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Ok, so we've seen the variant of the thunderhawk on FW that has the skinny waist to hold tanks and transport, and thus how the space marines get their vehicles on the ground. But when say a rhino is latched to the thunderhawk, would the marines be inside of it? If so, this would have to mean a rhino can withstand the heat of travelling through a planet's atmosphere and keep its cargo alive. Which brings up the question of why a rhino chassis is only AV11? It must withstand extreme heat and pressure. Again I may be wrong, but clarification would be good to know. Thanks in advance.

I'd guess the Thunderhawk shields it's cargo with it's own body and perhaps some sort of discardable entry shield material.

And ofc, pressure is not a concern - unless the Rhinos go underwater or land on some world with a very thick atmosphere. Pressure gets lower as you go up. Aircraft are pressurized so the low pressure at their favored flight altitude doesn't kill the passengers.

The marines wouldn't be in the rhino. The Transporter isn't for dropping into an especially hot zone hitting the ground running. Its a bulk transporter.

The marines would be in a regular thunderhawk OR already deployed via drop pod to clear the LZ for the heavier equipment to land.

FW states that the Thunderhawk Transporter supports only two crew - pilot and co-pilot, so ostensibly, any marines are held in their Rhinos. Furthermore, the Rhino features armour that is on a par with the hull armour of a Thunderhawk (circa 60mm which is inferior to even the Panzer IV of the Second World War). Hence it would be safe to say that if the Rhino's armour is made to the same spec as the Thunderhawk - troops could safely be conveyed through the atmosphere inside it.

However, that is assuming that the Thunderhawk Transporter drops into combat zones. Looking at modern logistics convention and historical conventions, in an airbourne insertion the norm is to secure a viable landing zone first, then move heavy armament in whilst under adequate protection/low risk of destruction. For example, a common objective of airbourne operations is to secure airfields and neutralise AA defenses in the immediate area so they can be resupplied. IMHO, I'd say that it's more likely that the Rhinos (or Landraider) are dropped into non-combat areas and are then crewed and driven to the frontline to pick up their designated squad. For example, during the Dropsite Massacre, the first wave secured the landing zone via a drop-pod assault and only once it was secured did the heavy armour land.

EDIT: Ninja'd :(

Didn't blood angels used to have a rule that let them deep strike vehicles representing Thunderhawks dropping them in ? It would seem that there is something to the idea of combat drops

Basically, yeah - THTs only carry empty vehicles down to staging areas, unless they're crewed by Blood Angels, who are just that well equipped with troops and materiel that they don't care and hot-drop them with squads in despite the danger.

Worst sin of the BA Ward codex, that. Giving the BA infinite numbers of toys and boys to make recklessness okay.

Although, as others have discussed, it's unlikely that the troops would be in the rhinos during transportation - don't forget that if they were in the rhinos, they would still be in their power armour which should protect them from extreme heat and pressure .

Thunderhawks are highly mobile troop transports. Rhinos are no as highly mobile troop transports. The need to transport troops in a Rino carried by a Thunderhawk is superfluous. BUT, that means there ain't no tabletop use for a TH transporting a Rino.

I would assume the design of the Transporter would shield the Rhinos/Predators/Razorbacks/Whirlwinds/Stalkers/Hunters/Vindicators from the worst of the heart, enough to get them into the safe zone. Land Raiders are more heavily armoured than Thunderhawks and are practically indestructible, I think they'd be fine.

As for ferrying troops in the vehicles, I could see it happening if the Gunships were needed as ariel support, but with the Stormraven being added as a lighter, more maneuverable transport craft, and the Stormtalon as a fast, nimble dogfighter/escort craft, the waters get a little muddier. I would say its highly likely, especially in Land Raiders. 5th Ed Blood Angels even allowed Land Raiders to deep strike with their cargo, being dropped from the sky by Thunderhawk, but I don't know if a lighter vehicle like a rhino would survive the fall.


I could absolutely see some of the more aggressive like the Carcharadons, or reckless, chapters, totally deploying their Rhinos by airdrop, which hit the ground running and launch straight into the fray


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Edit; I'm totally now picturing a Thunderhawk dropping a predator from low orbit and the crew flying it like in the A-Team

 Deadshot wrote:
I would assume the design of the Transporter would shield the Rhinos/Predators/Razorbacks/Whirlwinds/Stalkers/Hunters/Vindicators from the worst of the heart, enough to get them into the safe zone. Land Raiders are more heavily armoured than Thunderhawks and are practically indestructible, I think they'd be fine.

You might assume it, but the THTransporter model has absolutely no shielding for the transported vehicles. They're held in clamps under a thin fuselage.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
I would assume the design of the Transporter would shield the Rhinos/Predators/Razorbacks/Whirlwinds/Stalkers/Hunters/Vindicators from the worst of the heart, enough to get them into the safe zone. Land Raiders are more heavily armoured than Thunderhawks and are practically indestructible, I think they'd be fine.

You might assume it, but the THTransporter model has absolutely no shielding for the transported vehicles. They're held in clamps under a thin fuselage.

The shape of the nose and the front bit might help, I'm not an expert on re-entry thermodynamics of alien atmospheres. I'm taking potshots. Given that GW work on handwavium I tend to do the same when trying to follow their logic

When descending from orbit, the biggest problem isn't actually dealing with the heat of re-entry - it's decelerating.

I would assume that the normal Thunderhawk is designed to enter the atmosphere at higher speeds, the transporter carrying rhinos could just enter more slowly i.e decelerate in orbit using engines rather than the atmosphere.

Even if you come to a complete relative stop before entering the atmosphere, you still pick up speed rapidly due to this little thing called gravity that gets stronger and stronger the closer to the planet's surface you get.

If you deploy via droppod, you have no vehicles or any support weapons. Therefore in this situation the transport vehicles will definitley be only with the base crew. Having the crew inside the vehicle would accelerate the time it takes to drop the vehicle and have it move (i.e. the vulnerable part), so that would be more efficient for SM. Riding in the TH cargohold is safer however (structural damage to clamps from AA literal -> "drop vehicle" ). Losing an entire Squad and vehicle that way would be catastrophic for a SM company. Therefore in combat drops it should be alot safer to deploy infantry in droppods (harder to shoot down) to have them secure a landing zone, and only then send in TH.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Even if you come to a complete relative stop before entering the atmosphere, you still pick up speed rapidly due to this little thing called gravity that gets stronger and stronger the closer to the planet's surface you get.

You will only accelerate to terminal velocity however. If you deploy from high orbit, terminal velocity is basically light speed. If you get into the atmosphere terminal velocity is based on drag and gravity. So if you deploy in very low orbit/ basically already in the atmosphere, the vessel will not pick up the same maximum speed-> alot less heat.

Terminal velocity for a Rhino is high enough to reduce it to cinders, but that's not the important part.

The important part is that if the Thunderhawk pitches its descent so that the exposed cargo is protected from the head of re-entry, that means it's basically pointing straight down - which, in turn, means that its terminal velocity is higher, which, in turn, means its actual velocity is higher, which then means that that it is going to A) need a hell of a lot more power to then cancel that velocity and B) it's going to have to pull up and shed that velocity at the same time. Which is going to put the crew and anybody in the tanks under an insane number of G-forces, which far, far exceed the G-forces of a mere sudden decelleration drop-pod style.

It's also going to put the thunderhawk under insane stresses... being 40k, we can probably assume that the thunderhawk's spine is made from unobtanium, or maybe phlebotinium, however, and is capable of surviving that.

Any real metal used would just snap, breaking the thunderhawk's spine instantly.

What, you didn't think the Space Shuttle belly-flopped into the atmosphere because it's fun, did you?

the majority of heat comes from air compression and ionisation of the air in the upper atmosphere due to high entry speeds, which creates a plasma. Only a small part is from airfriction in the lower atmosphere, if at all - it actually cooles the hot vehicle.

Blunt objects build up aircushions in front of them ,which helps cooling and also reduces the amount of speed that is picked up. Therefore, flying "nose down" would not give you any benefit. The heat is strongest in the aftermath of the bow shockwave, so you can't "protect" with the front, at least not with a brick shaped object.

Satellites and other objects enter at and Spaceshuttles enter at very high speeds and get decelerated by the drag forces. The same does not have to apply for a TH drop from a spaceship, as that can fly closer to the planet and doesnt need any stationary orbit to counter gravity if it can use it's thrusters. Therefore the TH drops at 0 or at least very low speeds and accelerates by gravity, which takes time and is meanwhile already slowed down by drag, since it's already in the atmosphere.
SM vehicles have Ceramite as part of their armor. They are also very light for their size, so they have a lot of buoyancy - which again, decreases maximum velocity.

Which is going to put the crew and anybody in the tanks under an insane number of G-forces, which far, far exceed the G-forces of a mere sudden decelleration drop-pod style.

how would you know how many G-forces a drop pod experiences and how TH G-forces would be higher?

Any real metal used would just snap, breaking the thunderhawk's spine instantly.

Based on what? Have you done a FEA to get that result or what?

Seems like sci-fi ships with the capability to brake as they enter orbit would experience very little friction at all. Our tech suffers from re-entry as it's falling entirely unpowered. As stated above, it's all about the drag, which decelerating avoids.

 Keep wrote:

Which is going to put the crew and anybody in the tanks under an insane number of G-forces, which far, far exceed the G-forces of a mere sudden decelleration drop-pod style.

how would you know how many G-forces a drop pod experiences and how TH G-forces would be higher?

You can estimate it by comparing them to similar events in real life. Apollo 16's deceleration via parachute topped out at 7.19 gravities. A fighter jet pulling out of a dive can pull a maximum of 12 gravities before things start going seriously wrong.

Any real metal used would just snap, breaking the thunderhawk's spine instantly.

Based on what? Have you done a FEA to get that result or what?

Based on the deceleration profile of a Vomit Comet coming out of a freefall dive, and other RL fighter performances. I don't need to do the maths - the RAF and USAF already have.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Any real metal used would just snap, breaking the thunderhawk's spine instantly.

Fortunately, Adamantium and Ceramite are not real metals.

This is coming from the same places where some people think that drop pods hit the ground at terminal velocity.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
You can estimate it by comparing them to similar events in real life. Apollo 16's deceleration via parachute topped out at 7.19 gravities. A fighter jet pulling out of a dive can pull a maximum of 12 gravities before things start going seriously wrong.

Deceleration depends on drag and entry velocity. There is no "reallife event" that you can compare it to, because all cases are different. Apollo entered earth atmosphere at a speed of 11kilometer per second. At that speed and at ground level, you would be able to fly around the earth in 1 hour. Not quite the same as a velocity of 0. A flimsy realworld jet is not a valid comparison with the incredible sturdy build of a Thunderhawk either.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Any real metal used would just snap, breaking the thunderhawk's spine instantly.

Based on what? Have you done a FEA to get that result or what?

Based on the deceleration profile of a Vomit Comet coming out of a freefall dive, and other RL fighter performances. I don't need to do the maths - the RAF and USAF already have.

You are sorely mistaken to think that any stress calculation for an existing aircraft would apply to any other aircraft desing or vehicle. And that is before we introduce any "supermaterials" from 40k. I know a thing or two about metals, stresses and failure as a studied engineer....