Real World VTOL Dropships compared to Modern Day Helis

[Geoxile]

Heat shielding =/= well armored

[Dendrobium Stamen]

Indeed; the space shuttle can withstand the heat of re-entry but you wouldn't use its protective tiles to armour a tank. Likewise, a tank with decent protection can withstand a HEAT round fired by another tank, but you wouldn't use Chobham armour to line a space shuttle

[Gelmax]

It would take some seriously good gunners for them use AA turrets to gun down those drop pods.

Not really, unless your idea of "AA turrets" is a guy sitting there with a turret-mounted machinegun and pointing it at the sky. Typically, drop pods follow a very predictable path, making them quite easy to hit - even if you don't see them till atmospheric heating lights 'em up, have never seen that pod design before, and have no idea where those pods are intending to land, you've still got a good minute or two for your computers to crunch the numbers and tell you where those pods are going to be at any point prior to deceleration. And once you have that info, it's shooting fish in a barrel - especially if they're headed for your base, in which case once they enter the range of your AA defenses, they're going to stay in range till they land, giving you the maximum possible time to get a few bullets or missiles into their path. Comparing to CIWS isn't really applicable here because orbital drops are so much more predictable than actual aircraft maneuvering in atmosphere. Even if you add the capability for evasive maneuvers to the drop pods, there's still going to be a couple of minutes where they're just completely and utterly vulnerable just due to the nature of atmospheric reentry - which brings me to the other major issue with orbital drops.

Then we can also assume that these dropshockpods will be sufficiently well armored against AA. Most aircrafts of the modern day have rather thin hulls.

And where are you going to put that armor? Drop-pods have a lot more to worry about than being torn apart by direct hits; even a glancing blow can knock a fatal hole in the heat shield or send the pod into an uncontrollable tumble. This tends gets overlooked a lot because space in general is really dangerous, but atmospheric entry is even more dangerous, and while routine orbital drops aren't impossible (just like routine spaceflight isn't), they're only possible with the understanding that everything must go absolutely right...and being shot at tends to screw that up.

[Geoxile]

You seem to completely ignore the factor of speed and time, as well as problems concerning the AA itself. Droppods aren't going to be floating down at a measly speed or even that compared to jets (which most humans can't at that point even when in linear motion, the CIWS are also far from perfect when targeting highspeed objects such as missiles but are assigned since they are the best for it). Just because they're in a predictable pattern doesn't mean it's 100% easy to hit. Bullets have the same limitation of speed and simply spamming the guns won't ensure a hit. I'm not exactly sure where you're getting this data that droppods are easy to hit but at this point it's nothing but speculation, but considering they'd probably be descending faster than most modern jets fly at cruise speed (1 to 1.5 mach) until a crucial point, I want to see your data.

Pods won't come crashing down in the same level of heat and friction as in their first impact with upper atmosphere, I'm sure by the point it cools down sufficiently is the only time the pod itself will start to slow down for a decent.

In our modern day and time we have an extremely precise device capable of self correction and altitude maintenance but you think that the pod if knocked astray won't be able to correct?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBMU6l6GsdM

A major reason for adopting the CIWS is due to their much better probably in hitting high speed objects. They are able to calculate the path of most missiles and guess the path of high speed crafts much mor eefficiently than humans. They've also been adopted for land-use. We can compare missiles and drop pods since they both close in but the CIWS while much more efficient than humans is far from perfect.

Oh and against a heavily plated machine or even a machine that's moving fast enough a CIWS won't be that effective in bringing it down or changing its course. One of the problems with the modern conventional CIWS is that even if they hit incoming missiles with a few bullets it is likely they won't destroy the missile or change its course.

Addition: Shooting up at a such a steep angle will likely cause the turrets to lose a lot of power unless they're a missile system I don't see conventional systems working that far up. Or at least not in at the same altitude you're implying.

[Gadget]

So let me get this straight:

Droopods = straight from orbit. Limited maneuvering.

Droopship = more angled decent. Capable of maneuvering. Reusable and can achieve orbit.

The problem with the CIWS argument is that in the future, I am going to assume that there will be better stealth, armor and jamming to overcome the CIWS.

[blind_dead_mcjones]

several flaws with drop pods, first off, additional armour adds a weight penalty (funfact:they're actually reducing armour on the current prototypes of next generation tanks so that they can move faster), second, armour can still be easily overcome, as most anti armour explosives now utilise two stage explosives or kinetic penetrators as well as various other methods to overcome armour, third, the intense heat will render the armour fragile in some manner, fourth, AA systems have come a very long way since world war 2, nowadays they consist of missiles as the primary interception method, with CIWS as a last resort, surface to air missiles are highly advanced in terms of search and tracking, with a range anywhere between 100 and over 1000 kilometres (depending on type) and can reach speeds of more than twice the speed of sound (again depending on type), they are more than capable of intercepting a drop pod, in addition, once the drop pod has made it through the atmosphere it's gonna have to slow itself down with parachutes or somesuch or it's just gonna plummet to the ground like a bomb, killing all inside, during its slow descent is when it is at its most vulnerable

and i think there is some confusion as to how missiles work particluarly those of the air-to-air and surface-to-air variety, anti air missiles have proximity fuses which cause them to explode a set distance before the target, rather than striking it directly before exploding,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aircr ... velopments

[Geoxile]

CIWS can be considered the ship's personal defensive measures. The outer defense of counter measure missiles are usually to protect the fleet itself from any possible harm while the CIWS is the short range defense to protect the ship more or less. It's also worthy of mention that the CIWS also have missile types though they're not as common.

Outside of the automated weapons there are possible counter measures especially for pods since obviously they're going to be very large. Planes using anti RADAR and heat detection systems while not common are possible and exist in our day and age. Unless there comes a new form of detection that can't be bypassed the drop pods will have some safety.

Oh and when you bring up tanks, we're talking tank vs. tanks, machines which are designed to counter each other in some way. But I'd like to see these next gen prototypes that you're talking about. Link please?

As for re-entry let's take this for example. The re-entry speed usually goes easily past Mach 20, once the crafts begins to slow down and get to a much lower distance the heat shield's resistance slows it down to a few hundred miles per hour and the parachute used to slow it down to 20. This is apparently was the standard of the Apollo missions. Obviously since we're talking future and all, we're going to be able to keep a stable and fast fall until it's absolutely crucial to slow down, not to mention the internal systems to control the shock of the drop.

There is also the Sizzler method, the Sizzler being an anti-ship missile that US Navy analysts believe could break through all the defenses. By moving slowly at low speeds then break super sonic when it's detected or gets within the range of RADAR.

I suppose then an important part of the drop pods is also the internal safety, it'll have to be much more advanced modern day pressure and shock control.

Drop pods are far from perfect but I think you give AA systems too much credit as well. They're far from perfect themselves and I don't see them getting much better unless we come up with much more efficient detection systems.

No I didn't confuse anything, I think you're confusing yourself. I was referring to the conventional gun mount CIWS which do indeed have to hit their intended targets to stop them.

It's worth mentioning that drop pods are or have become off topic since we started talking about dropping them into bases? The point of a drop ship was to get soldiers in and out of hot spots quickly. Also if we're going to take a base in the future 10 bucks says we'll be using unnamed drones to wipe out the armed forces first. Drop ships are more vulnerable to AA and are less likely to be invading a fully armed enemy base.

[Gelmax]

You seem to completely ignore the factor of speed and time, as well as problems concerning the AA itself. Droppods aren't going to be floating down at a measly speed or even that compared to jets (which most humans can't at that point even when in linear motion, the CIWS are also far from perfect when targeting highspeed objects such as missiles but are assigned since they are the best for it). Just because they're in a predictable pattern doesn't mean it's 100% easy to hit. Bullets have the same limitation of speed and simply spamming the guns won't ensure a hit. I'm not exactly sure where you're getting this data that droppods are easy to hit but at this point it's nothing but speculation, but considering they'd probably be descending faster than most modern jets fly at cruise speed (1 to 1.5 mach) until a crucial point, I want to see your data.

The speeds don't really change the fact that everything about the speed and the path is predictable. If the pod moves at a predictable speed on a predictable course, and your projectiles move at a predictable speed on a predictable course (and they should), then it isn't that hard for a computer to give a reasonable probability of the projectiles' course intersecting the pod's course and the proper time. It doesn't really matter how high those speeds are unless the pod blows through your effective range before your computers can finish crunching numbers and calculating courses.

Pods won't come crashing down in the same level of heat and friction as in their first impact with upper atmosphere, I'm sure by the point it cools down sufficiently is the only time the pod itself will start to slow down for a decent.

In our modern day and time we have an extremely precise device capable of self correction and altitude maintenance but you think that the pod if knocked astray won't be able to correct?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBMU6l6GsdM

A major reason for adopting the CIWS is due to their much better probably in hitting high speed objects. They are able to calculate the path of most missiles and guess the path of high speed crafts much mor eefficiently than humans. They've also been adopted for land-use. We can compare missiles and drop pods since they both close in but the CIWS while much more efficient than humans is far from perfect.

Oh and against a heavily plated machine or even a machine that's moving fast enough a CIWS won't be that effective in bringing it down or changing its course. One of the problems with the modern conventional CIWS is that even if they hit incoming missiles with a few bullets it is likely they won't destroy the missile or change its course.

Addition: Shooting up at a such a steep angle will likely cause the turrets to lose a lot of power unless they're a missile system I don't see conventional systems working that far up. Or at least not in at the same altitude you're implying.

Aside from the above, I never said anyone would be using CIWS guns to shoot down orbital drop pods. That would be silly; their range is far too short, which is why they call it a "close-in weapon system". A more proper solution would be using missiles to take 'em out during main reentry, or AA lasers (if available) if the pods survive long enough to enter effective laser range. If they make it through all that, you still should've been able to predict their landing zone and have something ready to pick them off in the most vulnerable period shortly before and after landing. And one thing you're missing is that the job of a drop pod is a LOT harder than that of an anti-ship missile - it's subjected to much greater stresses, has a lot less leeway for evasive maneuvers, and has to deliver a much more delicate payload with significantly more accuracy. This makes it much less dodgy and significantly less resilient than a missile.

And speaking of missiles, what Mcjones said about SAMs having proximity fuses even today meshes with what I was thinking - there's no need to hit a droppod with a missile directly, that's overkill and also a waste. Instead, just get an airburst close enough and you can send a few pods tumbling through the air, injure the human occupants enough to render them unable to fight, or just compromise the pods' structural integrity or landing systems and leave the rest to gravity.

[Geoxile]

I'm confused at this point, is a computer handling it or a person? The AA system that is. Your immediate reply seemed to imply that we were talking about the same thing.

The use of AA missiles would still vary considering the speed at main re-entry. Over mach 20 in a high pressure and friction environment due mostly to the heatshield causing resistance itself. I can see what you mean when it's slowing down but I really don't see the AA missiles reaching the pod in time even while tracking it.

I'm not quite sure where you got the working AA laser idea, did you just assume this or make it up on the spot? Because today's lasers are experimental and require a prolonged exposure to the target to ensure a kill, what's more is that there are very strong potential defenses against the laser that even the THEL team thought of.

An airburst though effective would require very high power in order to actually disable the pod's functions. One thing you missed is that though the pods have more crucial roles they're obviously going to be much more 1) expensive and well thought, 2) well defended from heat and munitions fire to ensure the safety of the person, 3) faster, 4) lasers are probably going to have serious trouble with the heatshield. 5) Many missiles are still susceptible to inteference and like most CM missiles if the main RADAR system is off the missiles will be useless.

In any case I think you guys also miss the point of pods. You seem to be under the assumption they're only going to be used to attack bases. During field battles it would be a good way to quickly get troops into the hotspots, not to mention under the assumption they were to be dropped into a base they would not be the only ones fighting and another force would have to disable AA measures. Most aircrafts can't give support due AA in the first place so I don't know why you're under the assumption that the pods will blindly drop in when the skies are still hot.

[Gadget]

Instead, just get an airburst close enough and you can send a few pods tumbling through the air, injure the human occupants enough to render them unable to fight, or just compromise the pods' structural integrity or landing systems and leave the rest to gravity.

I think just pack lots of explosive and drop from orbit. And all arguments would be mooted.

Lets go back and look at the role of droop pods/ships and heli. They are all part of the 'vertical envelope' strategy. No commander will put their droop pod/ship into a nest of AA. It's like flying your C-130 over SAM ally and parachuting your men. All would be shoot down. It will be done under stealth (night glider flight in WW2) or in a safe zone.
Current airborne is mainly use for either rapid reinforcement until main troop body arrives, pathfinder/special ops or 'coup de main' (Operation Market Garden,WW2) In the future, I think 'spaceborne' or 'Hell jumpers' rinding the 'puke express' will still do the same job.
Yes, AA or more accurately Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), formerly Theater High Altitude Area Defense, can shoot down droop pod/ship. But no commander will drop into such a hot zone.
Likewise, the heli should not be flying over SAM ally. A safer path or with protection (Wild Weasel) should be considered.

[Geoxile]

THAAD ATM is still in trial and error and so far I think the success rate has been close to 40% IIRC.

But the rest I agree like stated twice above.

I personally think drop pods are aesthetically terrible. Parachutes are just more awesome.

[Red Comet90]

Lets go back and look at the role of droop pods/ships and heli. They are all part of the 'vertical envelope' strategy. No commander will put their droop pod/ship into a nest of AA. It's like flying your C-130 over SAM ally and parachuting your men.

Didn't we essentially do that during the invasion of Normandy? We sent out hordes of troops against heavily bunkered sites that were protected with barbed wire and lots of other traps. I know aircraft helped but IIRC there was bad weather so it was mostly done with infantry. If commanders are willing to go through with that I'm pretty sure dropping guys through the atmosphere sounds doable to them as well.

I personally think drop pods are aesthetically terrible. Parachutes are just more awesome

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War made orbital drops look awesome with not only infantry, but buildings as well.

[Geoxile]

Eh, I played the RTS but TBH the Tau are the best.

They're like Space commies while also satirizing the forces of "good" in the universe.

Plus they have the best armors.

Market Garden? Not necessarily, IIRC there was only 1 group that faced heavy resistance. The other dropped down with little damage and were successful at securing the bridges.

[Black Knight]

Red Comet90 is talking about Overlord, particularly Omaha Beach, though Pacific invasions such as Tarawa, Peleliu, and Okinawa would support his argument better, since his argument is that in some circumstances, commanders will always order attacks, regardless of potential casualties. Sometimes the only way to get from A to B is by going over the top of the trench, into the teeth of the machinegun fire.

A better example of AA Guns vs Transports is the 82nd Division's drop into Sicily, where more than 50% of the casualties sustained by the division were from the US Navy mistaking the C-47s for German/Italian bombers and shooting them down before they got to the drop zone.

The bigger a drop pod is, the easier it will be to hit, and once it is able to be hit, eventually a warhead will be developed capable of destroying the drop pod in one hit.

Taking SAM/CWIS performance against cruise missiles and overlaying that on ballistically-dropped pods doesn't do things justice, since the entire engagement is different. Anti-ship cruise missiles skim the surface of the sea, providing shelter from radar detection for as long as possible. Modern AEGIS systems are already powerful enough to get radar returns off objects in space, so even future drop pods won't be able to hide behind cover, though it's possible "stealth" construction could be applied to them, should its technology become sufficiently inexpensive.

As noted earlier, however, since drop pods must follow a particularly path in order to reach their target, whatever it may be, their intercept solution is considerably easier than that of a sea-skimming modern-day anti-ship cruise missile. The radar track is also much easier. Are there other ways to defeat this? Yes. Environmentally-unfriendly militaries could, and likely would, employ huge amounts of chaff as their drop pods enter the atmosphere, and as they slow down, to clutter the radar picture of potential defenders. Detonating a nuke in high atmosphere to send out an EMP before dropping pods might have some advantages, as well.

Not to mention the fact that if I had the ability to drop personnel and equipment from space, I probably also have the ability to drop rocks on fixed defenses, including any radar signal I detect as my pods are hitting atmo. And signals as weak as about 20 watts can be picked up from orbit; AEGIS radars put out just a bit more power than that...

[Geoxile]

I explained my part on the drop pod's descent in the upper atmosphere.

[Gelmax]

I'm confused at this point, is a computer handling it or a person? The AA system that is. Your immediate reply seemed to imply that we were talking about the same thing.

The use of AA missiles would still vary considering the speed at main re-entry. Over mach 20 in a high pressure and friction environment due mostly to the heatshield causing resistance itself. I can see what you mean when it's slowing down but I really don't see the AA missiles reaching the pod in time even while tracking it.

I'm not quite sure where you got the working AA laser idea, did you just assume this or make it up on the spot? Because today's lasers are experimental and require a prolonged exposure to the target to ensure a kill, what's more is that there are very strong potential defenses against the laser that even the THEL team thought of.

An airburst though effective would require very high power in order to actually disable the pod's functions. One thing you missed is that though the pods have more crucial roles they're obviously going to be much more 1) expensive and well thought, 2) well defended from heat and munitions fire to ensure the safety of the person, 3) faster, 4) lasers are probably going to have serious trouble with the heatshield. 5) Many missiles are still susceptible to inteference and like most CM missiles if the main RADAR system is off the missiles will be useless.

In any case I think you guys also miss the point of pods. You seem to be under the assumption they're only going to be used to attack bases. During field battles it would be a good way to quickly get troops into the hotspots, not to mention under the assumption they were to be dropped into a base they would not be the only ones fighting and another force would have to disable AA measures. Most aircrafts can't give support due AA in the first place so I don't know why you're under the assumption that the pods will blindly drop in when the skies are still hot.

A computer's handling it, of course. The idea of having humans manually handle this kind of stuff is ludicrous. As for missiles, I don't get where you got the idea that they'd have to chase the pod? The pod's heading downward, the missile's heading upward; just put the missiles on an intercept course. What I'm saying is that the speed simply is not really relevant here. It's like hitting a rocket car on the highway with a cruise missile - no matter how fast it's going, as long as you know its speed, it's exceedingly simple to predict its exact position on the road at any given time, so all you have to do is pick a spot and make sure the missile will hit at the desired time. The only thing the car's speed really affects is the margin of error. Seriously. It's basically irrelevant how fast the fish is swimming as long as it's stuck in a barrel, and while shooting down orbital drop pods wouldn't be quite THAT easy, their speed doesn't really make it harder unless they're traveling a significant fraction of lightspeed (which they're not).

We don't have military orbital drops against ground targets, either, so should we drop the subject altogether because we're not going to have them in the next decade? The sheer fact that today's lasers are experimental makes them quite viable for discussion in a future setting, which I assumed we were talking about, because we're probably going to have viable weaponized lasers long before any country starts dropping troops and equipment from orbit. The heatshield isn't a defense against lasers either, because the heatshield already has its hands full with atmospheric heating. Even considering that heat shielding is designed to handle significantly more than the expected atmospheric heating, the concentrated heating of a laser would still exceed the heatshield's specs enough to compromise it during reentry - you don't need that big a hole in the heatshield to cook the occupant or compromise the internal structure. Or if the laser is used after main reentry (as is more probable), the heatshield's probably not an issue, although this depends heavily on pod design and materials used.

Now, here's the main issue with your hypothetical droppods - you are forgetting that they are disposable vehicles designed to be dropped from orbit. They're not going to be expensive vehicles with heavy armor and sophisticated defenses that make tanks look like tricycles in comparison - sure, they'll probably still be expensive, but corners will necessarily have to be cut whenever possible in order to maintain cost-efficiency, so they won't be the unstoppable monsters with fighter-level maneuverability and battleship-level durability that you seem to be imagining. Actually, droppods aren't really viable at all for much the same reason that space fighters aren't really viable - you can get better results for a much lower cost by cutting out the human occupant and life support systems and packing it full of explosives instead. Why drop troops from orbit when you can drop bombs from orbit instead (though I see that pretty much everyone else has reached this same conclusion by now anyway)? There's not much point to dropping troops from orbit even when bombs are unsuitable - better to send the troops down to the planet before the battle and integrate them into the regular ground/air offensive. To have the kind of advantage needed to pull off safe orbital drops in combat (enemy AA disabled or destroyed, air superiority, significantly-sized zones completely cleared of enemy influence and not occupied by allied troops, to name a few) means you've basically already won the battle, anyway.

[Geoxile]

Oh well you directly countered my statement with how AAs are accurate so I assumed you were bridging between my statement about human gunners. As for the assumption about upward direction how steep is this angle we're considering? Even at a steep angle it'll be hard hitting the thing when it's in its upper descent, easily dropping 20 times the speed of many missiles except long range sub-orbital missiles. Predicting the path is different from actually hitting it though, so unless we convert to super powered high speed missiles or just super pulse lasers that move much faster you can't ensure. I'm sure the missiles will get better in the future but by time there will also probably be a counter measure for missiles in general.

Well lasers are already weaponized but under the assumption the lasers are going to be used as weapons there will be an effective counter measure as well. And you honestly think the heatshield can't stop a laser that works by heating its target? Heatshields and reflective panels are problems today, if we follow the same principle I doubt they won't be in the future when the counter measures, namely heatshields get better.

Also where are you getting this information that the heatshield will fail? And provided even if the laser were hot enough it definitely wouldn't melt instantly. The heat shield is a cheap and effective (and viable) measure as opposed to retrorockets. It's designed for the high heat and I've never heard of the re-entry temperatures being the peak of the heat shield's support.

They're not my hypothetical drop pods, if I could drop things tactically it'd be bombs loaded into a disposable heavily armored and heat resistant ball designed to spread bombs on the target. From orbit of course.

Umm, yes, they probably will be, unless you're actually one of those people who are skeptical and pessimistic about the military's concern for its soldiers. Not to mention these disposable vehicles definitely will not be a mainstay. Corners are cut when it's viable, not when you're dropping people into by your ridiculous logic, fully armed enemy base that's pretty much anticipating the drop pods to fall. Well you're slowly losing my respect, and you seem to be under the assumption that the military is willing to just throw most likely veterans at the enemy.

As for the bottom part? I've already discussed it, I was just pointing out AA isn't as perfect as people think it is, or it is on paper.

[Gadget]

I had a feeling that we are arguing in circles.

I'm just making these assumption:

1. Orbital droop are similar to current airborne doctrine. I am only using WW2 as an example.
2. Droop pod/ship can be shot down, by future AA guns, missile or laser. But current system are not perfect, and can be overcome.
3. It's not safe to drop into an AA nest.

Let's look at Gundam's drop.

Kira in Strike. Not a real drop.
08th MS. Not an orbital drop, but more airborne. Special ops.
Zaft. Shock assault.
Zeta. Special ops.
Freedom, SF and IJ. I consider it shock assault.
W-Gundams and 00 Gundams. Special ops / terrorist attack. BTY, Hero pay the price of being 'spotted', although Wing is not really a drop ship.

And in Aline movie and game, the marines were drop near the site, and rushed over in an armored troop transport.
In Starship trooper novel, the mobile infantry was both use in shock attack and site secure. In shock attack, the MI did not hold ground. Just do a lot of damage and run. And in the movie, it's a classic FUBR. No intelligence, no strategy, and no brains. The troops were able to land, into a trap.

[Geoxile]

It's also probable we'll have counter measures for conventional AA systems. But it still remains that it's a bad idea to send troops into a well defended area without any backing force.

Also Zeta was special ops? They dropped a huge force from the orbit while fighting and then ended up on the ground fighting all the same yet they apparently didn't lose a huge number of troops.

In the original Gundam, when Zeon invaded Jaburo only 28 suits were confirmed at landing during the first wave with Char going into the lake. We also see several landed MS being taken out such as Char's wingmen yet the roles change in Zeta. It turns into a major offensive and eventually a trap.

[Red Comet90]

Also Zeta was special ops? They dropped a huge force from the orbit while fighting and then ended up on the ground fighting all the same yet they apparently didn't lose a huge number of troops.

Zeta wasn't special ops. It was an assault on Jaburo and the Titans knew about the operation. Remember what happens afterwards. Jaburo is self destructed in the hopes that the AEUG will be destroyed quickly. They were allowed to drop, but allow isn't the right word since in UC we have minovsky particles which make things like Anti Air Missiles useless since they can't track via radar. Its all done with visual information so I would imagine most Anti Air weaponry is controlled by humans with assistance from computers.

On top of that Mobile Suits are capable of maneuverability in the air while Drop pods are not so that would explain why they had so few casualties along with being allowed to enter Jaburo.