"Let's talk about Dropships" Topic

I've seen it mentioned several times that there are not enough dropships out there for 15mm, and some people would like to see a wider variety available. One fellow even asked for ships large enough to bring in a whole platoon of troops.

Now, in my mind, a dropship is a 2-way subcraft capable of entering, as well as exiting, a planetary atmosphere, and could probably be used as a short range in-system shuttle. Drop pods would be used for one-way trips. This leads me to believe that they would be somewhat larger than those now available for sale, which seem to be about the size of Mi-24s or large helicopters, and they seem to only be sized to carry a squad or so. Maybe a light vehicle.

A ship that could carry a platoon would necessarily need to be large, perhaps more that 18" long for 15mm games. That's a lot of tabletop it would cover. I've been working on a 1/100 scale 200dt Far Trader for Traveller, and that sucker is almost 2' long! Not exactly conducive to games where weapons ranges are 18" and tanks stand shoulder to shoulder…

..and we haven't even covered costs…

So my questions to y'all are:
1. How large is too large for a Dropship model?

2. What would be the preferred dimensions of your ideal dropship?

3. What sort of aesthetic do you prefer to see? (realistic like todays tech, boxy like in Aliens, curvy and futureistic, etc.)

My apologies for the crosspost to Spaceship Gaming. That was unintentional.

Pretty big, I thing about 8-12 inches would be good (if not a bit bigger – depending on whether it deploys vehicles).

I'd like it to have a fair few curves, after all it operates in atmosphere. No more boxes please (we have plenty of 15mm models with that design aesthetic already). I love what Dave at Dropzone commander has come up with.
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Also something like this awesome scratchbuild in style but designed for use as a dropship (i.e. bigger, internal cargo space).

This is the closest I could find anywhere to what I wanted

pics here link

Also, love these from the terminator salvation

I think a lot of it is that size. Platoon-sized dropships have to be big, and a manufacturer would need a lot of sales to make up for the cost of bringing that to market. Making it a risky venture.

(Personally, I am happy with the squad-sized dropship options we already have available, so I have no dog in this hunt.)

I've been working on a 1/100 scale 200dt Far Trader for Traveller, and that sucker is almost 2' long!

Yup. Traveller players develop a bit of myopia about ship sizes because they usually operate at the bottom end of what the game defines as a starship, but even the lowly Scout/Courier (the smallest starship) throws a big shadow AND is three stories tall.

I think 12" – 18" is good for a basic one, with 24" being the outside, for the really large ships, and/or trade vessels.

I suggested the Avenger's Quinjet toy, which looks perfect to me for carrying a platoon, or more of grav, hover, or tracked vehicles, plus troops.

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At $30 USD, the price is superb too, for such a large model. I think it is about 12" long, or so.

I'd love to see pics of your FarTrader.

Been thinking about making some from scratch, for Traveller-esque scenarios, from foamcore, and polystyrene sheets carved to shape by hand.

Oh, and I've come up with a general solution for the whole cramped table issue, e.g. GO LARGE……

We recently did that at the local club, using 15mm vessels, troops, etc. for a pirate game, and then ran the same one at a convention, e.g. using two 6' x 24' long tables for the seas, and island areas (total play are equalled 12' x 24', with an aisleway in between to aid in moving the vessels and troops). It was very well received.

No reason that something on a similar scale couldn't be done with 15mm Sci-Fi too.

Of course, you could go slightly smaller, as well, if desired, e.g. 12' x 20', or so. Folding tables work well for this.

As for the weapons ranges, at least for vehicles, make them unlimited for most main weapons, and able to fire at anything that is in line of sight.

Infantry weapons would obviously be shorter, say 2 – 3 feet, or so.

Vehicles would be able to be moved fairly long distances on this scale of table, and the space would keep them from having to be bunched up.

Fabric can be used for the table cover, and then you'll just need lots of terrain for filling in the rest of the table, e.g. trees, hills, rivers, cities, etc.

We did a club group project, and it worked quite well, with a number of people helping out to make it happen.

Well, let's look at modern aircraft big enough to carry a platoon or a small vehicle:

V22 Osprey
17.5m long
14m wingspan (25.8m with rotors)

CH53E Super Stallion
30.2m long
24m rotor diameter

CH47 Chinook
30.1m long
18.3m rotor diameter

In 1/100 scale, take dimensions in meters, read as cm.

So, best guess is at least 20cm long and 17cm wide, for our platoon-scale dropship. That's taking up about 1/10 of a 4x6 table!

You need a bigger table.

;-)

Or a better calculator; an 8"x6.5" model isn't really in danger of eclipsing 10% of a 4'x6' table. ;)

I would think you'd want something the length of a C-130, then add big engines and whatever wings you may need. That would be able to carry quite a useful load as well as having some internal space for "vial function facilities" for those long haul missions.

Still, in 1/100 that's a lot of table taken up. And again with the effective weapons ranges of many games it would be funny to see guys at the front of the ship not able to hit those who are exiting the rear!

In many cases a dropship will not occupy all of that space at table level. Copters typically have elevated blades, and many models don't do the "plastic disc as spinning blades" thing, so the occluded table area is probably much smaller.

The Star Wars Republic Gunship is similarly sized, but doesn't appear to carry quite that many. Not sure why, given that it was clearly modeled on modern troop transport helicopters.

There was a computer game called Dropship:United Peace Force. Nice curvy dropships, sort of similar to the Old Crow one.

"And again with the effective weapons ranges of many games it would be funny to see guys at the front of the ship not able to hit those who are exiting the rear"!

I submit that is the easiest issue to resolve, by just changing the game scale.

Takes about 30 second, or less, once you decide on the one you want.

Given a 4' x 6' table, I'd say across the tabletop for most long-arm weapons, and perhaps 2' for pistols.

Of course range isn't an issue in a game like Tomorrow's War since there is no maximum range. Problem solved! 8)=

Yea, at 1/100th scale, 6 feet = 200 yards, at a 1:1 scale ratio.

It seems like a lot of the 28mm flyer models on the market or off the market now, would be good 15mm drop ships. The starship trooper range from mongoose had a couple of things that I thought would work well as 15mm drop ships, notably the cockpit part of the chickenhawk mech.

Samulus,

I love that Terminator Salvation style too!

I wonder where one could obtain broken electric hair clippers, to use the plastic housing for conversions:

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Dan

I always liked this dropship design:

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When it comes to Dropships I think model should come with 2 models. One for use on the table as terrain, and a smaller one to represent it in flight around the table.

You need a bigger table.

Yeah, but anything bigger than 6x8 is difficult to reach the center.

And don't ask me to do complicated math at 0300 local when I can't sleep.

There was a computer game called Dropship:United Peace Force. Nice curvy dropships, sort of similar to the Old Crow one.

Got that for the PS2. Never could beat the last mission, kept getting my ass blown off as soon as I cleared the crater rim into LOS of a bajillion SAMs and AAA guns.

Here's a rtadical idea for a resin sculptor.

As that Avengers jet thingy looks superb, and as the manufacturer will have made a g'zillion of them which will be for sale for the next few years and on ebay until none of us care anymore (aka 'an [effectively] infinite supply of them') and as the only area that gives the game away for it not being a large 15mm drop ship (or – for that matter – a quite large 28mm drop ship) how about…

Sculpting a drop in cabin in resin to replace the 'glass' cockpit? Perhaps one in 15mm and even one in 18mm 'scale'?

Then – for 30 bucks plus a resin 'slug' with detail – gamers get a spiffing looking drop ship that (being built for kids) is almost indestructable in a way an all resin model won't be.

Just a thought…

John T

…or maybe make a noise about this one?

dwartist

looks lovely. What is it?

John T

Thats one of our designs that we have via partnership with Coris Studios in Russia.

It will be a 15mm dropship and, possibly, a 28mm version also.

/Dee

…and here's me trying to be a 'tease'! Thanks Dee . In the queue and it's a big queue!

Thats one hot tamale, I'll be looking for one of those for my machines. How long til its out guys?

Also, for the resin 'slug' idea – this might be a good thing for someone to knock together on sketchup and put on shapeways. I'm just learning to use the tool myself and its not so hard…

Oh, my.

Time to start saving my pennies, because I think I will 'need' 4 of them!

How big is that dropship? Looks nice.

For more near future/hard SF games, a "drop ship" should be designed to basically be a plane or helicopter type vehicle… it probably can't get back up to orbit by its own power without a refuel or a booster, but once it gets down to the ground it can fly its troops around on planet for a bit, from location to location. Hopefully by the time it is running low it has taken some supplies and is able to get back to orbit or keep flying around on the planet.

I would love something along the lines of a future-HIND. A flying IFV would have more opportunities for actual use on the tabletop, too.
Heck, you could even drop them from orbit- who says every vehicle being dropped needs to transport a platoon or company?

'future-HIND' coming soon from Khurasan….

I'm in the queue……

Thats a must have!

This has been discussed quite often before. Rather than further rehash old ideas, here you go:

TMP link

TMP link

Now, some thoughts. First, you've got three distinct niches you're trying to fill here.

The first is a straight-up orbital insertion device. You've got a troop carrier full of soldiers and you want to get them all down to the planet. This is where you have drop pods: cheap, disposable, and you can get your whole force down in one trip.

Many times, you aren't in that kind of rush, and you want to get your men back up afterwards. Dropping them in something that can provide some fire support wouldn't hurt, either. This is what I'd call the combat shuttle role. It has enough fuel to de-orbit, land, and then launch back into orbit. Figure on capacity in the 8-30 men range, depending on technology and doctrine.

But remember that in a hard scifi setting, you're going to need incredible propulsion technology, and even then your ship will be about 50% propellant or more. In softer settings, grav and other reactionless drives mean that your dropships are visually indistinguishable from VTOL troop carriers.

GZG's Tactical Interface Transport fits in the combat shuttle role. I'm sure having a pair of these close to hand is very comforting when things get hot. Rebel's dropships are here also, though to me they look more like VTOLs than spaceships. The Inara's Shuttle christmas tree ornament from Firefly fits here, too. I hear that's pretty comforting to the troops as well, especially if Inara's still aboard. This should take up space on the table similar to a smartphone.

Finally, there's the ship that doesn't have a mothership. The gunboat, corvette, tramp steamer, whatever you call it. I'll call it a Frigate, in the Age of Sail sense. Serenity, basically. Such a ship needs living space, supplies, and enough fuel to do an interplanetary mission, land, launch again, and do another interplanetary mission… minimum. Plus FTL if the setting supports. This just isn't going to happen on a hard science delta-V budget, but as Serenity shows, there are a ton of cool ships like this in fiction.

The Tribal from Khurasan is one of the few ships in 15mm that supports this idea. If you're running 15mm Traveller, you probably want this. The Aerial Hunter Killer toy from the Terminator line fits here as well (or just as a large combat shuttle). Figure on a footprint on the table equivalent to a small dinner plate.

The biggest thing to remember is that for any class, a space-capable vehicle with launch capability is going to be vastly larger than an equivalent air-only vehicle.

Thats one of our designs that we have via partnership with Coris Studios in Russia.

It will be a 15mm dropship and, possibly, a 28mm version also.

/Dee

Um, yes please!

Oh, a final point.

VTOL capability is pretty much mandatory. Not only is it terribly useful for combat missions, but remember that some worlds are airless. Just put a couple vents straddling the ship's center of mass.

I am trying to make a cost effective dropship. I have some ideas in the works: heavy in build stage:

trying to work out jet or fan engines. I have both in the works. I think its a little too boxy and sort of at a stuck point.

@Scotty/CW I like how it shares some aspects of the Bullfrog design. I would definitely go with jet engines- and bigger than the ones you have mounted there.

CW, here's a weird crazy idea… but try it on.

Why not find a widely sold plastic bottle-- dish soap, for example, or something that's so ridiculously standardized that any customer in the world is likely to be close to one. That has the flattened fuselage, plus all the smooth curves you'd expect of a well-sculpted aerodyne.

Then create an "upgrade kit" that consists of carefully designed parts (wings, fins, engines, thrust pods, airlock doors, guns, etc) that are used to make that bottle into a beautiful-looking 15mm dropship?

I've seen people do that kitbash before and it looks great. I know it's a bit daring, but productizing it could potentially result in a really cool dropship that you can offer at a reasonable price (most of the ship's bulk being the bottle) and still make an excellent profit on.

I think that some of the old Gundam spaceship toys can make great looking dropships or shuttles, i done a quick search on E-Bay and found this new version of the 'Lili Marleen' toy cruiser which is 9cm long and made from hard plastic which looks plenty robust enough for game play. If i did not already have the older bigger version i would seriously consider getting maybe one or two of these and use them as assault dropships. auction
I also have a couple of those 6mm Oldcrow dropships, a old flying brick from GZG, a Battletech map scale spheroid Overlord dropship from IWM, three Dr Who toy Slitheen flying saucers for my SPUG's, and my fav thats pictured below which i cant remember the name of but i know its from the Gundam universe and now its apart of my heavy Orion drop troop force.

Slitheen flying saucer

6mm GZG Flying brick now Deamonscapes Big Rig

interesting challenge.

A deodorant container could easily carry a squad of troops…

Sunny D bottles give you 3 sizes of shuttles/dropship

to scratchbuild from, you can cut them in half and create

interiors for them as well.

Good ideas, avamango and others.

I like John T's aftermarket mod idea as well.

Nice thoughts on the subject, wellspring.

This is all inspirational.

The first is a straight-up orbital insertion device

Woah there, this is a family site. ;)

As a point:
drop pods are the scifi equivalent of gliders.

drop ships are more like a landing craft or LST if they're big.

Me-323 'Gigant': 28.2m long, ~3.5m wide fuselage, 55m wingspan. ~20,000kg payload.

Space Shuttle: 37m long, ~5m wide fuselage, 23m wingspan. ~20,000kg payload.

Mi26 Halo: 40m long, ~3m wide fuselage, 32m rotor diameter. 20,000kg payload.

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Based on that, something equivalent to the Horsa glider (short platoon) of WW2 would be:

Horsa: 20m long, ~3m wide fuselage, 27m wingspan. ~2200kg payload.

'drop-horse': ~26m long, ~5m wide fuselage, and ~11m wingspan.

I'd expect a larger wingspan for a VTOL-capable version, since the Space Shuttle 'GLFR': glides like a freaking rock.

In order for a dropship to NOT be massively larger than any atmosphere-only ship, I think we're going to have to assume pretty magitech engines.

The X30 SSTO was going to be ~96m long and 16m wide, and that's without a cargo bay. Adding the cargo bay would push the fuselage width to nearly 20m wide and the length to ~110m.

This means that the Aliens dropship is probably half the bulk it needs to be, given the payload. But it looks cool!

Dee – your Antenocitie project looks splendid, as always.

I also think that the Wombat is making what looks to be a splendidly functional ship (as per most of his products [not suprisingly]). I'll be interested to see it finished.

However, I think there is certainly an oppoertunity for a conversion 'slug' for readily available toys. The shapeways idea is a good one

John T

Lion in the stars… I think you're right that to get the dimensions you want, you'll need to resort to superscience.

But why stick with the WWII dimensions? A combat shuttle with fairly hard science fiction specific impulse / thrust can be built with only about half its mass dedicated to propellant. You can shave that a bit if your ship's engines can heat and expel the planet's atmosphere without using on-board propellant.

Even with normal reaction drives, a space-based culture will need the ability to land troops.

To be honest, nobody's built or used a glider since WW2, and gliders are analogous to drop pods.

Landing craft and large helicopters are more along the lines of combat shuttles (dropships).

And WW2 stuff is smaller than modern. The *largest glider ever used* is the same size as a Mi26 or a C130. C130s are just about the *smallest* transport used by the US.

Frankly, a 50% fuel fraction is very nearly magitech. I prefer a fuel fraction of about 67%. But it gives us something to work with. Means you need a dropship big enough to carry 20,000kg, with about 10,000kg of structure, and 60,000kg of fuel. Yes, I did just design a 90,000kg 'dropship', which would be something about as big as a C141 or 707.

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I see some serious potential.

"Frankly, a 50% fuel fraction is very nearly magitech. I prefer a fuel fraction of about 67%".

Nah, you can go much lower than that, with strap on booster rockets, or jets, like were used in WWII by the Germans, and afterwards, by the US Air Force.

Use those just to get you off the ground, and them ramjets to get you up to speed.

Disposable RATO/JATO packs have a lot to be said for them, if you don't have anti-grav capability.

The opposite side of the coin for strap on boosters is that what you really want to "drop" is something equivalent to a Hind. It carries some troops down with it but doesn't have the fuel to get back to orbit by itself… it does have fuel to fly around on the planet, however. End result-- it can drop off its payload from orbit, fly to some place with booster rockets and propellant, refuel, go back up, and repeat.

Dropships for places that aren't Earthlike are much easier to make perform like in the movies. See the Apollo lander. Earth is pretty massive compared to most rocks I'd imagine we'll be landing on in the next few centuries.

Fuel fraction is highly dependent on the thrusters you're working with, too. It is not theoretically impossible to have a good enough thruster that even on Earth you can go both ways.

I picked up an Avenger's Quinjet toy at Target for $32 USD (including tax) yesterday. It has landing gear.