RE: Dropships

Small drop pods make sense if you have to drop onto the target.  For a
larger 
scale invasion I would think that a DZ would be established and the
follow-on 
forces move to the objective.

My old Tech 12 TCS design was 50K battleriders, each carrying @ a BDE of
troops 
(each ship being DS fire support for the brigade).

Michael Brown

-----Original Message-----
From:	Thomas Barclay
Sent:	Saturday, March 01, 2003 1:19 PM
To:	gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Subject:	Dropships

Dropships probably come in a variety of sizes,
from the single person drop capsule of the
Powered Armour of Le Regiment Etrange
Aerospacial de Les Etats Federal Europa to the
Star-Wars like "drop pod" (lifeboat sized) which
could accomodate a fireteam, through a squad
sized droppod, through things which will carry
platoons and companies (moving into the
dropship category here - especially an
armoured company with support).

When you'd see these would depend a lot on
their value. An individual drop cap isn't worth
much (relatively). A company drop ship (full)
surely is. So when you've got to go in hot, you
go in with drop caps, dummies, chaff, heavy
duty jamming and ECM, and lots of ortillery.
When you've mostly got yourself a Spacehead,
then you deploy in squad to platoon sized
landers. Once they've secured a far wider
landing zone and really taken root, made sure
the enemy is actually out of commission and
that ground based ASW (air to space
weaponry) is out of operation and there aren't
likely to be any surprise interceptor launches,
then you bring down the company and battalion
sized landers with main force units.

My guess is that the initial assault may take a
few hours to seize the spacehead for the small
landers. Clearing space for the company and
battalion sized landers may well take a day or
two. If you ever wanted to land a Regimental
Mothership, you'd be looking at having a
*wide* area secured and probably already
having held that ground for a week or a month
even.

So, to me, the question isn't so much how to
implement dropships, but which level of orbital
assault capability are you talking about? And
then, what support will they have? Ortillery?
Ground Support ships? ODCM (Orbital
Deployment Cruise Missiles)? Fighters?
VTOLs/Grav Lifters? High-mode (flight capable)
Grav Tanks? etc.

All of these things go together in the high tech
world of planetary assault. At least, for planets
that merit that kind of effort. Otherwise a tramp
freighter sneaking a platoon of off planet mercs
onto a contested planet may well be the extend
of the "orbital assault". ;)
----------------------------------------------------
Mr. Thomas Barclay
Software Developer & Systems Analyst
thomas.barclay@stargrunt.ca
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