Subject:
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Re: Dropship Role ( Was: Re: New MOC - Wyvern Dropship)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Sat, 2 Dec 2000 17:30:32 GMT
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Viewed:
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1250 times
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In lugnet.space, Mark Sandlin writes:
>
>
> > From: "Paul Baulch" <paul@vic.bigpond.net.au>
>
> > Can't dropships and transports be escorted by fighters or something?
>
> OK, maybe I'm throwing too much quasi-realism at it, but I think this sort
> of discussion is fun.
>
> Transports should have a fighter escort, yes, but they have a different role
> than a dropship, and IMO, a dropship is better off if it can defend itself.
>
> Consider the quintessential dropship from Aliens:
>
> -It had gobs of weaponry for defense (although no turret) and even a bit of
> offense if necessary. Good multi-role craft.
>
> -It was relatively small, and didn't need a large hangar
>
>
> Consider the role of fighters:
>
> -Fighters are generally very high-maintenance and require all sorts of extra
> support crew, and would require more space on the mother ship.
>
> -Most fighters are designed for Space/Air superiority and not ground support
> of this kind. Creating a new fighter that can do both Space/Air superiority
> and ground support would be very expensive, more so than just equipping your
> dropships with defense weaponry.
>
> -Supplying a fighter for every dropship isn't very efficient. Perhaps one
> fighter for every three, to provide air support, and give each dropship a
> turret or some means of defense against ground attack. Sending a fighter
> along for every little insertion performed by every dropship would be a
> horrendous expense of resources.
>
> Discuss!
>
> ~Mark "Muffin Head" Sandlin
I recommend a really neat book called Hunter-Killer Squadron. It's a collection
of stories from helicopter pilots and grunts from the Air Cavalry (1st Cav) in
Vietnam. It just now struck me that the whole idea of dropships was probably
taken from the Vietnam experience (I'm guessing Aliens had the first one; the
MI from Starship Troopers were more paratroopers than Air Cav).
One thing they did was modify some Hueys to carry rocket pods and miniguns and
stuff, so you would have some pure transport Hueys (still with light
machineguns mounted in the doors), and some gunship Hueys. Later on they had
purpose-built gunships like the AH-1 Cobra. So maybe to face this problem, you
could have both a transport and a gunship variant and send them in teams. In
the Air Cav, they called it a Pink Team (transport=white, gunship=red). This
way, logistics isn't such a problem, becuase its basically the same aircraft
with the same parts and pilots. You could even make modular weapons pods.
The Soviet approach was to build big, heavily-armed transports like the Mi-24
Hind, which carried troops but was also armed with rockets and guns.
As for whether dropships should have a fighter escort, to my knowledge,
helicopters have never been used extensively without total air superiority.
Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the Gulf War are the best examples I can come up
with, and the side using helicopters never had competition in the skies.
Overcoming AA fire is bad enough, I think using dropships against an enemy that
still had some kind of air presence would be suicidal.
All just my non-military opinion, though.
That's a really cool dropship, BTW, Jeremiah. I've always wanted to build one,
but I still haven't got around to it.
-Marc Nelson Jr.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Dropship Role ( Was: Re: New MOC - Wyvern Dropship)
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| (...) OK, maybe I'm throwing too much quasi-realism at it, but I think this sort of discussion is fun. Transports should have a fighter escort, yes, but they have a different role than a dropship, and IMO, a dropship is better off if it can defend (...) (24 years ago, 1-Dec-00, to lugnet.space)
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