Again, Said specialized assault ship already exists. It's called a Strike cruiser! It's big brother is called a Battle Barge! Both are Astartes ships. The Space marines use and maintain them because those kinds of opposed landings and beachead clearances are their specialty! The IG will simply seek to land their transports in a less defended area or use specialized landing craft (Like the Shark assault boat). Heavily defended and Strategically vital worlds will merit the attention of the Space Marines so the guard will not have to go it alone!

Technically, Rogue traders have the same options, although a successful appeal to a Space Marine chapter would probably require some pre existing compact between the two.

Actually Elysians do a 40k HALO jump from the edge of the atmosphere.

The Shark is not a air to ground assault boat. You're thinking of the Devourer dropship. Which is bigger and designed for hot LZs.

also, as more than one IG novel has pointed out, the problem with that is that the incoming IG units information about what is 'undefended' may be out of date. Or worse, IN may not have areal superiority.

Interesting footnote: the Strike Cruiser and Battle Barge currently used by SM were originally designed by the Iron Warriors primarch. I've always wondered why the dark age of technology era Hades was Bad, according to the FFG books, but the strike cruiser was A-OK!

Point of fact though, BFK is riddled with fluff errors and does not match other games. and ignores that the Hades is one of the few Chaos ships still in use by the IN, in the segmentum that the games take place in ! And claims star ships are rare there, despite sharing a boarder with the Scarus Sector... which has more ships than crews to man them, according to fluff, and is home to not only a segmentum reserve fleet, but also one of the Bastion Fleets, which are two or three times larger than the standard sector fleet.

The reason is simple. Space Marines gear is basically based off of the stuff they gave to their militaries in the dark age of technology. IG are equipped with the stuff they gave to first in colonists and PDFs. The Hades was never intended for anything but intraplanetary assaults, where as the Strike Cruisers are based off of ancient designs for intersystem assaults, thus making them far more robust and powerful.

To get an idea of the dark age of technology's military power. Imagine space marine levels of equipment on an imperial guard scale (at least for say, a sector, since it's unclear how far humanity exactly spread compared to other races during the DAoT). The Hades is DAoT level, but keep in mind, SO IS THE LAS GUN. Everything, literally everything, in 40k is derived from the DAoT. The mechanicus only modifies or tweaks existing designs, it never invents anything wholesale.

The difference lies mostly in the completeness of STCs and other things. A device made in the DAoT was crafted using all of the parts it was INTENDED to be made from (which is why an archeotech las pistol is so **** good compared to the normal kind), stuff in 40k are often a hodgepodge of hacked together parts from various STCs put together to get the same effect at a greatly reduced rate. So while sure, the Hades is made off of DAoT where as the Strike Cruiser may not actually be at all, the Strike Cruiser was built by somebody who probably invented a bunch of parts and did actual SCIENCE to insure that the thing was as efficient and capable as possible. That Hades Transport? That sucker is going to be using capacitors meant originally for a bane blade, oil pumps for chimeras, and gear configurations originally meant to be inside of a Rhino and nobody KNOWS because the STCs used to build all of these things are incomplete. It works, but only barely.

At least the Strike Cruiser is made from the ground up with all of it's parts deliberately BUILT for a strike cruiser.

edit: Also remember, all fluff is canon. Even the first edition stuff. Contradicitons just mean that at least one of the two sources is either heresy or propaganda.

Again, Said specialized assault ship already exists. It's called a Strike cruiser! It's big brother is called a Battle Barge! Both are Astartes ships. The Space marines use and maintain them because those kinds of opposed landings and beachead clearances are their specialty! The IG will simply seek to land their transports in a less defended area or use specialized landing craft (Like the Shark assault boat). Heavily defended and Strategically vital worlds will merit the attention of the Space Marines so the guard will not have to go it alone!

Technically, Rogue traders have the same options, although a successful appeal to a Space Marine chapter would probably require some pre existing compact between the two.

Actually Elysians do a 40k HALO jump from the edge of the atmosphere.

The Shark is not a air to ground assault boat. You're thinking of the Devourer dropship. Which is bigger and designed for hot LZs.

also, as more than one IG novel has pointed out, the problem with that is that the incoming IG units information about what is 'undefended' may be out of date. Or worse, IN may not have areal superiority.

Interesting footnote: the Strike Cruiser and Battle Barge currently used by SM were originally designed by the Iron Warriors primarch. I've always wondered why the dark age of technology era Hades was Bad, according to the FFG books, but the strike cruiser was A-OK!

Point of fact though, BFK is riddled with fluff errors and does not match other games. and ignores that the Hades is one of the few Chaos ships still in use by the IN, in the segmentum that the games take place in ! And claims star ships are rare there, despite sharing a boarder with the Scarus Sector... which has more ships than crews to man them, according to fluff, and is home to not only a segmentum reserve fleet, but also one of the Bastion Fleets, which are two or three times larger than the standard sector fleet.

I am aware of the Elysians HALO capability. It only makes sense even if it weren't explicitly mentioned. The thing is, Drop trooper regiments are rare. Most line infantry regiments do not issue grav-chutes.

In Dawn of war: Winter assault the Imperial guard specifically uses Shark assault boats in their initial beachhead attack. I actually tend to see them being used much the same as the "Mike Boats" of WWII. A Shark can deliver 50 men (Roughly a Platoon) of infantry or a single medium armored vehicle (Such as a Hellhound) according to most sources I've read. Thus a squadron of these boats could deliver about two companies of infantry to a "Hot" LZ. These forces would be tasked with securing the LZ in question to allow for larger vessels to deliver heavy equipment. In this case I'm reminded that a Vagabond transport can, at least in theory, Land! This would mean the Vagabonds (And devourers if you use them) would take on a role very similar to that of the LST's used from WWII on through the early 90's. In case anybody's wondering, LST's weren't particularly well armed or armored either! They relied on the rest of the fleet for protection. Once they deliver their cargoes, These ship's and boats would return to orbit. The Sharks might reload and bring in another load but the Vagabond's would just retreat to orbit and await the order to leave system.

The difference between a shark and say a Valkyrie is twofold: One, the Shark is truly trans-atmospheric and has a greater cargo capacity and two; The Valkyrie has an actual role on the battlefield and can effectively maneuver.

In Dawn of war: Winter assault

Let me just stop you right there. Relic got a lot wrong.

The IN very rarely puts sharks in anything smaller than a battleship. Feel free to look up what ships can take them.

According to Final Testament , Battlefleet Calixis uses the Angantyr class dropship, which holds about a company and their gear, and can be carried by transports and freighters. It's layout makes it sound broadly similar to the Devourer class and it's description states it's meant for hot deployment zones. Because of it's use by Battlefleet Calixis, it's most likely the most common drop ship available to Rogue Traders in the Expanse..

Again, saying Relic of FF got things wrong compared to Games Workshop is completely missing the point. Everything produced for 40k, going right back to 1st ed, is all canon, it's just that some of it is lies, propaganda, or heresy.

While I firmly disagree with other ascertations that there 'is no canon' for 40k, I will fully accept that anything currently written for it COULD be canon, just from the lips of an unreliable narrator.

edit: Also, we're never told what patterns of what various things are in the games. A valkyrie is just a valkyrie, we're never told if it's a lathe pattern or mars pattern or riza pattern, etc. Each forge world builds things differently, and across the whole galaxy? That probably means some serious tweaking of uses for various vehicles depending on where you are in the galaxy.

It's named the Elysian class in honor of the best drop troops in the Imperium? What's hard to understand?

Edit: Okay, I modified the ship to remove any references to the word 'cruiser'. It's an armored transport/carrier. That better?

And I don't know of any ship or component that is specifically designed to do the launching aircraft while in upper atmosphere thing? It's presumably something that can't be done in large scale, rapidly, without some specific carrier-like components designed for the task?

And drop troops are when you want to get boots on the ground before a full scale bombardment is completely over, where you launch them during the bombardment or only do a partial bombardment, for whatever reason.

1. Elysians being the best drop infantry in the Imperium is a matter of opinion.

2. Drop troops are generally deployed form Valkyries. These aircraft can be launched from orbit IIRC - from any voidship that can carry them. Because they are considerably smaller than the craft launched from launch bays, they can be launched from a Cargo and Lighter Bay component (the term "Lighter Bay" refers specifically to light craft such as Arvus Lighters, Halo Barges and Valkyries). So, they can be launched from such a bay component - no launch bay is necessary.

3. Yes, we all know what drop troops are for. They are similar to modern airborne and air assault infantry. They don't need their own special snowflake ship. Any old transport will do.

from launch bays, they can be launched from a Cargo and Lighter Bay component (the term "Lighter Bay" refers specifically to light craft such as Arvus Lighters, Halo Barges and Valkyries). So, they can be launched from such a bay component - no launch bay is necessary.

Funnily enough, it doesn't. Except maybe Halo Barges.

A 'Lighter' is a small craft used to move cargo and/or personel to and from a ship too big to enter harbour.

Think of all those drawings of the first europeans on the coast of what became america. Notice how the actual ships are usually still out a bit, because there is no harbour yet?

The small craft they used to move to the coast is an axample of a lighter - though possibly those specific crafts have a different name.

More specifically, some shallow harbours had ships (barges, really, I suppose) designed so that they could go into that harbour, even though normal ships couldn't. Cargo and people would then more from the larger, sea going ship, onto the 'lighter' which would then take them into the harbour (et vice versa).

How can a Valkyrie make any decent maneuvers to properly orient for reentry in a specific area if it is an air breather with no actual, um, thrusters? It's a jet aircraft -- even sealed, it's going to drop like a rock until the jets have dense enough air to get lift over the wings and enough thrust...

Just the same, Valkyries are void-capable. That's why they're under command of Navy personnel. Mind you, they can't go far in the void, nor is that their desired medium of maneuver, but they are designed to launch from orbit...according to several sources.

Well, Voidships with hangar bays can use aeronautica vessels, so perhaps it is not so much Valkyries and the like being void capable as the voidships being able to enter the atmospheric layer where aeronautica craft may still function? I´m not sure if the book mentions anywhere just how low a voidship can go.

It depends on the ship's size. In my mind, most ships the Imperium uses CAN'T go far, or they'd fall, and never take off, again. If a drop pod can fall through the atmosphere, and plunge into the earth, halting just long enough to alleviate SOME impact, and allow the Space Marines or Dreadnought inside to survive, then I can certainly see a Valkyrie having similar breaking thrusters; it just uses them a hell of a lot sooner, and allows the engines to turn over. If we can protect a shuttle from burning up, the Imperium can heat-shield a Valkyrie, and then it's an aircraft, again. Getting back up to the ship, I'm not as sure about, but Space Marines, and some of their drop pods, get back up, and they often leave before all the fighting is over, so I doubt it's just a casual shuttle, and a plain, chat about your day flight back up to the Strike Cruiser.

Its worth remembering that the end of atmosphere isn't a hard line, it just gradualy gets thinner. Also the hardest part of getting into orbit (from a planetary perspective) is getting enough horazontal speed to reach orbital volicities. Because of this, it's not unreasonable that an Imperial ship can come down low enough for high-alititude adjusted aircraft to launch. But it's not going to be hanging out there, because once you have enough atmosphere for an aircraft to operate in, the ship is going to be experiance drag and, quickly, be on a sub-orbital trajactory. Besides simply passing over the drop point, the voidship is also soon going to have to ignight it's plasma drive to gain enough speed to put itself back into (at the very least) low orbit.

Its perfectly possible, however, that particular versions of valkalries and other Imperial aircraft can temporaraly lift themselves to the virtical height of low orbit. Indeed this might be as simple as intigrating something akin to a JATO rocket that is fired after puting the aircraft into a virtical stall. It would just have to be well timed, so the transport voidship is there to "swallow it" as it reaches the apagee. Otherwise, the voidship might do another upper-atmosphere dive & return.

On the subject of Space Marines and their Drop Pods - Imperial Armor books note that, while the pods are often considered disposable, they can be recovered by Transport Thunderhawk in pairs. This is the same vehicle that is used to land and lift Space Marine Tanks. Space Marines themselves go by standard Thunderhawk (usualy). All of these vehicles specificly have Ceremite plating to resist 'hot' reentry.

How can a Valkyrie make any decent maneuvers to properly orient for reentry in a specific area if it is an air breather with no actual, um, thrusters? It's a jet aircraft -- even sealed, it's going to drop like a rock until the jets have dense enough air to get lift over the wings and enough thrust...

Have you ever seen Aliens? The 2nd one, with the Colonial Marines. Remember how their dropship essentially just drops from the ship. That's a more than suitable method of atmospheric entry.

Failing that, a voidship can enter the atmosphere of a planet. A voidship can take an enormous amount of punishment from 38 kiloton macro-shells, it can withstand atmospheric pressure.

Well, Voidships with hangar bays can use aeronautica vessels, so perhaps it is not so much Valkyries and the like being void capable as the voidships being able to enter the atmospheric layer where aeronautica craft may still function? I´m not sure if the book mentions anywhere just how low a voidship can go.

Hence the idea of the Elysian, to be able to go lower into the atmosphere and back up than normal!

Just the same, Valkyries are void-capable. That's why they're under command of Navy personnel. Mind you, they can't go far in the void, nor is that their desired medium of maneuver, but they are designed to launch from orbit...according to several sources.

All the Imperium's military pure air-breathers are under the command of Navy Personnel, too. The Guard gets ground/ground effect vehicles only - anything capable of self-sustained flight, not dependent upon ground effect is owned by the Navy.

Basically, the Navy/Guard split is like what would have happened if the US Air Force had managed to keep helicopters out of the Army's hands in addition to fixed wing aircraft.

That said, yeah, Valkyries and other craft that are normally operated as aircraft are nominally intended to be deployable from orbit. I suspect that extremely low orbits are required for safe deployment, and either specialized modification or lifting vehicles to get them back to orbit, or even lower orbit for recovery.

There is ample fluff indicating voidships up to about Cruiser size can at least enter the atmosphere. Technically, BFG said any escort (Raider or frigate in RT) or standard transport (Read: Vagabond) could actually land. 40k epic and Dan Abnett's novels Had cruisers entering the atmosphere to deploy troops. This suggests that something like a Dictator could actually enter an atmosphere with the intention of deploying or recovering Aeronautica.

Well, I'm not an scientist, or some such, so I can't just sit here and argue intelligently about it, but I think there comes a time and place where something of a certain size can't just "float there" in the atmosphere, and would either succumb to gravity, or have to flex all its plasma-might to force itself back up, writing off anything below it. I know that in Star Trek TNG, they made a case that even a ship the size of the Enterprise was getting too big to get back up, if it ever touched down (it's one of the several reasons they built the ships up in Utopia Planetia shipyard), and I think Galaxy Quest said something similar with their ship, both of which are CONSIDERABLY smaller than ANYTHING the people of the Imperium throw out, into the void. However, i don't know all the science of getting that big a thing to stay up, or get back up, and the Imperium does have access to some weird, arcane science, that uses its own rules, so yeah.

Science? This is 40K! We don't need no steenkeen science!

Well, I'm not an scientist, or some such, so I can't just sit here and argue intelligently about it, but I think there comes a time and place where something of a certain size can't just "float there" in the atmosphere, and would either succumb to gravity, or have to flex all its plasma-might to force itself back up, writing off anything below it. I know that in Star Trek TNG, they made a case that even a ship the size of the Enterprise was getting too big to get back up, if it ever touched down (it's one of the several reasons they built the ships up in Utopia Planetia shipyard), and I think Galaxy Quest said something similar with their ship, both of which are CONSIDERABLY smaller than ANYTHING the people of the Imperium throw out, into the void. However, i don't know all the science of getting that big a thing to stay up, or get back up, and the Imperium does have access to some weird, arcane science, that uses its own rules, so yeah.

T'be fair, I don't think anyone's saying that floating in atmo is what they're doing to launch/recover atmospheric craft, or even land (in the rare instances where landing happens).

It's more like throwing themselves at the ground and missing on purpose - an asymmetric orbit that enters the atmosphere at a low enough speed and altitude for airbreathers to launch/recover, and either being primarily ballistic/unpowered, or relying mostly on maneuvering thrusters when they need to adjust things, rather than the main drive, unless they need to abort in a hurry or run into an emergency, or have finished their launch/recovery operations. It's not an easy maneuver, especially combat conditions, but neither is it particularly difficult.

Sort of like atmospheric entry for an aerobraking maneuver, only you're not going as fast.

And landing? Well, yeah, that's going to trash the landing field if it's solid ground/material. Which is why you generally aim to use some body of water to absorb the thruster exhaust ... or a purpose-built field that can withstand the stresses of repeated landings and takeoffs. When neither is available as a viable option ... you aim for some piece of dirt that's got no real value, so when it gets baked, nobody cares enough to complain.

I've always imagined that they 'dip' into the atmosphere and then just keep on going. They use their momentum to slice through the upper atmosphere, deposit the fighter craft, and be done with it.

Also it's canon that you CAN salvage a planet bound ship, and size doesn't particularly matter, no restrictions on ship class at least for that particular background purchase.

It's really REALLY difficult, involving lots and lots of anti-grav and orbital cranes, but it can be done.

I've always imagined that they 'dip' into the atmosphere and then just keep on going. They use their momentum to slice through the upper atmosphere, deposit the fighter craft, and be done with it.

Also it's canon that you CAN salvage a planet bound ship, and size doesn't particularly matter, no restrictions on ship class at least for that particular background purchase.

It's really REALLY difficult, involving lots and lots of anti-grav and orbital cranes, but it can be done.

I believe those ships are towed back up into space first; they certainly aren't getting there under their own power, and zero-g is probably the preferred environment for massive repairs to ships. I Imagine something like tractor beams (I know Orks have them, and some Imperial stuff like them, though 2km+ ship might be bigger than the scale of those, and otherwise, they drag the wreck with tugs, sort of like the ones that tow stations through the warp.

The fluff I've read suggests massive grav plate technology (similar to that used for landspeeders) is used to keep ships aloft. This technology would remove the need for the vessel to conform to any of the normal limits of aerodynamic flight.

Convenient, I suppose, but I don't know if landspeeders can go so high, and physics sneak into my head, even when they probably don't belong, in this setting, saying "how high can it hold aloft how much?" A two km long ship? I'm not saying it doesn't work; I'm just saying my brain doesn't see it work.

As Radwraith said, artificial gravity generating devices would negate the laws of aerodynamics. As such, a voidship or other non-aerodynamic craft, would be able to stay aloft inside an atmosphere.

I've always imagined that they 'dip' into the atmosphere and then just keep on going. They use their momentum to slice through the upper atmosphere, deposit the fighter craft, and be done with it.

Also it's canon that you CAN salvage a planet bound ship, and size doesn't particularly matter, no restrictions on ship class at least for that particular background purchase.

It's really REALLY difficult, involving lots and lots of anti-grav and orbital cranes, but it can be done.

I believe those ships are towed back up into space first; they certainly aren't getting there under their own power, and zero-g is probably the preferred environment for massive repairs to ships. I Imagine something like tractor beams (I know Orks have them, and some Imperial stuff like them, though 2km+ ship might be bigger than the scale of those, and otherwise, they drag the wreck with tugs, sort of like the ones that tow stations through the warp.

Oh I agree there. My point is that they slap a bunch of zero g stuff on it and the orbital crane it up. It's not getting up on it's own power.