"Ithacus Orbital Assault" Topic

Orbital Assault 1960s style!! I might have to spend some overtime money for one of these!! In 1/288th scale, would work great for 6mm wargaming.

link

I heard of this project 20 years ago, and thought about scratchbuilding one…or two for 6mm gaming.

That's both mental and brilliant. I wonder why they didn't go through with it? Probably too costly, and the Marine Battalion would be stuck on their own (or with however many other battalions landed with them) until conventional troops got there… but still!

Here is a link with more information on the Ithacus:

link

The carrier idea is one of the more bizarre things I've ever seen:

Scarily vulnerable to a single SAM-2 though…

Hey, I remember seeing that beast in a 'what the future holds' book/magazine back when I was a gradeschooler!

Fantastic-Plastic is an awesome company, and their website features too many drool-worthy sci-fi, aviation, and aerospace models to count. Well worth a visit, but be prepared to spend hours looking around (and spend big bucks if you want one of their kits).

Battletech's big clunky dropships are just a little more capable than ol' Granddaddy Ithacus. But considering that Ithacus was thought as do-able project it might just make for a nice "Hard SF" game.

As far as the SA-2(or any other SAM)threat, I would figure that at the very least that other power projection tool, the aircraft carrier, would have dealt with those. Or on the high end, the SAMs would have been KO'ed by aerospace fighters/bombers or fire support from near orbit by an Orion Battleship(which Fantastic Plastic also makes).

the biggest problems foreseen and which killed the project as a military system were the idea of finding a dropzone clear enough for the landing of a large and ( once landed) pretty vulnerable piece of hardware, and the difficulty in recovering the same from what still might have been a warzone.

the semi-ballistic transport for civilian applications was however, a more intriguingly practical idea . . .

Wow, that is an impressive concept!

Albeit, a fairly impractical one, in the presence of high tech defenses.

No doubt, that's why they're testing the one that's a bit smaller than the space shuttle.

Seems to me, if they have drop capsules, that they can drop (when rolled inverted), or fire out of the top, over the target, that might be much more viable, and safer for the larger carrier craft. Also that would significantly complicate defending against it, with so many man-sized capsules, and/or HALO-type jumpers raining down in the target area, in addition to the chaff and flares, too.

Then, the main craft can orbit back to the launch point, or near it, to be reused again.

I'll bet they'll have one like that operational, before I expire.

I doubt it'll carry a full battalion, or even a company of troops though. Probably more like a squad to a reinforced platoon, maximum, so they can be extracted by helos, or cargo aircraft, once their mission is complete.