Plans for...umm..."Orbital Armored Troop Deployer Podules"?

[Topkick]

The simplest description would be a standard sized perscription pill bottle with retro-rockets and a door/ramp. I'll look around to see if I can find something visual. I'll try to access the Quake link but have a slow pooter with dial-up so it may not happen.

[CPT SHORTCUT]

dialup ACK!!

The quake pods look like startrek photon torpedos with fins.

[Crushar]

Sy,

I respect your opion,  I actually do, but I disagee here, sorry brother!

I actually like what I saw on that video. I liked the VTOL dropship (me and TOPKICK just will NOT give up on that!! Sorry Matt!) but I liked what I saw for the smaller one man drop pods.

What I envision (besides Pam Anderson and me....WHOOPS Sorry!) is almost like a sleek, silver, rounded on the sides coffin. Maybe that's a bit TO high tech. If that is to high tech, then what we say in that video is preety perfect I think. It all most looks like a big jet engine, just kinda turned upside down. I don't know.....I think I am rambaling.

What about like the smaller pillar in the Modular Refinery set? A tubeish (SO WHAT! It is too a word!) like coffin with the metallic bands around it like those pillars. See the below link:

http://armorcast.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=35&products_id=79

All I really want/hoping for is that we stay AWAY from the gothic feel that 40K wants us to feel! I mean I love the dark future concept! I believe in a dark future, hell all my teachers in High School said I had a dark future. I just love the techie feel of the new Steam Bhudda and or the Metal Sphinx. Let's stick with that!

[Cloves]

I've always pictured this thing more like a flying version of GW's rhino. Or maybe like the dropships in the aliens movie.

or...how about the Batmobile in the Batman Begins movie??

something like this


or what about this


add some short wings and fins, and some vertical take-off type fans or thrusters underneath......the idea is that the thing drops/glides down from high altitude.....then wheels pop out and transport troops across the field.

[Sylvas]

I do like the visual of using the APC from the Aliens movie as a basis for a VTOL lander/deployment vehicle, since the vehicle design looks like a flattened fuselage of a winged vehicle...you could even make it scaled so that, if the final design for the one man pods is something cylindrical or rectangular such as what Crushar has proposed, you could mount several of these on hard points on the wing/fuselage for pinpoint deployment....

that could actually work...

B...

[Topkick]

One of the things on my future projects lsit is a VTOL made from a GW Rhino or Chimera with an A-10 Warthog tail assembly and a kit bashed cockpit area. Once I decide which of the kits to use I will throw it together and hopefully post pix. It probably won't be anything to write home about but it will give some ideas I hope.

[Sylvas]

instead of a Warthog tail assembly, you might want to consider a P-38 rear assembly instead...it would be much easier to mold around the Rhino's frame (BTW...using the old Rhino or the new one) using a relatively small amount of green stuff...for a cockpit type assembly, you might want to either use a Cobra helicopter cockpit or a Soviet-era Hind-E cockpit assembly...

you could use the engines from an A-10 kit placed underneath whatever wings you would decide to use...you would have to decide whether you would place the wings at the top of the kit, at the bottom like an F-117...personally, I would suggest something like the Swedish Saab delta pattern double wing design that is on the European Superiority Fighter (or any Saab auto commercial)...

B...

[Topkick]

I actually have a P-38 kit and a Soviet Havok helicopter that were bought for the purpose of deciding which direction to go. The tail assembly of the A-10 gives the rear of the of the VTOL the look of a C-130 and that bird holds a special place in the heart of every soldier to serve at Bragg. The engines would go on the end of stubby wings mounted on top of the fuselage and would pivot like an Osprey's rotors. I also intend to use the exhaust system of the Rhino to create thrusters if I go with that route. The drop pods would install in racks and hatches would be in the floor for them to drop thru.

If I use the Rhino then the Chimera will be used for a hover APC for Bauhaus - kind of like a Strike Skimmer on steroids.

[Cloves]

so you are going to drop things out of something Rhino sized?
I figured you'd drop rhinos out of something Thunderhawk sized.... *shrug*

[Topkick]

so you are going to drop things out of something Rhino sized?
I figured you'd drop rhinos out of something Thunderhawk sized.... *shrug*

It would be possible for a variety of deployment options in a Sci Fi setting.

In addition to the current standard deployment methods of Air Assault and Paradeploy you could deploy via a variety of methods. The pods would be loaded into a 10 pod rack and as one is jettisoned the next one would line up with the bomb bay door/hatch. You could deploy a standard squad or fireteam in that fashion either in atmospheric re-entry or standard drop pod fashion.You could load a large crate style pod for fireteams, squads, command bunker or other special units and deploy them by a Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System. The Rhino style body could have a detachable cargo/troop area like the I.S.S.C.V. Dropship from Space: Above and Beyond. It could swoop in, hover, drop the cargo/troop area and then leave or simply release and let retro thrusters act as a fall brake. I have never liked the Forgeworld idea that you have to have a huge and expensive model. DLD did a VTOL Dropship a few years ago for about  100 bucks that would see a lot more action on my tabletop than a Thunderhawk. However they have gone incommunicado and now that Armorcast is back Matt and Ginfritter have first claim on my money.

[Sylvas]

I think that with the boxy shape of the Rhino, the P-38 wing configuration might look a little more flight-worthy as well as aesthetically...for something like a standard, single tube fuselage like what you are talking about doing, I think that would work better with the Chimera chassis because of the angles that the Chimera body has...

for something like what you are talking about, you might be better served to scratch build the main body pieces all the way back to the tail section, and then mold the scratch built section to the tail section of the A-10...by scratch building the fuselage section, you could follow the lines a little better than trying to kit bash something from an existing model kit...

the only thing I can think of while envisioning this projuect of yours is something like the dropship from the Aliens movie, especially if you add the nose section of a Cobra gunship instead of something like a Hind-E or the French attack gunship (the Blue Thunder copter)...

B...

[Topkick]

My inspiration for this project is the same as my main inspiration for my contributions to this thread. The always beautiful but too small Corvus VTOL from Scotia-Grendel

http://www.scotiagrendel.com/gsciencefiction.html

Go to this link to see pic.

[ADarkRogue]

As far as single man drop pods go.... it reminds me of the intro to the computer game Quake II   

[paxrebellion]

 
Sorry for bring this back to the fore front
I like the idea of Chimera or Rhino sized V-tol;  10 models don't fit into these, although rules state they do
Space marines have a version
I.G. and Witch hunters need one too  !!!!!
Hoping weapons will be added on's that "bit's" from gamers Army can be added
any ideas on time line?