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Has it been discussed in any of the fluff how Space Marines transport drop pods from the ground back to their hosting ship? I hope its not a silly answer like just hanging from a cable from the bottom of Thunderhawk.

Sounds about right.

Lift Pods?

If they can, e.g. they either one or have to opportunity to make an orderly withdrawal, they pick them up via thunderhawk, the same way they retrieve the rest of their vehicles. I'm not really sure why that is silly.

Jefffar wrote:Lift Pods?

But it's fairly probably that the Space Marines have recovery craft. The Thunderhawk is a gunship/transport for assaulting a planet. Surely they have larger craft that can be used for more efficient recovery or situations that require less dynamic deployment.

Space Marines operate large landing craft for logistical reasons (not everything they have can be transported by Thunderhawk). They move the Drop Pod onto the ship and bring it back on board.

riplikash wrote:If they can, e.g. they either one or have to opportunity to make an orderly withdrawal, they pick them up via thunderhawk, the same way they retrieve the rest of their vehicles. I'm not really sure why that is silly.

As far as I know, the Thunderhawk isn't a hover craft in order to winch cargo up ala a helicopter. If you go by the Forgeworld models, most likely the Thunderhawk is on the ground as the vehicles drive under it. The claws can then secure the vehicles. Drop pods are dispersed on the battleground and immobile.

Agree, that there surely is some sort of pure transport/pickup craft. Just curious if they ever mention it, I have only read a few of the novels and own only one codex. But writing about "trash haulers" isn't as sexy as writing about fighters and bombers.

Thunderhawks are caplable of hovering. Being a vertical takeoff vehicle they kinda need to be.

Most of the ime, thunderhawks are used to recover battlefield vehicles and drop pods. In the case of a massive deployment , company or larger by drop pods at once, they would use a larger ship.

Such larger ships are rarly mentioned that I have come across. Mabye they make the guard heavy lifters do it once in a while.

I'm pretty sure that they use techmarines and recovery crafts. I mean they have to need some larger planes to transport the sheer number of ammunition and equipment they're going to need for a campaign.

There are special transporter and landing craft variants of the Thunderhawk, specifically designed for heavy lift. I imagine they pick up all vehicles including drop pods at the end of a campaign.

Thunderhawk transporter:




Thunderhawk landing craft:

Interesting. I could definitely see it more feasible with the second rendering as opposed to first and FW models. Cool, thanks.

Imperial Armour stated that "specially modified" Thunderhawk Transporters recover the pods where possible.

So a T-hawk transporter modified to pick up at least 2 pods (like the 2 rhino version). With winches/grapples, etc and held in place with clamps.

It's not like the BA have a trademark on "magna-clamps".

Even better. Thanks chromedog.

I suppose in a combined arms mission they could also get some help from these and load them onto sub orbital transports.

Aren't most strike cruisers capable of atmospheric flight?

TechMarine1 wrote:Aren't most strike cruisers capable of atmospheric flight?

I would be really surprised if this was the case, but if you've got any sources I'm all ears. This is all from what I can remember from the fluff, plus my own thinking as an aerospace engineer:

The types of craft that can make the transition from orbit to the surface are pretty limited: small fighters, transports, and shuttle craft (say, Lightning, Thunderhawk, Aquila); ballistic re-entry vehicles (drop pods) and bulk lifters (like the Imperial Guard landing craft that go from troop ships to the ground, or the AdMech bulk lifters that can deliver Titans from their ships to the ground and back into orbit).

The difference between these and regular spacecraft is that they are purpose-built for operating in atmosphere and gravity, whereas cruisers and other spacecraft are built in-orbit and are never intended to enter a planet's atmosphere. They might dip into the upper atmosphere sometimes, but that's about all.

Basically it comes down to orbital mechanics and anti-grav technology. In orbit around a planet, the closer your orbit, the higher the velocity required to maintain orbit. Aerodynamic drag is going to limit your minimum practical orbital altitude, but you could "cheat" this by reducing the effect of gravity through anti-grav technology. Then you could maintain altitude at a lower velocity, putting you somewhere between orbiting and hovering.

Minus the drop pod, the rest of the sub-orbital craft I mentioned all have some kind of anti-gravity repulsor technology, which lets them get into and out of gravity wells much more easily. Things like bulk lifters probably act more like elevators than regular re-entry vehicles, descending or ascending slowly at a constant rate using anti-grav, with thrusters only performing a minor maneuvering role until the lifter is out of the dense lower atmosphere to minimize drag.

Other small craft, like launches, shuttles, fighters, etc, demonstrate the ability to hover, so they have anti-grav capabilities too. They would probably not use anti-grav to the same extreme as bulk lifters, but would definitely benefit from it to replace lift generation (since few Imperial craft appear to have functioning wings) and to reduce the thrust needed to get into orbit.

Strike Cruisers probably do have some anti-grav capability just so they can maintain geo-synchronous orbit at a lower altitude, but I doubt it's enough to let them dip very far down. Just enough to get them to a reasonable altitude for deploying and recovering marines or conducting orbital bombardments. Any more than that and you're just adding weight and wasting space, because I see no reason for a kilometers-long capital ship to hover in atmosphere.

/my $0.02

CalgarsPimpHand wrote:Any more than that and you're just adding weight and wasting space, because I see no reason for a kilometers-long capital ship to hover in atmosphere.

Independence Day, aliens blew up the White House.

Can't remember the name of the Grey Knight novel off the top of my head but wasn't there one novel that had a great crusade era chaos ship that was capable of atmospheric flight?

Yeah, it was Abbaddon and one of his vintage rides.

Even if they were capable of atmospheric entry, finding a suitable area to land a strike cruiser would probably take you hundreds of miles away from your intended destination. Kinda like parking at the mall in December.

The Emprahs barge landed on Mars during the Great Crusade (HH, Mechanicus). And the Titan transporters could be described as starships in their own right. But I'm pretty sure I read about strike cruisers and other warships skimming through the atmosphere, not landing but definately not in orbit.

For those that don't want to know the plot of DOW2, Retribution:

Maybe Remote control... I dont think all there fuel is Used up on reentry.... Why wouldnt they close the ramps reseal it self and blast up too Oribit were a recovery ship picks them up. While in Orbit.....Duh its 40k they have too design a useless ship too fly down and load them on that useless ship and blast them up one at a time.....

StarGate wrote:Maybe Remote control... I dont think all there fuel is Used up on reentry.... Why wouldnt they close the ramps reseal it self and blast up too Oribit were a recovery ship picks them up. While in Orbit.....Duh its 40k they have too design a useless ship too fly down and load them on that useless ship and blast them up one at a time.....

Of course they use up all their fuel. The burners on the base of a drop pod are used to slow it so that it is intact when it hits the earth. They are, quite literally, launched from the ship in orbit so they will be coming towards the ground at tremendous speeds. Most of the space within the pod is for the marines also, so there isn't room for all the fuel needed to break out from the atmosphere (think, space shuttles need two extra rockets just to break out of the atmosphere, those things that fall off are just rockets and alot of fuel). There is no room in a pod for the fuel needed to launch itself from the ground again.

I'm pretty sure Thunderhawks collect them.


And in the final Ultramarines book by Mr McNeil two Space Marine Strike Cruisers enter lower atmosphere

Extract \/

@Thamor Great reference pull. Interesting that the author admits that the strike cruisers were not designed to enter the lower atmosphere strengthening CalgarsPimpHand's hypothesis.

According to IA Apocalypse (and I guess IA3) the Thunderhawk Transporter variant is equipped with a Drop Pod recovery winch.

They all come equiped with "If found please return to -----" stickers and they make guard bring them back

DijnsK wrote:According to IA Apocalypse (and I guess IA3) the Thunderhawk Transporter variant is equipped with a Drop Pod recovery winch.

Do they have a picture of it?