass over defended territory. Winged lifting bodies like the Shuttle have the opportunity to access a great deal more in the way of landing sites from a given orbit and a given schedule, but pay for it with extra mass and a larger thermal soak. Going in steep and hard reduces the thermal soak but you pay for it with reduced crossrange, and increased G-forces. Capsules also have the ability to sustain more damage and can come in on ballistic entries… sadly, as we all know too well, lifting bodies are unstable and can break up if their attitude jets/control surfaces fail…

You mean if their heat shielding fails.

Whatever happened to the US's Prompt Global Strike initiatives, with the "boots on the ground in 60 minutes or less or the next one's free" guarantee? Wasn't that pretty much a hypersonic glider or Dyna-soar?

Whatever happened to the US's Prompt Global Strike initiatives, with the "boots on the ground in 60 minutes or less or the next one's free" guarantee? Wasn't that pretty much a hypersonic glider or Dyna-soar?

They've been having a few issues lately with the SCRAM jet program (the waverider).

Also, no one seems to have a good answer for what happens to the grunts when things go south on an op…

I'm sure someone, somewhere is still working on it.

Cool… you know, I was planning on making a "flying wing" style UAV and then having it double as a jump-pack anyway. Maybe I can just upsize it a bit, add a personnel pod underneath, and have that serve for one of the individual drop pods. I might also make a Halo-style, "drop you like a bad habit" pod. We'll see. First, I have some projects that I owe to people…

HALO pod please )

I was fond of Heinlens version, a rentry shield that breaks apart once it clears the atmosphere then the trooper is conducting a HALO jump with parachute.

Fire team or squad sized pods would be of use for lesser trained forces and resuable. They are recovered once the drop zone is secure or after the invasion.

You mean if their heat shielding fails.

True. However, the loss of Columbia's wing forced the RCS to take over. Only once it ran out of fuel did Columbia start to tumble and break up and result in the loss of her crew. A hole say nearer the wingtip might have been survivable. Heat shield failures occurred before… it was just larger, in a critical location and at the wrong angle.

The way I see it, if you send individual pods your troops will end up scattered to hell and will fight poorly. Although more will (perhaps) survive the landing.

If you have bigger drop pods you can get a fire-team or section down together and they'll fight better. You have your eggs in less baskets but with armour, shields, ECM, chaff and other gizmos you could probably make them survive reasonably well.

Personally I'd only be interested in buying pods which carried a fire-team or more. I like the GW aesthetic personally but depending on faction would go for something egg shaped or spherical or curvy or whatever, after all, aliens might have different design/materials style.

I really doubt the troops would be scattered. We can send a probe to Mars millions of miles away and land it where it's supposed to land.

I feel pretty confident that battlefield coordination from an orbital position would be attainable with a decent level of accuracy in a setting where you are in a position to make an orbital attack on another world.

I happen to like both versions and think there is room for a bulky, squad dropper, individual drop capsules and even more agile aerodyne interface gliders.

-Eli

The landing points of the troops, in a game context, would probably be influenced by the scenario, tech level, air defenses, etc. I'm not really worried about that, as much as I am about getting some cool models on the table!

And that is what it's all about!

-Eli

excellent thread. love the good brain child progress. Jav98 has some skill as well!
CW

And I disagree that drop pods are a sign of inefficiency. They are a sign that the users recognize that some losses are inevitable, and that they are trying to minimize those losses.

But they're also a one-way trip, for the most part. And if your troops are valuable enough to spend the resources for a drop pod to get them in position, I'd think you'd want to be able to pull them out quickly if/when things go south, or the battlefield has shifted elsewhere.

(I'm fine with the concept for space opera gaming, mind you, and there's clearly a market for it. It just seems very… inefficient.)

I'm not really worried about that, as much as I am about getting some cool models on the table!

That's a tenet we can all get behind!

Cylinders with parachutes – Martian 1906 pattern :)

Everyone is in deflatable bubble wrap.

Drop pods are not designed to go back up IMO, just enough fuel to get down.

I don't think many of you understand the correct purpose or usage of drop pods especially when pertaining to 40k.

The entire point of a drop pod is that it SHOULD NOT (specifically: is difficult to) be shot down by by anti-air or anti-orbital emplacements due to its small size, fast speed, and thick armor.

If only a single pod is dropped it would be difficult to detect in time for emplacements to hit and is much less vulnerable in that respect then a standard, easy to detect and target, drop ship. This is usually used to get a small team of specialists (Veterans, Deathwatch, ect.) on the ground in order to disable or disrupt defenses for the main force.

As for a Space Marines Chapter/Company drop pod assault, this will usually occur when a target has large amounts of air defenses as well as ground defenses which would prevent a sabotage mission from succeeding. In this case drop pods containing the Space Marines as well Deathstorm drop pods which provide automated ground assault fixtures as well as draw fire away from the troop bearing pods.

Scorpio, Paratroopers are a one-way ticket, too. So were WW2 Glider troops.

For that matter, even an LCAC is very close to a one-way trip. LCACs need to go back to the ship empty, because the loading system is not wide enough for 2-way traffic on the ship!

@Junkotron: "difficult to intercept" is not the same as "impossible to intercept". Losses on the drop are inevitable, and losing 10% of your deployed force due to a single failure/Golden BB is catastrophic.