"Parachuting "Bunkers" Behind Enemy Lines?" Topic

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Imagine it floating down already occupied by one or two machine gunners ("drop-pod-like").

Reminds me of astronaut/cosmonaut space capsule landings:

QUESTIONS:

Has a bunker drop ever been done, perhaps as part of an advance? If not, why not?

Thoughts?

Dan

Lack of precision in airdrops prior to the last ten years meant a bunker from the sky had equal chance of landing somewhere with excellent fields of fire, as landing in a swamp.

Also the same weight could be a lot more paratroopers or other heavy equipment that might be more useful than a one time bunker.

Who would volunteer to drop in that thing? Sounds like suicide to me. Also, a bunker weighs a lot, so a big, slow aircraft has to brave AA defenses and enemy fighters to fly over the front line just to deliver one bunker with a macchine gun, which might disrupt supply trucks if dropped close to an important road, but I doubt it's easy to place it exactly where it should, and pointing in the right direction.

"Who would volunteer to drop in that thing?"

Maybe they were "volunteered" for the mission by their superiors! :)

Dan

You'd have to control where you actually landed, because once it's on the ground it's not going to move. If it lands in a depression, for example, it would not have the desired field of fire.

"If it lands in a depression, for example…"

They make meds for that now!

Hey, what if they dropped Archie Bunker behind enemy lines? Aw, forget it that was a "meathead" idea.

airdrop mishaps

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airdrop mishaps

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Ouch. Looks… expensive :(

But yeah, the "fields of fire" problem is a pretty big one without precision landing. Better to just drop a bunch of hard nosed bastards armed to the teeth, in a stripped down jeep full of ammunition.

With RPGs, let alone plasma guns, that sounds like an opportunity to be roasted alive.

Better off dropping a vehicle.

Or drop armored vehicles.

Not likely to air-drop a bunker as a waste of resources.
Once in place would be a sitting duck & only able to cover a small area. To be armoured enough to survival would make very heavy & would need a system to lock bunker into the the ground.

More likely to drop a set of remote or automated weapon pods that could camouflage themselves (burying or scurrying to cover) & popping up when needed.

The old Kryomek game featured a whole load of turrets which could be deployed by airdrop but that was for use against an alien menace and many were automated but it was an interesting concept.

All the best

The top picture looks like one of Mr Harolds drop pods attached to a parachute! ( I must paint mine….)

The top picture looks like one of Mr Harolds drop pods attached to a parachute!

I was just thinking the same thing. :)

I guess it could be precision dropped in the same way that smart munitions are – maybe not with 'chutes (or not the terminal part of the drop with these anyway) but with retro rockets (think Elon Musk's Dragon 2 capsule). That could ht a very small target area, probably very reliably.

It undoubtedly could be done – and accurately – but that doesn't address the slow 're-entry' (as it were) of the thing being targetted by every system on the battlefield: it'd have to have some serious protection to avoid being toasted on the way in: it'd be travelling quite slowly, I'd imagine.

And then – as has been said – when it lands, it's really fixed in position. To survive long enough to be worthwhile, it'd have to be armoured like a battleship or have screens or something: very high tech for a device that lands using parachutes.

I think a heavy vehicle that is chucked out of a flying transporter (or even from low orbit) on, say, a sled or with a landing system that includes a protective shell (protective against both re-entry and return fire) – maybe one that shatters as it gets lower to provide multiple targets to foil tracking systems, MIRV style – would be the way to go*.

Coming in fast – or as fast as the crew can take – slowing down ferrociously at the last minute (so we're talking engines, here, not parachutes) and then deploying to the ground and having motive power to then move if it needs to is a better bet, I think.

John T

* Anglel HALO tanks in the Crucible rule system: yeah I'm biased!

The point of airdrops is offensive tactical action, not defensive.

I could see airdropping remote turrets for sure. It'd be about the same effect as a bunker only it's something you can write off if it's overwhelmed, or establishes the green open field is actually a marsh. Also would have much more modest landing equipment (maybe just retrorocket as it doesn't have to worry about pulling very high G forces while slowing down).

It's almost be less of an airdrop, and more of bombing run, you'd kick out a few dozen of them along the most likely approaches to the actual LZ and let them buy some time while the actual assault figures out what to do next.

In a sci-fi setting you might find a use if it was a automated system dropped around the your drop zone to provide an initial expendable perimeter around your beachhead.

As tuscaloosa noted, drops are offensive in nature. But I could see dropping bunkers as a hasty defensive action. Regardless, I don't think the troops would land inside … but drop outside near by like with Russian BMD landings … But if the tech was there in the future, along increased accuracy … this might be viable … Note, in a defensive use of Airborne Forces, the 82d in WWII dropped the 504 & 505 PIRs behind friendly lines at Salerno, on 13-14 Sep 43 Italy to rapidly reinforce the US forces already on the ground …

Why drop bunkers when you can fire FASCAM artillery rounds instead?

Or maybe the M1100 Scorpion Intelligent Munitions System, which is basically a command-detonated AT mine?

I would airdrop a Dalek just to hear is scream "Vision impaired" when the parachute lands on top of it.

hmm maybe supply drop pods for droptroopers, but can be used as bunker that would be cool

how if having some digging and crawling capacities to the said bunker … or some limited flight cazpacity to control both landing and redeployement ?

In the futre I see they will do away with the parachute and add rockets and guidance systems to it and they will call it!

Wait for it!

A Drop Pod!!!!

In modern or near-future setting, I do not quite see it happening.

That said, I think I have seen some game rules featuring immobile gun platforms dropped from the orbit. I think the original Space Marine (Epic) rules from GW featured an unmanned drop pod which would deploy as a gun platform with a rotating turret. Not sure how well armoured it was, though.

For a more hi-tech future variant, I like the previously suggested option where the para-dropped autonomous robot has limited mobility, allowing it to crawl to a good position where it can dig in and conceal itself, and maybe even deploy a few booby traps in the vicinity to cover blind spots.

I think something like these guys from clearhorizons are likely:

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They'd be like a cross between those paratrooper decoys from D-Day and still dangerous enough to do some damage while the actual assault wave hits elsewhere. Or something that could follow the flanks of a raiding force, keeping an outer cordon while the raiders dealt with just the forces on the objective.

Maybe a mule robot drone can dig in and serve that function too?

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Dan

No. That mule robot is way too cute to do anything but give rides to slightly irradiated children.

Is that a scratch build? If not where is it from?

Panzersaurkrautwerfer,

That's a GZG "Quad Transport Walker" model (GMM-34) for 2mm micro scale that a fella used as a mule for 15mm:

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Dan

One could drop unmanned pods of sorts right into the enemies positions that has a 360 degree rotating machine gun that once hits empty detonates with a huge exspolosion!

Or you could just drop bombs…

"once hits empty detonates with a huge explosion!"

I like that!! Why not set the "sentry guns" to blow up when tampered with?

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imfdb.org/wiki/Aliens

Dan

"Or you could just drop bombs"

Were is the fun in that! Think of being pinned down by these things knowing that you can't get furthur away and soon the will go BOOM! and their all over the place!

Space Orks would love the idea of a droppable bunker especially if they could fill them up with Gretchins (Grots) and give the smaller, less cognitively endowed cousins lots of noisy automatic weapons and plenty of cheap ammunition. I could see it as an Orky means of securing the perimeter of a larger drop zone, actually, crude as all Hell, but considering the only potential casualties would be amongst the ranks of expendable lesser Orkoid Gretchins and such, the Orks probably wouldn't mind overmuch as long as enough of the silly things managed to land to buy enough time for the rest of the mob to land in the main LZ and deploy more or less unhindered…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

In Rifts, the Coaliton war against Tolkeen caused the development of portable bunkers with big handles on top such that they could be carried by large flying monsters…

That definitely sounds cool!

Dan

The Norts use air-dropped sentry guns in Rogue Trooper (2000AD).

No foundation. Easy to destroy.

Don't tell the Russians that airborne troops are only defensive. They dropped a lot in 42/43 according to Glanz.

Ion Age has a nice drop bunker gun tower. It's a definite space opera game so I don't mind the extra handwavium employed. Also it has rockets on the base so is droppable from extreme altitude, possibly even orbit and can still make a controled decent to desired location.

Not really a real world one this. With no camoflarge it would just have shoot me written on it. It would be vulnerable to AAA fire and missiles on the way down.

In the air land battle the objective (since and Including WWII with the eception of perhaps Crete) is to land outside the enemy zone and hence land intact and then move in. Difficult with a bunker! Great for space opera which is more like Napolionics with funny guns.

In the Rogue Trooper comics the Norts had an automated gun turret that could be air dropped into position. Several aircraft para-dropped a whole line of the things across Rogue's path.