Part 757: DropShips 101

Dropship Troopers Part 1 of ?

The Dropship is a surprisingly simple vehicle. In its most basic form, the Dropship is simply a platform which lifts a cargo from a planet’s surface into space (and vice versa). Dropships in battletech come in two forms: Spheroid like the Union-class Euphrates, and Aerodyne like the Leopard-class Tigris from our mission with the Second Donegal Guards.

Spheroid ships are more prevalent, since they make better use of space and can therefore carry more cargo; while Aerodyne ships are smaller, usually winged, and have better performance in atmospheres.

The smallest dropships are unable to carry any ‘Mechs, while the largest, the Behemoth, is incapable of entering a planet’s atmosphere due to hull stresses (rendering its classification as a ‘dropship’ a bit misleading).

The most commonly-mentioned Dropships are the military ones, which are predominantly spheroids (due to their greater hauling capacity, superior weapon coverage, and ability to transport Battlemechs); and of those the Leopard, Union, and Overlord (and their Clan refits) are the most common; with other military-capable vessels such as the Excalibur and Fortress vessels being far less common.

There are several factors that make the common Military transports superior to their less-common competition.

The most important is factor is, simply, carrying capacity. A military dropship will almost always be specialized to carry some combination of ‘Mechs, Vehicles, Infantry, and/or Aerospace fighters, the most-common Union-class is primarily a Battlemech hauler. Able to carry a company of twelve Battlemechs, the Union was typically able to deliver ‘sufficient’ forces to garrison worlds—and was the most common Dropship—during the 3025 era. During the later Clan era, it would be replaced by the Overlord-class as the military troopship of choice. Although the far larger Overlord was not significantly better armored or gunned than the Overlord, it is capable of carrying a full Battalion of 36 Battlemechs (while the Clan upgrade was capable of carrying up to 45—an entire Cluster).

While nothing compares to the hundred-thousand ton Behemoth when it comes hauling cargo, it’s pitiful half-G maximum acceleration (and inability to operate under planetary gravity) sorely limits it as a military transport. Speed is the second-most important factor for a Military dropship, and this is where the Union- and Overlord-Class ships stand heads above their less-common counterparts. Able to sustain up to 5 standard gravities of acceleration, the Union and Overlord are able to quickly make planetfall. Very few military commanders are willing to use such extreme acceleration due to the stresses on the human soldiers under their commands, so most military ships tend to limit their acceleration to 2.5 gravities at the highest.

Military Aerodynes such as the Clan Titan-class Dropship (a dedicated Aerospace-fighter carrier) are capable of even more extreme acceleration in short-term operations, but the most common of them—the Leopard class, is capable of carrying only four Battlemechs and two fighters; and is used primarily as a light raider.



But, honestly, who wants to read all that? What I've been talking about can pretty much be summed up with pretty pictures:



Dropships: BIG!



Jumpships and Warships: BIGGER enough to be TIMG'd for table-breakage!




Basing my acceleration on Operation Excalibur, one of the Gray Death Legion books, wherein it is explicitly stated that Grayson Carlysle pushes an Overlord to 5 Gs in order to reach Defiance in 5 days (as opposed to 2 weeks). Also, one of the reasons I hate the Gray Death Legion since that'd pretty much kill everyone on the ship (but doesn't because they're the Gray Death Legion).

I agree that 5 Gs is definitely not a safe level of acceleration, which is why most anyone but the Gray Death Legion never goes past 2.5 Gs.