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As far as i know the drop pods used in an assault aren't taken with the space marines after the battle. Either they take the planet or die trying. In both cases the drop pod isn't taken back to the ship. My question is, Why weather the out side of a drop pod? They drop the doors fly off of them, and are left to rust.

I get the point behind weathering tanks but why drop pods?

And for those of you who wonder why this post is here, Its because it as everything to do with the back ground story about Space marines leaving certain gear behind like America does in war zones.

Drop pods are retrived as often as possible. The same as all marine vehicles is they are usually recovered by thunderhawk transports.

Also, just one shot of atmospheric reentry is enough of a reason to weather and burn the bottom edge and fins.

Huh, i didn't think that space marines cared about equipment all that much. but thank you for setting me straight.

Equipment and indeed all machinery is treated with extreme, almost religious, respect throughout the Imperium. While only the Tech-Priests truly worship it, the rest of the humanity venerates machines in all forms due to a lack of understanding of how it truly works and a want to please its machine spirit, no matter how small

Here are some of the command modules from the apollo program.










I imagine that drop pods would look just as beat up after one drop.

However I don't know that marines regularly re-used drop pods. I was always under the assumtion that they were one use vehicles.

For drop pods specifically, it depends.

Sometimes Deathwind Drop Pods (no marines inside, just more automated guns) are used to clear a landing zone or cover a retreat. These and regular drop pods are retrived whenever possible. However rarely will marine lives be put at risk to do so.

For other machines - Marines (to an extent depending on chapter) will fight tooth and nail to reclaim something as small a blown off land raider sponson.

Some of the vehicles the marines use are hundreds years old or more. Most all of them have outlived a dozen crews. With the declining ability to produce more exotic weapons in the Imperium you have to make due with what you have.

And praying daily to the giant slab of metal between you and a very hostile galaxy is never a bad idea.

I know someone's already said it, but that won't stop me. Flying into the atmosphere is enough to disintegrate most matter, AND as far as I know they are retrieved. All SM gear is considered an artifact an held, to a certain degree, at a sacred level.

Im thinking to much about the here and now, and how we handle war zones and not enough about what we will do in the future. But you'd think about 40 million years in the future we would have strong enough metal not to get that badly hurt to extreme heat.

I thank you all for your comments and setting me straight on the fluff. Thank you once again.

It's not the "extreme heat" which usually damages Drop Pods.

It's the fact that it's a metal object, traveling at extreme speeds impacting the ground. Usually while under fire no less.

Astartes Chapters make a point of recovering drop pods whenever possible. Sometimes there will be some kind of damage rendering that impossible--or there just isn't enough time for them to do it, and they'll destroy the pods instead.

As far as I can tell, how disposable vehicles are largely depends on the chapter.

For instance, the Astral Claws were able to mass produce Rhino chassis tanks, so considered them basically disposable and had a ton of them.

Another case: Dreadnoughts are considered sacred/irreplaceable, so most chapters will fight hard to get a wreck of one of those

Ok, I said this before on a thread about how they recicle drop pods, but I'm going to say it again.

When ejecting from a modern jet fighter the pilots spine is compacted, sometimes shortening it by 4 inches or more. Now any serious impact is going to leave micro fractures, and all sorts of damage, so they probably recycle drop pods as offten or more so than they reuse them.

Recovering pods does not mean that they just immediately load them back up and use them. It simply means that they're recovered--and likely refurbished.

More like Overhauled

Not really?

Drop Pods can withstand a lot more than you think. That's the point of one. It's a massive cocoon designed to deliver forces into a situation where they will be taking fire on the way down.

Dawn of War II (the book) stated that they are one use only, but I don't see why some parts are not useable atleast to some one.

Everything else states that they are retrieved for further operations.

Everything else is also not written by C.S. Goto, so we'll go with everything else.

Good point.

I forgot who wrote it.