Is it possible for a normal human to survive a Drop Pod insertion? What sort of Game based effects would you impose?

The flaviour text in the scenario in the core Deathwatch rules seems to imply that a such tramsit would ne fatal to non-Astartes, but is that really the case?

I seem to remember a Dark Heresy game where the acolytes were dropped into a city via Drop Pod, but I don't know what the name of the scenario was. It was a one-off thing my old DM ran before we got our Deathwatch books.

Nerd King said:

Into the Storm for Rogue Trader has rules for Drop Pods in its vehicles section, and it's noted as being able to transport "10 individuals in power armour (which works to cushion the impact), or 10 individuals with specialist drop cocoons (which also help absorb the impact, in the absence of power armour)."

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Perfect - thanks Nathan.

I'd missed the ItS entry but after posting I did find that the Drop Pod entry in Rites of Battle mentions that humans are killed instantly unless the Drop Pod has been modified.

Ah the joys of a mixed Deahtwatch/DH Ascension game....

Long ago Sisters of Battle could use Drop Pods of a special pattern. They were the Dominica pattern..

I'd say make the damage consistent with a fall from a height dangerous to average humans per the rules in DW but able to be absorbed completely by marines in armor (1d10+8 pen 0 sounds about right). If a person takes any damage, they have to make a toughness test or take 1d5 stun levels in addition from the sudden shock. Marines in armor can routinely ignore this with a TB4 (x2) and armor 10 even with max damage but the average unarmored human will get put on the crit table. Power armor for humans will help with soaking the damage and you can always incorporate the cocoons previously mentioned as extra levels of armor.

Remember the falling rules as written ignore armor. You only get your toughness to reduce the damage. So max damage on a fall doing 1d10+8 would do 10 wounds to a Marine with a TB of 8 (representing a toughness of 40 something). A human ith toughness 40 something would take 14 max damage.

Rather than making a complex rule and checking math, I'd simply say if you've got Unnatural Tougness, you can use a drop pod (but I'd add narrative effects of aches, pains, etc for the 'normal' people to give the marines a cinematic edge here), if not you need a modified one of some kind or you'll be squished. If it's important to the plot (i.e. the GM wants it) then make the modified drop pods or the cocoons accessible.

It seems a bit weird, and also pointless, to have drop pods be lethal to "lesser" soldiers. I know Space Marines are powerful, but it seems unlikely that regular troops would die. Impact-absorbing materials, and also special suits, should be able to get men and women down fine. If nothing else, it shouldn't be too difficult for a Tech Priest to quickly modifiy them for use by Acolytes/Imperial Guard units.

Regardless of the situation, I've never really been fond of drop pods. If I'm not playing Space Marines, give me a Valkyrie or Vendetta gunship any day. They can hold more men (12 to 10, though one could argue SMs are wearing their power armor), have significantly better armaments, and continue to be useful after debarkation. TTBOMK, they can also survive atmospheric entry, being deployed by orbiting craft, just like drop pods, AND get the Acolytes back OFF the planet, where drop pods don't (I believe drop pods have to be retrieved by Thunderhawks, and refitted for another use, if not only good once). Sure, if I AM playing Space Marines, drop pods work, I can use them as cover, till I'm ready to move out, and maybe flatten some guys on impact, and my armor will keep me fine, but a Valkyrie's lascannons and missiles should be able to drop just as many foes, and be good, mobile defense for squishier Humans. If the Inquisitor has a ship of his/her own, they should easily be able to own a Valkyrie, too.

venkelos said:

Drop Pods are for really fast entry. The idea is they are too fast to track with AA fire. Dropships don't punch straight down so they take alot of that AA fire. Also I think the theory for drop pod insertion is that the deployed force must win. The people who pimarily use them aren't exactly normal in their mindset. Of course with the kind casualties the Imperium expects even normal men take ferocius amountsof casualties by modern standards. A planetary invasion is probably inconceivable by modern military standards.

As above, Drop Pods are basically in a free-fall to the surface of the planet they've being fired at, with only manuevering thrusters to guide them until they're almost at touch-down, when they slam on the breaks.

Without loading up the pod with expensive and complicated gravity manipulating technology, there's just no way you'd make it safe for a normal human to ride down in, the stresses of that much acceleration, and sudden deceleration, would shatter a human body utterly.

And anything less isn't really a drop pod, the object of which, as Andrew said, is to get the men on target as fast as possible. I would wager that the abrupt suddeness of having a squad of enemy soldiers on top of you would be a fair part of the impact of the strategy.

venkelos said:

Valkyries aren't capable of deployment from orbiting craft - they're strictly atmospheric craft with an operational ceiling of 13,000m (as noted in Imperial Armour volume 1) compared to ceilings of more than triple that for the Thunderbolt, Marauder and Lightning, which are void-capable only for deployment purposes through use of rocket boosters.

Also, at this point, you're comparing a Ballistic Entry Vehicle with an airborne assault carrier. The closest standard-issue comparison the Space Marines have to the Valkyrie (not including the limited use Storm Raven) is the Thunderhawk, which is fully void-capable as a starfighter and assault craft, more heavily armed and armoured, and carries significantly greater numbers of warriors and equipment.

One is a flying Chimera, the other is a flying Land Raider. Three guesses which is which.

venkelos said:

Have you read Starship Troopers ?

Now, I agree it would be cooler if every Marine had his own personal drop capsule, but hey ho.

Ooh - look, the first chapter of Starship Troopers is free. Pay attention everyone - this is the ur text for Space Marines--

I always get the shakes before a drop. I've had the injections, of course, and
hypnotic preparation, and it stands to reason that I can't really be afraid. The ship's
psychiatrist has checked my brain waves and asked me silly questions while I was
asleep and he tells me that it isn't fear, it isn't anything important -- it's just like the
trembling of an eager race horse in the starting gate. I couldn't say about that; I've
never been a race horse. But the fact is: I'm scared silly, every time. At D-minus thirty,
after we had mustered in the drop room of the Rodger Young, our platoon
leader inspected us. He wasn't our regular platoon leader, because Lieutenant
Rasczak had bought it on our last drop; he was really the platoon sergeant, Career
Ship's Sergeant Jelal. Jelly was a Finno-Turk from Iskander around Proxima -- a
swarthy little man who looked like a clerk, but I've seen him tackle two berserk
privates so big he had to reach up to grab them, crack their heads together like
coconuts, step back out of the way while they fell. Off duty he wasn't bad -- for a
sergeant. You could even call him "Jelly" to his face. Not recruits, of course, but
anybody who had made at least one combat drop. But right now he was on duty.
We had all each inspected our combat equipment (look, it's your own neck --
see?), the acting platoon sergeant had gone over us carefully after he mustered us,
and now Jelly went over us again, his face mean, his eyes missing nothing. He
stopped by the man in front of me, pressed the button on his belt that gave
readings on his physicals. "Fall out!" "But, Sarge, it's just a cold. The Surgeon said
-- " Jelly interrupted. " `But Sarge!' " he snapped. "The Surgeon ain't making no
drop -- and neither are you, with a degree and a half of fever. You think I got time
to chat with you, just before a drop? Fall out!" Jenkins left us, looking sad and
mad -- and I felt bad, too. Because of the Lieutenant buying it, last drop, and
people moving up, I was assistant section leader, second section, this drop, and
now I was going to have a hole in my section and no way to fill it. That's not good;
it means a man can run into something sticky, call for help and have nobody to
help him. Jelly didn't downcheck anybody else. Presently he stepped out in front
of us, looked us over and shook his head sadly. "What a gang of apes!" he
growled. "Maybe if you'd all buy it this drop, they could start over and build the
kind of outfit the Lieutenant expected you to be. But probably not -- with the sort
of recruits we get these days." He suddenly straightened up, shouted, "I just want
to remind you apes that each and every one of you has cost the gov'ment, counting
weapons, armor, ammo, instrumentation, and training, everything, including the
way you overeat -- has cost, on the hoof, better'n half a million. Add in the thirty
cents you are actually worth and that runs to quite a sum." He glared at us. "So
bring it back! We can spare you, but we can't spare that fancy suit you're wearing.
I don't want any heroes in this outfit; the Lieutenant wouldn't like it. You got a job
to do, you go down, you do it, you keep your ears open for recall, you show up for
retrieval on the bounce and by the numbers. Get me?" He glared again. "You're
supposed to know the plan. But some of you ain't got any minds to hypnotize so
I'll sketch it out. You'll be dropped in two skirmish lines, calculated two-thousandyard
intervals. Get your bearing on me as soon as you hit, get your bearing and
distance on your squad mates, both sides, while you take cover. You've wasted ten
seconds already, so you smash-and-destroy whatever's at hand until the flankers
hit dirt." (He was talking about me -- as assistant section leader I was going to be
left flanker, with nobody at my elbow. I began to tremble.) "Once they hit --
straighten out those lines! -- equalize those intervals! Drop what you're doing and
do it! Twelve seconds. Then advance by leapfrog, odd and even, assistant section
leaders minding the count and guiding the envelopment." He looked at me. "If
you've done this properly -which I doubt -- the flanks will make contact as recall
sounds . . . at which time, home you go. Any questions?" There weren't any; there
never were. He went on, "One more word -This is just a raid, not a battle. It's a
demonstration of firepower and frightfulness. Our mission is to let the enemy
know that we could have destroyed their city -- but didn't -- but that they aren't
safe even though we refrain from total bombing. You'll take no prisoners. You'll
kill only when you can't help it. But the entire area we hit is to be smashed. I don't
want to see any of you loafers back aboard here with unexpended bombs. Get
me?" He glanced at the time. "Rasczak's Roughnecks have got a reputation to
uphold. The Lieutenant told me before he bought it to tell you that he will always
have his eye on you every minute . . . and that he expects your names to shine!"
Jelly glanced over at Sergeant Migliaccio, first section leader. "Five minutes for
the Padre," he stated. Some of the boys dropped out of ranks, went over and knelt
in front of Migliaccio, and not necessarily those of his creed, either -- Moslems,
Christians, Gnostics, Jews, whoever wanted a word with him before a drop, he
was there. I've heard tell that there used to be military outfits whose chaplains did
not fight alongside the others, but I've never been able to see how that could work.
I mean, how can a chaplain bless anything he's not willing to do himself? In any
case, in the Mobile Infantry, everybody drops and everybody fights chaplain and
cook and the Old Man's writer. Once we went down the tube there wouldn't be a
Roughneck left aboard -- except Jenkins, of course, and that not his fault. I didn't
go over. I was always afraid somebody would see me shake if I did, and, anyhow,
the Padre could bless me just as handily from where he was. But he came over to
me as the last stragglers stood up and pressed his helmet against mine to speak
privately. "Johnnie," he said quietly, "this is your first drop as a non-com."
"Yeah." I wasn't really a non-com, any more than Jelly was really an officer. "Just
this, Johnnie. Don't buy a farm. You know your job; do it. Just do it. Don't try to
win a medal." "Uh, thanks, Padre. I shan't." He added something gently in a
language I don't know, patted me on the shoulder, and hurried back to his section.
Jelly called out, "Tenn . .. shut!" and we all snapped to. "Platoon!" "Section!"
Migliaccio and Johnson echoed. "By sections-port and starboard-prepare for
drop!" "Section! Man your capsules! Move!" "Squad!" -- I had to wait while
squads four and five manned their capsules and moved on down the firing tube
before my capsule showed up on the port track and I could climb into it. I
wondered if those oldtimers got the shakes as they climbed into the Trojan Horse?
Or was it just me? Jelly checked each man as he was sealed in and he sealed me in
himself. As he did so, he leaned toward me and said, "Don't goof off, Johnnie.
This is just like a drill." The top closed on me and I was alone. "Just like a drill,"
he says! I began to shake uncontrollably. Then, in my earphones, I heard Jelly
from the center-line tube: "Bridge! Rasczak's Roughnecks . . . ready for drop!"
"Seventeen seconds, Lieutenant!" I heard the ship captain's cheerful contralto
replying -- and resented her calling Jelly "Lieutenant." To be sure, our lieutenant
was dead and maybe Jelly would get his commission... but we were still
"Rasczak's Roughnecks." She added, "Good luck, boys!" "Thanks, Captain."
"Brace yourselves! Five seconds." I was strapped all over-belly, forehead, shins.
But I shook worse than ever. It's better after you unload. Until you do, you sit
there in total darkness, wrapped like a mummy against the accelerations, barely
able to breathe -- and knowing that there is just nitrogen around you in the capsule
even if you could get your helmet open, which you can't -- and knowing that the
capsule is surrounded by the firing tube anyhow and if the ship gets hit before they
fire you, you haven't got a prayer, you'll just die there, unable to move, helpless.
It's that endless wait in the dark that causes the shakes -- thinking that they've
forgotten you . . . the ship has been hulled and stayed in orbit, dead, and soon
you'll buy it, too, unable to move, choking. Or it's a crash orbit and you'll buy it
that way, if you don't roast on the way down. Then the ship's braking program hit
us and I stopped shaking. Eight gees, I would say, or maybe ten. When a female
pilot handles a ship there is nothing comfortable about it; you're going to have
bruises every place you're strapped. Yes, yes, I know they make better pilots than
men do; their reactions are faster and they can tolerate more gee. They can get in
faster, get out faster, and thereby improve everybody's chances, yours as well as
theirs. But that still doesn't make it fun to be slammed against your spine at ten
times your proper weight. But I must admit that Captain Deladrier knows her
trade. There was no fiddling around once the Rodger Young stopped braking. At
once I heard her snap, "Center-line tube . . . fire!" and there were two recoil bumps
as Jelly and his acting platoon sergeant unloaded -- and immediately: "Port and
starboard tubes -- automatic fire!" and the rest of us started to unload. Bump! and
your capsule jerks ahead one place -- bump! and it jerks again, precisely like
cartridges feeding into the chamber of an oldstyle automatic weapon. Well, that's
just what we were . . . only the barrels of the gun were twin launching tubes built
into a spaceship troop carrier and each cartridge was a capsule big enough (just
barely) to hold an infantryman with all field equipment. Bump! -- I was used to
number three spot, out early; now I was Tail-End Charlie, last out after three
squads. It makes a tedious wait, even with a capsule being fired every second; I
tried to count the bumps -bump! (twelve) bump! (thirteen) bump! (fourteen -- with
an odd sound to it, the empty one Jenkins should have been in) bump! -And clang!
-- it's my turn as my capsule slams into the firing chamber -- then WHAMBO! the
explosion hits with a force that makes the Captain's braking maneuver feel like a
love tap. Then suddenly nothing. Nothing at all. No sound, no pressure, no weight.
Floating in darkness . . . free fall, maybe thirty miles up, above the effective
atmosphere, falling weightlessly toward the surface of a planet you've never seen.
But I'm not shaking now; it's the wait beforehand that wears. Once you unload,
you can't get hurt -- because if anything goes wrong it will happen so fast that
you'll buy it without noticing that you're dead, hardly. Almost at once I felt the
capsule twist and sway, then steady down so that my weight was on my back . . .
weight that built up quickly until I was at my full weight (0.87 gee, we had been
told) for that planet as the capsule reached terminal velocity for the thin upper
atmosphere. A pilot who is a real artist (and the Captain was) will approach and
brake so that your launching speed as you shoot out of the tube places you just
dead in space relative to the rotational speed of the planet at that latitude. The
loaded capsules are heavy; they punch through the high, thin winds of the upper
atmosphere without being blown too far out of position -- but just the same a
platoon is bound to disperse on the way down, lose some of the perfect formation
in which it unloads. A sloppy pilot can make this still worse, scatter a strike group
over so much terrain that it can't make rendezvous for retrieval, much less carry
out its mission. An infantryman can fight only if somebody else delivers him to his
zone; in a way I suppose pilots are just as essential as we are. I could tell from the
gentle way my capsule entered the atmosphere that the Captain had laid us down
with as near zero lateral vector as you could ask for. I felt happy -- not only a tight
formation when we hit and no time wasted, but also a pilot who puts you down
properly is a pilot who is smart and precise on retrieval. The outer shell burned
away and sloughed off -- unevenly, for I tumbled. Then the rest of it went and I
straightened out. The turbulence brakes of the second shell bit in and the ride got
rough . . . and still rougher as they burned off one at a time and the second shell
began to go to pieces. One of the things that helps a capsule trooper to live long
enough to draw a pension is that the skins peeling off his capsule not only slow
him down, they also fill the sky over the target area with so much junk that radar
picks up reflections from dozens of targets for each man in the drop, any one of
which could be a man, or a bomb, or anything. It's enough to give a ballistic
computer nervous breakdowns -- and does. To add to the fun your ship lays a
series of dummy eggs in the seconds immediately following your drop, dummies
that will fall faster because they don't slough. They get under you, explode, throw
out "window," even operate as transponders, rocket sideways, and do other things
to add to the confusion of your reception committee on the ground. In the
meantime your ship is locked firmly on the directional beacon of your platoon
leader, ignoring the radar "noise" it has created and following you in, computing
your impact for future use. When the second shell was gone, the third shell
automatically opened my first ribbon chute. It didn't last long but it wasn't
expected to; one good, hard jerk at several gee and it went its way and I went
mine. The second chute lasted a little bit longer and the third chute lasted quite a
while; it began to be rather too warm inside the capsule and I started thinking
about landing. The third shell peeled off when its last chute was gone and now I
had nothing around me but my suit armor and a plastic egg. I was still strapped
inside it, unable to move; it was time to decide how and where I was going to
ground. Without moving my arms (I couldn't) I thumbed the switch for a
proximity reading and read it when it flashed on in the instrument reflector inside
my helmet in front of my forehead. A mile and eight-tenths -- A little closer than I
liked, especially without company. The inner egg had reached steady speed, no
more help to be gained by staying inside it, and its skin temperature indicated that
it would not open automatically for a while yet -- so I flipped a switch with my
other thumb and got rid of it. The first charge cut all the straps; the second charge
exploded the plastic egg away from me in eight separate pieces -- and I was
outdoors, sitting on air, and could see! Better still, the eight discarded pieces were
metal-coated (except for the small bit I had taken proximity reading through) and
would give back the same reflection as an armored man. Any radar viewer, alive
or cybernetic, would now have a sad time sorting me out from the junk nearest me,
not to mention the thousands of other bits and pieces for miles on each side,
above, and below me. Part of a mobile infantryman's training is to let him see,
from the ground and both by eye and by radar, just how confusing a drop is to the
forces on the ground -because you feel awful naked up there. It is easy to panic
and either open a chute too soon and become a sitting duck (do ducks really sit? -if
so, why?) or fail to open it and break your ankles, likewise backbone and skull. So
I stretched, getting the kinks out, and looked around . . . then doubled up again and
straightened out in a swan dive face down and took a good look. It was night down
there, as planned, but infrared snoopers let you size up terrain quite well after you
are used to them. The river that cut diagonally through the city was almost below
me and coming up fast, shining out clearly with a higher temperature than the
land. I didn't care which side of it I landed on but I didn't want to land in it; it
would slow me down. I noticed a dash off to the right at about my altitude; some
unfriendly native down below had burned what was probably a piece of my egg.
So I fired my first chute at once, intending if possible to jerk myself right off his
screen as he followed the targets down in closing range. I braced for the shock,
rode it, then floated down for about twenty seconds before unloading the chute --
not wishing to call attention to myself in still another way by not falling at the
speed of the other stuff around me. It must have worked; I wasn't burned. About
six hundred feet up I shot the second chute . . . saw very quickly that I was being
carried over into the river, found that I was going to pass about a hundred feet up
over a flat-roofed warehouse or some such by the river . . . blew the chute free and
came in for a good enough if rather bouncy landing on the roof by means of the
suit's jump jets. I was scanning for Sergeant Jelal's beacon as I hit. And found that
I was on the wrong side of the river; Jelly's star showed up on the compass ring
inside my helmet far south of where it should have been -- I was too far north. I
trotted toward the river side of the roof as I took a range and bearing on the squad
leader next to me, found that he was over a mile out of position, called, "Ace!
dress your line," tossed a bomb behind me as I stepped off the building and across
the river. Ace answered as I could have expected -- Ace should have had my spot
but he didn't want to give up his squad; nevertheless he didn't fancy taking orders
from me. The warehouse went up behind me and the blast hit me while I was still
over the river, instead of being shielded by the buildings on the far side as I should
have been. It darn near tumbled my gyros and I came close to tumbling myself. I
had set that bomb for fifteen seconds . . . or had I? I suddenly realized that I had let
myself get excited, the worst thing you can do once you're on the ground. "Just
like a drill," that was the way, just as Jelly had warned me. Take your time and do
it right, even if it takes another half second. As I hit I took another reading on Ace
and told him again to realign his squad. He didn't answer but he was already doing
it. I let it ride. As long as Ace did his job, I could afford to swallow his surliness --
for now. But back aboard ship (if Jelly kept me on as assistant section leader) we
would eventually have to pick a quiet spot and find out who was boss. He was a
career corporal and I was just a term lance acting as corporal, but he was under me
and you can't afford to take any lip under those circumstances. Not permanently.
But I didn't have time then to think about it; while I was jumping the river I had
spotted a juicy target and I wanted to get it before somebody else noticed it -- a
lovely big group of what looked like public buildings on a hill. Temples, maybe . .
. or a palace. They were miles outside the area we were sweeping, but one rule of a
smash & run is to expend at least half your ammo outside your sweep area; that
way the enemy is kept confused as to where you actually are -- that and keep
moving, do everything fast. You're always heavily outnumbered; surprise and
speed are what saves you. I was already loading my rocket launcher while I was
checking on Ace and telling him for the second time to straighten up. Jelly's voice
reached me right on top of that on the all-hands circuit: "Platoon! By leapfrog!
Forward!" My boss, Sergeant Johnson, echoed, "By leapfrog! Odd numbers!
Advance!" That left me with nothing to worry about for twenty seconds, so I
jumped up on the building nearest me, raised the launcher to my shoulder, found
the target and pulled the first trigger to let the rocket have a look at its target --
pulled the second trigger and kissed it on its way, jumped back to the ground.
"Second section, even numbers!" I called out ... waited for the count in my mind
and ordered, "Advance!" And did so myself, hopping over the next row of
buildings, and, while I was in the air, fanning the first row by the riverfront with a
hand flamer. They seemed to be wood construction and it looked like time to start
a good fire -- with luck, some of those warehouses would house oil products, or
even explosives. As I hit, the Y-rack on my shoulders launched two small H. E.
bombs a couple of hundred yards each way to my right and left flanks but I never
saw what they did as just then my first rocket hit -that unmistakable (if you've ever
seen one) brilliance of an atomic explosion. It was just a peewee, of course, less
than two kilotons nominal yield, with tamper and implosion squeeze to produce
results from a less-than critical mass -- but then who wants to be bunk mates with
a cosmic catastrophe? It was enough to clean off that hilltop and make everybody
in the city take shelter against fallout. Better still, any of the local yokels who
happened to be outdoors and looking that way wouldn't be seeing anything else for
a couple of hours -- meaning me. The dash hadn't dazzled me, nor would it dazzle
any of us; our face bowls are heavily leaded, we wear snoopers over our eyes --
and we're trained to duck and take it on the armor if we do happen to be looking
the wrong way. So I merely blinked hard -- opened my eyes and stared straight at
a local citizen just coming out of an opening in the building ahead of me. He
looked at me, I looked at him, and he started to raise something -- a weapon, I
suppose -- as Jelly called out, "Odd numbers! Advance!" I didn't have time to fool
with him; I was a good five hundred yards short of where I should have been by
then. I still had the hand flamer in my left hand; I toasted him and jumped over the
building he had been coming out of, as I started to count. A hand flamer is
primarily for incendiary work but it is a good defensive anti-personnel weapon in
tight quarters; you don't have to aim it much. Between excitement and anxiety to
catch up I jumped too high and too wide. It's always a temptation to get the most
out of your jump gear - but don't do it! It leaves you hanging in the air for seconds,
a big fat target. The way to advance is to skim over each building as you come to
it, barely clearing it, and taking full advantage of cover while you're down - and
never stay in one place more than a second or two, never give them time to target
in on you. Be somewhere else, anywhere. Keep moving. This one I goofed -- too
much for one row of buildings, too little for the row beyond it; I found myself
coming down on a roof. But not a nice flat one where I might have tarried three
seconds to launch another peewee A-rocket; this roof was a jungle of pipes and
stanchions and assorted ironmongery -- a factory maybe, or some sort of chemical
works. No place to land. Worse still, half a dozen natives were up there. These
geezers are humanoid, eight or nine feet tall, much skinnier than we are and with a
higher body temperature; they don't wear any clothes and they stand out in a set of
snoopers like a neon sign. They look still funnier in daylight with your bare eyes
but I would rather fight them than the arachnids -those Bugs make me queezy. If
these laddies were up there thirty seconds earlier when my rocket hit, then they
couldn't see me, or anything. But I couldn't be certain and didn't want to tangle
with them in any case; it wasn't that kind of a raid. So I jumped again while I was
still in the air, scattering a handful of ten-second fire pills to keep them busy,
grounded, jumped again at once, and called out, "Second section! Even numbers! .
. . Advance!" and kept right on going to close the gap, while trying to spot, every
time I jumped, something worth expending a rocket on. I had three more of the
little A-rockets and I certainly didn't intend to take any back with me. But I had
had pounded into me that you must get your money's worth with atomic weapons -
- it was only the second time that I had been allowed to carry them.
Right now I was trying to spot their waterworks; a direct hit on it could make the
whole city uninhabitable, force them to evacuate it without directly killing anyone
-- just the sort of nuisance we had been sent down to commit. It should --
according to the map we had studied under hypnosis -- be about three miles
upstream from where I was. But I couldn't see it; my jumps didn't take me high
enough, maybe. I was tempted to go higher but I remembered what Migliaccio had
said about not trying for a medal, and stuck to doctrine. I set the Y-rack launcher
on automatic and let it lob a couple of little bombs every time I hit. I set fire to
things more or less at random in between, and tried to find the waterworks, or
some other worth-while target. Well, there was something up there at the proper
range -waterworks or whatever, it was big. So I hopped on top of the tallest
building near me, took a bead on it, and let fly. As I bounced down I heard Jelly:
"Johnnie! Red! Start bending in the flanks." I acknowledged and heard Red
acknowledge and switched my beacon to blinker so that Red could pick me out for
certain, took a range and bearing on his blinker while I called out, "Second
Section! Curve in and envelop! Squad leaders acknowledge!" Fourth and Fifth
squads answered, "Wilco"; Ace said, "We're already doin' it -- pick up your feet."
Red's beacon showed the right flank to be almost ahead of me and a good fifteen
miles away. Golly! Ace was right; I would have to pick up my feet or I would
never close the gap in time -- and me with a couple of hundredweight of ammo
and sundry nastiness still on me that I just had to find time to use up. We had
landed in a V formation, with Jelly at the bottom of the V and Red and myself at
the ends of the two arms; now we had to close it into a circle around the retrieval
rendezvous . . . which meant that Red and I each had to cover more ground than
the others and still do our full share of damage. At least the leapfrog advance was
over with once we started to encircle; I could quit counting and concentrate on
speed. It was getting to be less healthy to be anywhere, even moving fast. We had
started with the enormous advantage of surprise, reached the ground without being
hit (at least I hoped nobody had been hit coming in), and had been rampaging in
among them in a fashion that let us fire at will without fear of hitting each other
while they stood a big chance of hitting their own people in shooting at us -- if
they could find us to shoot at, at all. (I'm no games-theory expert but I doubt if any
computer could have analyzed what we were doing in time to predict where we
would be next.) Nevertheless the home defenses were beginning to fight back, coordinated
or not. I took a couple of near misses with explosives, close enough to
rattle my teeth even inside armor and once I was brushed by some sort of beam
that made my hair stand on end and half paralyzed me for a moment -- as if I had
hit my funny bone, but all over. If the suit hadn't already been told to jump, I guess
I wouldn't have got out of there. Things like that make you pause to wonder why
you ever took up soldiering -- only I was too busy to pause for anything. Twice,
jumping blind over buildings, I landed right in the middle of a group of them -
jumped at once while fanning wildly around me with the hand flamer. Spurred on
this way, I closed about half of my share of the gap, maybe four miles, in
minimum time but without doing much more than casual damage. My Y-rack had
gone empty two jumps back; finding myself alone in sort of a courtyard I stopped
to put my reserve H.E. bombs into it while I took a bearing on Ace -- found that I
was far enough out in front of the flank squad to think about expending my last
two A-rockets. I jumped to the top of the tallest building in the neighborhood. It
was getting light enough to see; I flipped the snoopers up onto my forehead and
made a fast scan with bare eyes, looking for anything behind us worth shooting at,
anything at all; I had no time to be choosy. There was something on the horizon in
the direction of their spaceport -- administration & control, maybe, or possibly
even a starship. Almost inline and about half as far away was an enormous
structure which I couldn't identify even that loosely. The range to the spaceport
was extreme but I let the rocket see it, said, "Go find it, baby!" and twisted its tail -
slapped the last one in, sent it toward the nearer target, and jumped. That building
took a direct hit just as I left it. Either a skinny had judged (correctly) that it was
worth one of their buildings to try for one of us, or one of my own mates was
getting mighty careless with fireworks. Either way, I didn't want to jump from that
spot, even a skimmer; I decided to go through the next couple of buildings instead
of over. So I grabbed the heavy flamer off my back as I hit and dipped the
snoopers down over my eyes, tackled a wall in front of me with a knife beam at
full power. A section of wall fell away and I charged in. And backed out even
faster. I didn't know what it was I had cracked open. A congregation in church -- a
skinny flophouse -- maybe even their defense headquarters. All I knew was that it
was a very big room filled with more skinnies than I wanted to see in my whole
life. Probably not a church, for somebody took a shot at me as I popped back out
just a slug that bounced off my armor, made my ears ring, and staggered me
without hurting me. But it reminded me that I wasn't supposed to leave without
giving them a souvenir of my visit. I grabbed the first thing on my belt and lobbed
it in -- and heard it start to squawk. As they keep telling you in Basic, doing
something constructive at once is better than figuring out the best thing to do hours
later. By sheer chance I had done the right thing. This was a special bomb, one
each issued to us for this mission with instructions to use them if we found ways to
make them effective. The squawking I heard as I threw it was the bomb shouting
in skinny talk (free translation): "I'm a thirty-second bomb! I'm a thirty-second
bomb! Twenty-nine! . . . twenty-eight! ... twenty-seven! -- " It was supposed to
frazzle their nerves. Maybe it did; it certainly frazzled mine. Kinder to shoot a
man. I didn't wait for the countdown; I jumped, while I wondered whether they
would find enough doors and windows to swarm out in time. I got a bearing on
Red's blinker at the top of the jump and one on Ace as I grounded. I was falling
behind again -- time to hurry. But three minutes later we had closed the gap; I had
Red on my left flank a half mile away. He reported it to Jelly. We heard Jelly's
relaxed growl to the entire platoon: "Circle is closed, but the beacon is not down
yet. Move forward slowly and mill around, make a little more trouble - but mind
the lad on each side of you; don't make trouble for him. Good job, so far -- don't
spoil it. Platoon! By sections . . . Muster!" It looked like a good job to me, too;
much of the city was burning and, although it was almost full light now, it was
hard to tell whether bare eyes were better than snoopers, the smoke was so thick.
Johnson, our section leader, sounded off: "Second section, call off!" I echoed,
"Squads four, five, and six -- call off and report!" The assortment of safe circuits
we had available in the new model comm units certainly speeded things up; Jelly
could talk to anybody or to his section leaders; a section leader could call his
whole section, or his noncoms; and the platoon could muster twice as fast, when
seconds matter. I listened to the fourth squad call off while I inventoried my
remaining firepower and lobbed one bomb toward a skinny who poked his head
around a corner. He left and so did I -- "Mill around," the boss man had said. The
fourth squad bumbled the call off until the squad leader remembered to fill in with
Jenkins' number; the fifth squad clicked off like an abacus and I began to feel good
. . . when the call off stopped after number four in Ace's squad. I called out, "Ace,
where's Dizzy?" "Shut up," he said. "Number six! Call off!" "Six!" Smith
answered. "Seven !" "Sixth squad, Flores missing," Ace completed it. "Squad
leader out for pickup." "One man absent," I reported to Johnson. "Flores, squad
six." "Missing or dead?" "I don't know. Squad leader and assistant section leader
dropping out for pickup."
"Johnnie, you let Ace take it." But I didn't hear him, so I didn't answer. I heard him
report to Jelly and I heard Jelly cuss. Now look, I wasn't bucking for a medal -it's
the assistant section leader's business to make pickup; he's the chaser, the last man
in, expendable. The squad leaders have other work to do. As you've no doubt
gathered by now the assistant section leader isn't necessary as long as the section
leader is alive. Right that moment I was feeling unusually expendable, almost
expended, because I was hearing the sweetest sound in the universe, the beacon
the retrieval boat would land on, sounding our recall. The beacon is a robot rocket,
fired ahead of the retrieval boat, just a spike that buries itself in the ground and
starts broadcasting that welcome, welcome music. The retrieval boat homes in on
it automatically three minutes later and you had better be on hand, because the bus
can't wait and there won't be another one along. But you don't walk away on
another cap trooper, not while there's a chance he's still alive -- not in Rasczak's
Roughnecks. Not in any outfit of the Mobile Infantry. You try to make pickup. I
heard Jelly order: "Heads up, lads! Close to retrieval circle and interdict! On the
bounce!" And I heard the beacon's sweet voice: " -- to the everlasting glory of the
infantry, shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young!" and I wanted to
head for it so bad I could taste it. Instead I was headed the other way, closing on
Ace's beacon and expending what I had left of bombs and fire pills and anything
else that would weigh me down. "Ace! You got his beacon?" "Yes. Go back,
Useless!" "I've got you by eye now. Where is he?" "Right ahead of me, maybe
quarter mile. Scram! He's my man ." I didn't answer; I simply cut left oblique to
reach Ace about where he said Dizzy was. And found Ace standing over him, a
couple of skinnies flamed down and more running away. I lit beside him. "Let's
get him out of his armor - the boat'll be down any second!" "He's too bad hurt!"
I looked and saw that it was true -- there was actually a hole in his armor and
blood coming out. And I was stumped. To make a wounded pickup you get him
out of his armor . . . then you simply pick him up in your arms -no trouble in a
powered suit -- and bounce away from there. A bare man weighs less than the
ammo and stuff you've expended. "What'll we do?" "We carry him," Ace said
grimly. "Grab ahold the left side of his belt." He grabbed the right side, we
manhandled Flores to his feet. "Lock on! Now . . . by the numbers, stand by to
jump -- one -- two!" We jumped. Not far, not well. One man alone couldn't have
gotten him off the ground; an armored suit is too heavy. But split it between two
men and it can be done. We jumped -- and we jumped -- and again, and again,
with Ace calling it and both of us steadying and catching Dizzy on each
grounding. His gyros seemed to be out. We heard the beacon cut off as the
retrieval boat landed on it -I saw it land . . . and it was too far away. We heard the
acting platoon sergeant call out: "In succession, prepare to embark!" And Jelly
called out, "Belay that order!" We broke at last into the open and saw the boat
standing on its tail, heard the ululation of its take-off warning -- saw the platoon
still on the ground around it, in interdiction circle, crouching behind the shield
they had formed. Heard Jelly shout, "In succession, man the boat -- move!" And
we were still too far away! I could see them peel off from the first squad, swarm
into the boat as the interdiction circle tightened. And a single figure broke out of
the circle, came toward us at a speed possible only to a command suit. Jelly caught
us while we were in the air, grabbed Flores by his Y-rack and helped us lift. Three
jumps got us to the boat. Everybody else was inside but the door was still open.
We got him in and closed it while the boat pilot screamed that we had made her
miss rendezvous and now we had all bought it! Jelly paid no attention to her; we
laid Flores down and lay down beside him. As the blast hit us Jelly was saying to
himself, "All present, Lieutenant. Three men hurt -- but all present!" I'll say this
for Captain Deladrier: they don't make any better pilots. A rendezvous, boat to
ship in orbit, is precisely calculated. I don't know how, but it is, and you don't
change it. You can't. Only she did. She saw in her scope that the boat had failed to
blast on time; she braked back, picked up speed again -- and matched and took us
in, just by eye and touch, no time to compute it. If the Almighty ever needs an
assistant to keep the stars in their courses, I know where he can look. Flores died
on the way up.+

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Blood Pact said:

I'm going to sound more grumpy than I intend to, but it's mostly because I'm sad to be wrong. Sorry about that. Yes, I am aware that a Thunderhawk makes a Chmera look like crap, but I thought they were limited-space capable. Oh well. Sorry to not be quite the Space Marine fanboy, but I do find it difficult to believe that they are THAT much more durable. Sure, they can live through things that would splutch lesser men, but I imagine that as shrugging off some damage, and being able to heal from the rest, but falling from space, and basically thudding into the ground at high-speed, even they should die, or atl least be in poor shape to immediately jump out, and start fighting like it's nothing. I'm not saying that Space Marines aren't that durable, since they often can kill C'Tans on a 1-to-1 field (sarcasm), but it just doesn't seem like the freefalling pod should do that much damage, if Space Marines get out without even being shaken. If that was the case, then their vehicles should be immune to Crew Shaken and Crew Stunned results, since no weapon that didn't obliterate the vehicle outright should hit as hard as drop pod descent. Regardless, it was mentioned stuffing it with expensive tech, which Inquisitors COULD do, if they wanted drop pod insertions with their men, since they would need only a very small number of modified pods. Of course, yes there is that little difference between flying in, and falling in, and drop pods don't have to worry about AA guns, then I just have to hope that one of the people who works for my Inquisitor is a crack pilot.

Otherwise, I don't know of a good way to get the group of mortals into a war zone fast, in good shape, without getting shot up. Hundreds of guardsmen, and their hulking tanks, have to get to the ground somehow, when called in from off-planet, so I guess they need to land slowly, 20 miles off, and trudge in from outside the zone. It's lucky for them, then, that they have things like Basilisks, which can soften up the enemy from really far off, while the foot-sloggers cover the intervening distance.

venkelos said:

Imperial Guardsmen do actually land in colossal dropships miles from the front lines. It's a vast and complicated logistical matter to deploy even a single Regiment of Imperial Guardsmen from orbit. Space Marines as a fighting force are trained and equipped specifically to be really good at high-speed orbital insertion, able to deploy an entire battle company and supporting armour assets from orbit in half an hour or less, even into the middle of a warzone... but at the same time, it's why they don't have heavy armour (Land Raider aside) and heavy artillery like the Imperial Guard, because they need the majority of their vehicles to be light and fast. If you want to bring down someone from orbit quickly, you'll need a shuttle.

As for Space Marines enduring the rapid-insertion of a Drop Pod - between their armour (which, given how frequently Space Marines are required to use Drop Pods, is probably designed with their use in mind), their natural resilience, and the restraints in the pod itself, they emerge unscathed and ready to fight. They do, afterall, train extensively for it, because it's a common part of their combat doctrine. As noted in Into the Storm , modified Drop Pods (likely in part because the restraint harnesses need to be rebuilt for human proportions) and the use of specialised equipment to absorb impact stresses can allow a human to deploy in the same manner.

In the first Dark Heresy novel, Scourge the Heretic, there was a drop pod landing and the mortals thought they had crashed instead of landing; until the Kill Team popped out and said hello.

Nerd King said:

I suppose...with the correct protection, yes....

(but the pod are used to put armored space marines in the heart of the enemy, i think that a normal soldier won't survive along to do nothing)

Give 'em a breather mask and put them in a foam/honeycomb cocoon (as per the crash protection in Demolition Man, perhaps?). That'll work.

Then have lots of warning alarms go off during the drop, with the PCs powerless to do anything, and making a WP roll or gain an IP... DH is supposed ot be a dark horror game, after all...

In the long, oft-retconned history of 40K Imperial guard used to deploy in drop pods. It's been reserved as almost the sole domain of the space Marine now, which is far beffitting IRC.

Now, as most of you know, they don't just fall from from orbit and rely on the generic engineering and study construction to survive the crash. They have massive boosters on the bottom that kick in the retard the acceleration. The older dreadclaw drop pods actually have enough power to fly back up again. In theory, there's nothing stopping you having pods that are slowed more before impact so that it's surivable for humans but it's surivivability in thick combat requires it be going as fast as possible.

add some suspence rpg....

for the incredible g-stress, they are blind for some minutes.....

somenone seems to be ok and suddenly die for internal damage....

i suggest to use minor roleplay noise.....problem hearing.....a dental capsule explode....

and try to look what happened diring prolongued g-stress to the humam body....

have fun

Gantz the slaughterer said:

G stress can readily incapacitate pilots of modern fighter aircraft and result in mishaps due to G-induced loss of consciousness (GLC). The physiologic effects of high-G stress, including decreased head-level blood pressure due to hydrostatic pressure drop and decreased cardiac output due to inadequate venous return, result in the symptoms of visual loss and GLC. The body's primary natural defenses against the effects of G stress in flight, i.e., the neural tissue energy reserve and the cardiovascular baroceptor reflexes, determine the characteristic shape of the G-time tolerance curve, which is presented. Means of raising G tolerance fall into three categories: mechanical, physiological, and educational. Mechanical means include anti-G suits and valves, assisted positive-pressure breathing (APPB) systems, and special seats in which the seatback is reclined and/or the pilot's legs are elevated. Physiological means include frequent exposure to G stress, physical conditioning (weight training and moderate aerobic conditioning), selection of pilots for high natural tolerance, and performance of a vigorous and efficient anti-G straining maneuver. Educational means include briefings on methods of enhancing tolerance, and high-G training in a centrifuge to allow the pilot to perfect his anti-G straining maneuver. An improved anti-G valve, physical conditioning, high-G awareness briefings, and centrifuge training are now being applied in efforts to prevent GLC in current fighter aircraft. Future generations of even more maneuverable aircraft will probably necessitate the use of APPB, pilot selection, and high-G seats for protection of pilots from the effect of sustained high G forces.

*silly me*

I wonder how many letters the minimum post length is...

There is a section on droppods in 'Rites of Battle'.

It mentiones current-day droppods (as opposed to the still in use Dreadclaw Pods Chaos forces employ) get deployed by their cruisers, then use their own thrusters to exceed terminal velocity (rules state 12000kph) straight downwards. At that speed quote 'even the most advanced air defence systems have difficulty locking on to a drop pod'. Before crashing a counterthruster fires, which still has the pod crash to the ground like the anger of the emperor himself. The 'landing' itself is a weapon, often crushing many a foe in the impact zone - the stormbolters are just for save debarking of the Space Marines. Once down there it won't get back up until retreived (unlike Dreadclaws, which get 'Skimmer' rules after landing, tactical speed of 20m, cruising speed of 150kph).

Quote: 'Normal humans would be killed by the intense deceleration forces experienced during a normal atmospheric entry unless the vehicle was modified heavily in advance' < so it's possible to modify them, either by slowing their ramspeed or encapsulating the transportees, I'd wager.

Following is personal conjecture.

This type of delivery is perfectly suited to the role the Space Marines have in the 40k universe - they are hardened shock troups, quick insertion, maximum damage, greatest possible confusion and fear. The droppod as a weaponsystem in itself works for that purpose - hurling adamant projectiles from space to crush anything they land on and finding a balance to make it a viable form of quick transportation for the Marines. They take small casualties because of their fast descent, but it takes the enhanced physiology of a Space Marine to survive such an ordeal in battleready condition.

As Gantz pointed out, blood not reaching the brain due to g-forces is the main issue with such fast accelleration and deceleration - Lorewise Spacemarines have two big hearts, pumping blood through their system which should make it easier to keep the brain saturated with oxygen. They also have a far harder and sturdier skeleton, more and tighter muscle-mass and hormonally enhanced innards. Traits that would make a person a lot more durable, especially in situations such as this.

It should definitely be possible to throw down humans with a normal physique but just not at the speeds a Spacemarine's body can handle. Tyranids are reknown for being dropped from orbit in big sacs, Tau and Eldar might have more trouble with such an insertion, their physique being more on the fragile side. Can't say about their blood though and their metabolism's capability of keeping the brain saturated. Orks bodies could likely withstand the forces but their brains? Maybe all but the toughest would black out at the sudden decelleration. Necrons wouldn't have trouble for obvious reasons.

Got a bit off topic there so I'll shut it xD

venkelos said:

Drop pods are "Shock and Awe" weapons, think about it. While Valkyries are way better armored and can shoot back and thats good, I just fired a giant bullet full of angry and kill everything that moves at you from space. Not only that but drop pods routinely deal damage to planetary infastructure and sow even more confusion into the enemy.

venkelos said:

One of the deadliest things to us normals in a very high-g event is how much our brain rattles around inside our skull when said skull comes to a quick stop. The brain is basically floating inside the skull and high-g stops cause it to hit the skull case.My view is that the particular durability here that makes Astartes drop pods potentially lethal to normals is that their brains don't slosh around so much. This also applies to other internal organs. Then again, they also have tougher bones, so basal skull fractures are less of a threat.

It's not just about the bio-engineering of the marines though. It's also about their gear. The Astartes have much better tech available to them than the Guard or normal humans. Further, it's likley that the drop pods were built with Astartes power armor in mind and vice versa. Not only could this be in the form clamping mechanisms that ensure the marines don't get tossed, but those clamping mechanisms could be attached by shock absorbing mechanisms. Also, the powered musculature of the armor could act in reverse... cushioning impact by allowing the marine to move a bit when the deccelleration kicks in, but providing enough resistance that it's not over dramatic. Again, that's to slow down the brain and other organs from slamming into the harder bits of the body.

I think having pods which can successfully drop a "normal" is fine. I see no reason Astartes pods shouldn't be able to be turned up to "11" though... just high enough to seriously harm a normal without special gear, just low enough to keep from harming the marines inside. The faster, the safer it is from the enemy. It also allows the pod to be used in more landing areas as it will have enough force to smash through trees/buildings and still land relatively upright (although the doors open downwards as part of a mechanism to make it self-righting anyway). Marines will seek every advantage, there's no reason to make the pods slower than they need to be.

That said, there's no reason that in DW, pods shouldn't be able to be adjusted either by design or by tech-marine to deccelerate a little more gently for a special mission. It's not about how fast they go, it's about how quickly they stop. There's plenty of fluff out there that indicates that Astartes aren't quite as modification-adverse as the Mechanicum, mostly in the form of field-expedient Rhino and Land Raider variants.