In Old Man's War by Scalzi, the troops are sealed in a ball of nanites that absorb the heat from re-entry and change shape to that of a glider and then finally fall apart into a cloud of dust just above ground. In fantasy, a wizard did it. In science fiction, it's nanites.

@sysomphonemanuthong3953

Жыл бұрын

What is science faction? WD Hallmark % 26 so evil is on Saturday 🪐? It's how nice the poisons of ag and compression is on the Rollbot that is working in are Galaxy? Your the Seagreat. Keep your acounts end tell 2024& WD route 66 was old maps. Your ok with Jupiter files! AES is covering slots! And earth % is love you &CSC covers the slacking ends. Make a CD for 2024 with all your files for a device that plays it in a store investment for fewture children. Your saveing the children of pork wolds of WD cant stand that evil Creator! Y? We setting a reservation of date on earth also.

@kidShibuya

Жыл бұрын

Still love that series though.

@acadiano10

Жыл бұрын

Scalzi does some interesting things, and hits lots of great tropes well. I forgot about this part though!

@Alphacheesehunter

Жыл бұрын

Gah! You have excellent taste!

@EgoEroTergum

Жыл бұрын

At that point, why not just have the Nanites do the fighting, ala terminator 2?

Isaac's premise that dropships / pods will be fired upon is correct, imo. But generally, paratroopers (even today) are delivered to areas that are minimally armed. They learned in WW2 that dropping them directly on armored formations wasn't conducive to operational success. I'd suspect the same principles would be used for dropships and droppods as for paratroopers. Orbital bombardment may be required to create that drop zone, but the principle remains, clear the area of enemy forces first. 🤣👍

@cesaravegah3787

Жыл бұрын

Most probably....or extremly stealthy insertions of small teams but no, hard to imagine mass drops of troops on contested áreas, more so with the proliferation of anti-drone equipment and man portable AA, the dissaster suffered by the Russian special forces who tried the helicopter assault on Kiev airport seems like a warning about things to come.

@dansmith1661

Жыл бұрын

@@cesaravegah3787 Can't forget the contributions of the Ghost of Kiev.

@amateurcrastinator9523

Жыл бұрын

Not to argue, just offering a counterpoint. Orbital bombardment would very effectively announce your presence. If the mission you're undertaking needs to be covert, that wouldn't work.

@cesaravegah3787

Жыл бұрын

@@amateurcrastinator9523 Orbital bombardment is barely under full nuclear warfare on the scalation aspect of the equation so I believe that not always would be a political or practical option even if temporal control of the requiered space battlefield is achieved, as you said, not to argue but I believe that covert insertions always would be part of warfare, you dont always need or want to hit the enemy with a hammer, sometimes Is way better an scalpel.

@cesaravegah3787

Жыл бұрын

@@dansmith1661 That is propaganda, the mauling that the top russian commands transported by their most elite helicopter combat transports received on that battle is an historic fact, Putin bitches and trolls of course say something different, nobody sane cares.

Motherships are used in real world applications. They are used for the deployment of submersibles such as those that visit shipwrecks. German U-boats of ww2 used bigger U-boats they called “milk cows”. Somali pirates used larger fishing boats as motherships. The lunar landers of the space race used the command modules as motherships. Aircraft carriers, exist. The list could go on but I need to make breakfast. To quote the Wikipedia page on motherships “A mother ship, mothership or mother-ship is a large vehicle that leads, serves, or carries other smaller vehicles. A mother ship may be a maritime ship, aircraft, or spacecraft.”

@krisbarr5663

Жыл бұрын

I am a mothership. I deploy my fleet each morning.

@tommycooker3996

11 ай бұрын

But this video is discussing drop ships….

@genkibob

11 ай бұрын

The drop ship equivalents would be Hueys, Chinooks, Black Hawks, and Ospreys. WWII had the drop pods in the form of Higgins boats and Waco and Horsa gliders.

@wils315

11 ай бұрын

Glad somebody corrected this, so close to the start of the video hearing it is not a commonly used term bugged me. Working in a maritime industry it is frequently used along with the term daughter craft.

@jamesharding3459

11 ай бұрын

@@wils315 I have never heard it used in a military context, but it's a valid term, I suppose.

The interesting thing about 40K's drop pods is that they're actually weapons in and of themselves, not in the sense that they're armed (although there are versions for that) but the kinetic force of landing, and doors opening means anyone unfortunate to be close enough gets squished.

@tarektechmarine8209

Жыл бұрын

There is assault droppods like deathstorm filled with missiles and assault cannons 360. It can also be used as ammo drops and small supplies.

@SirHeinzbond

Жыл бұрын

i think the troops insight would be also squashed by the impact on ground and the rapid deceleration...

@lastword8783

Жыл бұрын

@@SirHeinzbond Not the genetically advanced super humans with crazy armor that are 40k Space Marines. Thats the first rule of warfare, have more super soldiers than the enemy

@snarkymoosesshack8793

Жыл бұрын

@@lastword8783 They also handwave that shit away in the codex, too, as some Dark Age anti-inertia tech back in second or third edition I believe.

@miyav482

Жыл бұрын

@@SirHeinzbondgood luck with that

The anime Aldnoah Zero had the most awesome drop sequence using Landing Castles. Its a dropship the size of a skyscraper that impacts like a nuke and levels the entire area it lands on.

@NullElemental

Жыл бұрын

Exactly what I was thinking of, the best way to do an orbital insertion is if the lander is an actual weapon itself

Okay so now I'm imagining the drop pods themselves dropping bombs -- clear the landing zone, create obstacles to block the defender's from gaining LOS on the pods, and you raise a huge cloud of dust that will give the pods concealment as they deploy parachutes, a vulnerable phase. For now, I think parachutes are still the likely choice over rockets. Less mass, smaller size, less complicated. Cutting down on landing time sounds nice, but so does bringing more troops, being a smaller target, having more armor on the pod, or having spare room for decoys and ECM. If you want to put actual fleshy people on the ground, they need to believe in a reasonable chance of survival, at least 80%. The same railgun you use for clearing the landing zone on the way down could be used as static (or even towed) artillery. Orbital to surface combat sounds like it could take trench warfare to a whole new subterranean dimension. You dig and then you dig some more! We'd be eating cockroaches in no time. Or manufacture some fancy invertible cities like in Neon Genesis Evangelion.

@sentane8031

Жыл бұрын

I like the idea of the drop pods having no form of reentry control. They just sink through the atmosphere like rocks, having internal shock absorption so the humans inside don't become a paste on the floor or ceiling of the craft.

@squashiejoshie200000

11 ай бұрын

Go watch the drop pod scene from Genocidal Organ

@mikemarkwilka4135

11 ай бұрын

@@squashiejoshie200000 Yeah you weren't wrong, that was so damn cool. I'm pretty picky with my anime but that does peek my interest. Apparently that "smart" cluster bomb is a real weapon, although discontinued.

Halos ODST(Orbital Drop Shock Troops) used Single occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicles to quickly insert at or near the target. They were as implied single occupant reinforced pods. They "used the atmosphere to do most of the work slowing the pod down, as the ceramic armor would burn off revealing a crash cage, and closer to the ground with air brakes that had rockets on the ends of the 4 brakes, slowing the pods down before landing, but it was still more of a crash lol.

@itorca

11 ай бұрын

Yeah odst reminded me of Tiberian sun opening mission but I would think that delivery option with multiple weapons platforms would be better more like sst or multiple individuals to use a multitude of combined arms but a solo recon trooper pod sounds expensive insertion .war is expensive cheap and simple is the best

@bshinn4884

11 ай бұрын

@itorca835 Would definitely be expensive. They were usually single use. They did have different types. Some that had larger pack outs, a type that could be launched from slipstream even? Always thought it would be realistic for a low type two civilization as they wouldn't be all too difficult to manufacture vs. some of the other more technologically advanced methods explained in video. Quickly inserting soldiers behind enemy lines has always been and likely always will be a viable strategy in order to get behind and sabotage battle lines from the rear, or sabotage supply lines, power stations, rear support, communications, and other infrastructure. If they have to drop from orbit, of course using just a parchute isn't gonna cut it, so this would likely be amongst the first step in a long line of advancements in tactical Insertion from space. I do like the idea mentioned in another comment on nanobots thar configure from a protective shielding(wonder if a layer would be ablative or if the nanites would be strong enough to survive the friction) and turn into a glider shape as they get into the lower atmosphere. I imagine it wouldn't be a "one-time" use, and could even turn into shielding or weaponry, or surveillance equipment or something else on the ground?

@itorca

11 ай бұрын

@@bshinn4884 I would think from a combat engineer a instant forward outpost or base would be a marvel sure less of a shootem up. but the power play is immense if you could just drop a fob that would be a well shot what do we do about that situation. on a chaotic everchanging battlefield it's who's making moves and who's reacting to chaos. But to just drop one guy isnt the same effect

@itorca

11 ай бұрын

@@bshinn4884 I was talking to a buddy he was saying a pod could deploy team under the planetary surface and use the pod to make a underground fob to send strikes from.

@casematecardinal

11 ай бұрын

@@bshinn4884 single use is the best way to go about it. Save a lot of time and energy by having smaller, lighter, far cheaper to produce, disposable units. The fact that they can be mass produced so easily and be discarded also allows for stuff like magazine fed insertion devices meaning you put a whole platoon in atmosphere in seconds while maintaining the capability to do it again and again.

makes me want to play "Civiliation call to power" as drop ships is one of the late game strats. best civ game as far as I am concerned.

@Deridus

Жыл бұрын

20 years later, I still hear "Find the enemy!"

Snacks? Ready! Drinks? Ready! Notification platoon; jump in! Go, go, go!!!

@dingo4530

Жыл бұрын

This is my snack There are many like it, but this one is mine

@SpecialEDy

Жыл бұрын

The first rule of warfare: to be well stocked on snacks and drinks!

@patrickkenyon2326

Жыл бұрын

On the bounce! Do you wanna live forever, apes?

@jamesamos6565

11 ай бұрын

Light is green! Don't stand in hatch!

Regarding planets not being defenseless, I just remembered Robotech/Macross, when the Zentradi had four million ships, and earth was able to take out about a quarter of them just using one really really big cannon in Alaska

@douglasrood2650

11 ай бұрын

The grand cannon and in the lore there were 7 of them planned (one on each continent), the rogue zentradei during the malcontent uprisings lived in the barrel of the unfinished Brazil grand cannon.

@mahatmarandy5977

11 ай бұрын

@@douglasrood2650 i did not know that! Is that Macross lore as well, or Robotech only?

@douglasrood2650

11 ай бұрын

@@mahatmarandy5977 There was a huge series of novels written by Jack McKinney back in the day (they are trying to get them republished) but the novels covered all of the history that did not appear in the cartoons, it covered the comics (published and unpublished), the cartoons and all the story filler that appeared in the Palladium Books RPGs as well. If you can find a copy of the novels they are worth the read if you are a Robotech fan and it is the original story before the Shadow Chronicles re-write.

On the bigger side, Battletech dropships come in a range of sizes. From the Leopard which drops a mech platoon, or a Fury that carries an infantry company and a couple vehicle platoons, basically their APCs and maybe a supporting light tank platoon. On the large end you have huge dropships that can transport a regiment (Excalibur and Colossus for example). One of the more interesting is the Fortress Class. It transports a mixed battalion, a company each of mechs, tanks, and infantry. But it is heavily armored and armed for its size compared to other transports, with the weapons mounted where they are more effective if being chased, or firing on targets attacking it on the ground. The Fortress pretty much does what it says on the tin. In addition to providing medical and repair support nearly all dropships in the setting provide, it also is a small fortress to anchor your dropzone. The dropship uniquely has a heavy artillery piece mounted in the nose that can only be used when the dropship is grounded. Basically Battletech has a range of sizes, allowing to a military to dial in the risk of many eggs in one basket vs the inefficiency of having to gather enough jumpships to transport a force sent by exclusively smaller dropships. In practice while choice is often limited, a general in theory could have a mix of large transports that would best only be landed in secured dropzones, and smaller dropships that can be exposed to more risk for raids and/or to secure a dropzone for later groundings.

@Scriptedviolince

11 ай бұрын

Though it should be noted that in Battletech, the reason why Dropships are called such is because of the Jumpship. Dropships are named such because they drop away from the Jumpship, not because it drops from space into the atmosphere. Even dropships which can't enter atmosphere are still called dropships because they exist in the dropship/jumpship binary paradigm of function.

@markgirard4023

11 ай бұрын

​@@ScriptedviolinceAlso should be noted Jumpships aren't targeted by nearly all fractions given their cost and rarity its not worth it to destroy thm

Very shocked there was no first rule of warfare in this video

@TheShizzlefication

Жыл бұрын

Same, especially since there were rules already.

@AGPMandavel

Жыл бұрын

the first rule of warfare is to never divulge all the rules of warfare

@seanhewitt603

Жыл бұрын

He did mention turning the surface to glass...

@gottlichhg

Жыл бұрын

There was the Rule of Cool.

We’re in the pipe, five by five.

I think the best considered drop pods have always been the ones described in starship troopers

@muninrob

Жыл бұрын

Some of the fancy drop pods from warhammer 40K's "heresy period" were pretty decent - particularly the fancy "something claw drop pod" that they also used to use as boarding craft for "naval" combat.

@elijahalexander5297

11 ай бұрын

More of a halo or titanfall fan of the orbital drop

1:18 Actually, mothership IS a term used in hungarian military jargon to refer to carriers. It stems from the old hydroplane tender's name, that was called "repülőgép-anyahajó", or airplane-mothership.

@robomonkey1018

Жыл бұрын

Ah Hungary everyone's favorite landlocked naval power.

@pougetguillaume4632

Жыл бұрын

@@robomonkey1018 the swiss and bolivian fleet want to have a word with you

@kovi567

Жыл бұрын

@@robomonkey1018 *Horthy Miklós will remember that.

@lancerhalsey4816

Жыл бұрын

That's pretty much how it's called in Chinese too. It's called "aviation(aircraft) mothership".

@matthiuskoenig3378

Жыл бұрын

@robomonkey1018 the danube is pretty big mate. That's where the Hungarian 'navy' operates

“Roger. Arthur is in the pipeline, five by five…”

i did always think an orbital ring with drop ships of some kind was a perfect rapid reaction solution for earth, not just military but also for emergency response.

@mastercharlesdiltardino8058

Жыл бұрын

Good for pizza delivery

@petergerdes1094

Жыл бұрын

Sure it's cool, but isn't it pretty much strictly better just to scatter forces around the planet and give them starship style point to point transit. Either the ring is moving at orbital velocities which means you have to pay a pretty high fuel cost to get your dropships up there only to burn it off again or you've built one of those fancy active structures which seems as likely to be the cause of the disaster -- and in any case it seems cheaper just to have a bunch of forces on the ground.

@labrat810

Жыл бұрын

@@mastercharlesdiltardino8058Q: How do you know you live in a post-scarcity society? A: Orbital Pizza Delivery

@Theaverageazn247

Жыл бұрын

@@mastercharlesdiltardino8058 amazon prime now!!!

@a.N.....

Жыл бұрын

Not economical, are you're soldiers just gonna live in space until there is an emergency?

I just finished my 2nd cup of coffee so I’ll be deploying some drop pods in about 15 minutes.

@hardmcshaft7931

Жыл бұрын

Hahaha well done sir. Beware the splash back

@Born-Bitter

Жыл бұрын

@@hardmcshaft7931 Divert all power to the REAR deflectors

I’m totally lost as to how you don’t have more subscribers. The subjects you pick and your take on it is absolutely mind blowing.

@isaacarthurSFIA

Жыл бұрын

Personally I'm always pleasantly surprised there are so many folks who enjoy the topics we cover :) More are always welcome of course.

@ASpaceOstrich

Жыл бұрын

@@isaacarthurSFIA I can't even remember how I found you, I think I was looking up worldbuilding related stuff and you came up. Your distinctive voice is actually what hooked me. I feel kinda bad about that because it was a little bit meanspirited, but I'm glad I did, because you're very interesting and if I ever do get off my butt and actually make my sci-fi setting, your videos will be primary sources for the stuff I do. In particular your videos on extreme terraforming.

My absolute favorite version of drop ships is the landing castles from Aldnoah zero. They’re practically meteors that spawn a military base. And man they are destructive

@casematecardinal

11 ай бұрын

Yeah but they are towed systems aren't they? Not that useful as its something of a big expenditure for a single use. It makes sense for something like an odst drop pod but not so much for a whole base

@jksupergamer

11 ай бұрын

@@casematecardinal i wouldnt say they are the biggest waste since you would drop them onto major cities to clear out a zone. Also i dont think they are single use.

I like to call this "Orbital Bombardment by personnel".

I was not expecting discussions on dropships... Interesting... 🤔

Drop ships/pods are basically the futuristic version of paratroopers. ^^

@PerfectAlibi1

Жыл бұрын

@@benjigeez Well it's more air/spacecraft to land, so paratrooper. XD

@RCAvhstape

Жыл бұрын

Heinlein modeled his Mobile Infantry on both US Marines and US Army Airborne.

@dansmith1661

Жыл бұрын

@@RCAvhstape They are wearing high heels and dresses like a rainbow brigade?

@RCAvhstape

Жыл бұрын

@@dansmith1661 ???

@PersonalityMalfunction

Жыл бұрын

Surely it's Air Cav???

I love your content. More for the though exercise than anything. I like the amazing 3d images you provide as background but as an artist myself I had to say something about the beautiful art you displayed in this one.

See, I always thought that the thing that defines a Mothership is, it doesn't just *carry* strike craft. It has fabrication facilities onboard to *make* them. It's essentially a mobile base and factory with rapid deployment capabilities. Maybe with mining/refining and hydroponics capabilities to make it its own fully independent logistics hub.

@Joshua_N-A

11 ай бұрын

Will 3D printers be a future addition to aircraft carriers? I can imagine the maintenance guys printing necessary parts for each aircraft.

Featured in one of my sci-fi WIPs. Great research. Thank you.

Im surprised you didnt use this episode to use the "Number 1 rule of warfare" joke. I love that one.

Love that you talk about planets able to strike back at ships in orbit. having fun one day, I was designing ways a planet could fight back and while missiles and giant guns with fighter bombers are good, I had the idea you could also add some sort of tractor beams or similar trek. Imaging having your ship in orbit grabbed by this system and then yanked back to the surface in a crash landing; perhaps even dropped in pit surrounded by heavy weapons that can immediately just start pounding your crashed ship.

Awesome video. This is the first video of yours that I have seen. I will definitely start watching your past and future videos.

"Feet First into Hell!"

I love 40k and its always an awesome day when i know SFIA is going to be discussing it at least in some way!! I just recently listened to a series of videos on the siege of Arnagedon (both of them) and the siege of Vraks they were pretty cool in terms of how a planetary assault might go. That said the number of troops in the 40k universe sometimes seems a bit low to me. Planets are rathet large and i think the numbers in the siege of Vraks were somwhat more accurate given how much of the planet was uninhabitable and how many hives were actually held by the rebels. The Orks in Armageddon had numbers but the imperium. They seemed a little light even with all those Adeptus Astartes evening the pkaying field.

@justarandomname420

Жыл бұрын

Just add a few 0's to any 40k figures for them to make actual sence. Also... WAAAGH!

@PersonalityMalfunction

Жыл бұрын

I'm far from being an expert on the lore of 40k, but isn't it the case if there needs to be troops on the ground only the initial strikes on centers of gravity are conducted by the marines? Actual occupation and pacification (cleansing...) is the realm of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Imperial Guards, not the Legiones Astartes. Like I said, my 40k expertise is very, very limited, but I love learning more if I'm wrong about this.

@mikehammer4018

Жыл бұрын

The Space Marines really aren't marines. They're functionally a lot more like Delta - even more elite that SEALS. (I've got no idea what the equivalent for any other nation would be). One interesting thing about 40K games involving Space Marines is that they've already lost even before the first die is thrown. A game is supposed to be a more-or-less fair fight; the Astartes aren't trained or equipped to fight fair. Possibly the only exception is if they're being used as a blocking force to be expended so something even more valuable can be protected; but the only thing that comes to mind would be a Titan.

@smoore6461

Жыл бұрын

@PersonalityMalfunction I'm sort of in the same boat as you, I'm pretty new to 40k lore, so you may be right, I was really just musing about the numbers anyway, it might just be the writers prerogative too 😉

@richardavery2807

11 ай бұрын

Man I love this man! Isaac got me through a really rough time. Thank you, Isaac. ❤😂🎉😢😮😅😊

I don't know if you read your comments, but just wondered if you read much sci-fi? There's a series by Jack Campbell that covers some orbital warfare with landing craft, etc. It's not entirely relevant but thought I'd mention it. It's called the lost fleet. Thanks for another vid.

Oddly the best reason to build a space elevator in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is drop- marines. Good literary examples in Old Man's War, Red Rising (where it's called "Iron Rain" for good reason), and maybe the original example, War of the Worlds. Just realized that's sort of what H G Wells had in mind.

It’s always a good day when Isaac uploads! I know I’ll have a lot to think about for the rest of the day about no matter what topic he discusses.

I know Battletech is the first thing that comes to mind for me when I see Dropships! As for drop pods, I rather like how they were handled in Starship Troopers. The book, not the movie.

@TheTrueAdept

Жыл бұрын

Funnily enough, there is an _ANIME_ of SST (based on the book) that is the closest to the book here on youtube, an old Laserdisk OVA... ... but Battletech does it best: Dropships are heavily armed and armored and can take on _multiple assault lances_ and still win. Each one is a mobile strongpoint, and most of the time, you don't fight them, you just stay as far away from them as possible.

@UrdnotChuckles

11 ай бұрын

@@TheTrueAdept Yup, a dropship is dangerous as heck! As for Starship Troopers, wasn't that the Roughnecks cartoon / anime?

@TheTrueAdept

11 ай бұрын

@@UrdnotChuckles nope, there was a legit OVA of Book SST back in the '80s on Laserdisk. If you watched Halo Legends' _Prototype_ segment, then you've seen the (modernized and Halo-ized) version of the Anime Marauder suit from that laserdisk anime.

@UrdnotChuckles

11 ай бұрын

@@TheTrueAdept Sweet, I'll need to do a bit of a media dive then. :) Cheers.

@Scriptedviolince

11 ай бұрын

@@TheTrueAdept Unless it's a mule. Or a danais. Or a mammoth. Aquaducts. Behemoths. In battletech is actually somewhat interesting in that it has a very clear definition of what entails a dropship. "The dropship drops from a jumpship" anything that doesn't is a jumpship, a smallcraft, a station, a monitor, or a fighter.

Watched it on Nebula a few days back. Great episode again guys.

Thank you! Been eagerly anticipating this one. Between this and helldivers 2 I am getting lots of inspiration :)

For a sci-fi story I'm writing I'm including drop-mechs which, if the online calculator I used was right, the operators would be under about 7 Gs of acceleration for about 7 minutes straight. I know there are some pilots who can handle 9, maybe even 10, Gs for impressive periods of time, but falling for 7 minutes under that kind of load is impressive. And 7 minutes is usually enough time to activate some AA defenses, especially if the target has fair warning. But it definitely isn't enough time to fully mobile to resist a mech assault.

@punchkitten874

9 ай бұрын

The first part of "Starship Troopers" has a detailed description of how this might work.

Bro, I looked for this video like a year ago. Thank you for making a video matching my search for drop ships.

As an aspiring sci-fi author, i love these videos. They give me so much to think about.

I want to hear Isaac opinion on yesterdays UAP hearing like if you agree

This reminds me of that guy a few years ago that did that high altitude jump

@harbl99

Жыл бұрын

TFW your drinks company has a better space program than your nation.

I just got done reading a series called Drop Trooper by Rick Partlow.. excellent books. First book is called Contact Front. I of course loved the classic book Starship Trooper (and despise the movies) Recruit by Brazee is also a good book & 1st book of a series.

@tarektechmarine8209

Жыл бұрын

I loved the movies, the director was so wrong that even in his attempt to make a satire all he did was make the movie more enjoyable. Anybody with a brain could see the propaganda wasn't really that false, it was all true. I can't speak for the later movies though.

@pougetguillaume4632

Жыл бұрын

What is this comment section? A 2000 lotr discussion circle? Noooo the movies sucked ruined the book!!! I'm very familiar with manga/anime too and i can safely book/manga purists are the worst. Literally cannot fathom the idea that X can be good because it isn't the same thing. Might as well screen the book page by page then they'll be happy. The movie isn't a good adaptation but an amazing spin off/stand alone

@spaceman081447

Жыл бұрын

I am surprised that Isaac Arthur didn't mention the Mobile Infantry of THE BOOK Starship Troopers.

@dansmith1661

Жыл бұрын

@@tarektechmarine8209 All he had to do was make a good movie with the usual patriotism and fighting foreigners. It doesn't resonate with today's crowd because the military is rainbow warriors and endless oppression of other countries through establishing Democracy.

My comic series uses drop ships to get the soldiers through atmospheric entry, then they open the doors and the soldiers (many of which have natural wings, the rest use jetpacks) act as paratroopers and make their way to the ground. The dropships launch from what I just realized classifies as a mothership, but I call a Galleon. The ship is built around an O'Neil cylinder, and houses cannons that can fire "rods from God" projectiles the size of a minivan. The Galleon is the only ship in the fleet capable of FTL (I know the idea of such a massive ship being capable of FTL is weird, but I've got to fudge the rules somewhere) so all other ships either store in the hangars or dock solidly to the side. The Galleon can dock 8 frigates and hold thousands of fighters, bombers, and dropships. The drop ships can provide air support but can also be fitted with special modules to land tanks, or be used as a temporary bunk for ground troops.

Space elevator + orbital ring + drop ships= rapid deployment anywhere faster than most jets can scramble. Near instant reinforcement / rapid deployment. The battlefield becomes 2.5D as now you have to worry about the potential of being outflanked from above.

Last time I was this early, I was gearing up for a drop in the Mobile Infantry.

I was gonna play something, but then I saw this in my notifications and couldn’t resist. Good work

As per using nukes as anti-aircraft, they did tests for it in the cold war and the radiation wasn't an issue for the people on the ground as the detonations we're at a high altitude. The radiation also wasn't a problem because they weren't salted bombs so the radiation was completely dissipated in minutes to hours. The idea was only dropped because ICBMs became a thing and the idea was for shooting down fleets of bombers.

The first use of "mother ship" that I know of was by George Adamski in 1952's FLYING SAUCERS HAVE LANDED in his description of his meeting with the "Venusian". The smaller landing craft were called 'scout ships" Now "drop pod" is differentl. The first use of such that I know of was in Heinlein's STARSHIP TROOPERS (not the movie, which was a horrible abortion of the booi) from 1959. and called a "drop capsule. It was equipped with what would later be called ECM that could lock up a defensive system, chaff, and would peel away from outer to inner with several deployments and jettisonning of parachiets along the way. This was not new to me. I saw it in a 1954 issue of COLLIERS magazine, I think March, there was a picture of the then current idea of a spceship with the small swept front wing and the large swept rear wing and tail. This one was HUGEE and crusing on the edge of space letting out pod-shaped objects on parachutes from opeings in the side facing the viewer In 1964 or early '65,SCIENCE & MECHANICS magazine published a piece about a 'Porject Ithica". It looked like a cross between Dyna-Soar and the Space Shuttle, with the craft being big enoug to carry what looked like tws squads of soldiers in the diagram. It was to be sub-orbital. Thas was at the hight of interest in the X-20 I think I'm giveng away my age

@akizeta

Жыл бұрын

Heinlein's pick-up ships were called 'retrieval boats', which is a bit of a dull name, really. I'm struggling to remember what Joe Haldeman's soldiers used in _The Forever War;_ I think they just had shuttles. 'Drop pod' in the current generation seems to have come chiefly from the game _Halo,_ though there seems to be some influence from manga and anime as well.

@SpacePatrollerLaser

Жыл бұрын

@@akizeta Thanks for the Heinlein reference, I had forgotten The ships in FOREVER WAR were mostly things you held onto like posts, I forget what they were called, probabl "shuttles". They were strange with separate internal time and external time referents. such that though decades and centuries passed in externa (real) time, internally, only a short time passed

@spaceman081447

Жыл бұрын

@@SpacePatrollerLaser I think you're conflating The Forever War's interstellar transports with the shuttles.

@SpacePatrollerLaser

Жыл бұрын

@@spaceman081447 I would not be surprised. The transport was not really described that well and I thought that the starships may have landed to deliver troops

@xBINARYGODx

Жыл бұрын

"not the movie, which was a horrible abortion of the book" guess we know your politics with just a high enough degree of success

Larger Dropships would also make a lot of sense in later waves of deployment, After the initial waves have absorbed/removed/occupied a local area's defenses.

Here again to say that the TTRPG Eclipse Phase is great at the concepts this episode covers. Always cool to see Battletech cited, regardless.

And remember, the Sargent has to yell, "Come on you apes! Do you want to live forever?!" right when you board the pod.

It is a bit cheap reference, because it's obvious, but the reference in my mind for arguments in favour of infantry in high-tech settings is always Starship Troopers from Robert A Heinlein. My favourite scene of soldiers dropping from orbit is in that book as well. Circumstances may appear where "destroy everything" is the best strategy, but I suppose there is more general application for the old mote that states "to the victorious go the spoils". Most armies will probably continue wanting to spoils (in land, infrastructure, slaves, and what have you) to pay the cost of fuel to get the explosives and/or soldiers in place. As long as that remains true, armies will not abandon the use of infantry (I suppose). Alternatively they could send some mind-hacking wave and brainwash all enemies into vassals, or soldiers, for your cause. That would make infantry obsolete, possibly. Explosives will not. Fall from orbit is a nice image, and I imagine the ideal tech for that would be change the body of people. Allowing any random citizen that cool experience of falling from space completely naked, walking from the center of a hot crater, and getting arrested for being naked in the middle of a urban area. No Drop Pod will give you that.

@WolmanLykos

Жыл бұрын

I also love Heinlein's work interesting to think that in an age where humans can "Hot Drop" from orbit fully nude they would be arrested for that rather then the crater they created lol

@thiagom8478

Жыл бұрын

Well,@@WolmanLykos , I assume the ground in urban areas will be self-repairing with nano-technology fast enough for no one take notice of things like that. Long before men start 'raining' from orbit.

@WolmanLykos

Жыл бұрын

@@thiagom8478 Sure, a more modern analogy is while its easy to mend fences people still consider it a crime : 3 Although ODST nudists seem impossible biological augmentation may be more practical going forward then Cybernetics. We don't really know what the limits of either technology are

@thiagom8478

11 ай бұрын

Sounds reasonable to me,@@WolmanLykos . You are probably right. On the other hand, there is always that argument someone used in I can't remember which book, about what would have happened if Queen Victoria of England had decided to set as priority for her nation the creation of a machine able to transmit sound and image through large distances in real time. The thing (basically Television) was imaginable, even long before that time, but the basic fields responsible for produce the knowledge we Historically used to reach the point where we can build that stuff didn't exactly existed at the time. Possibly there are other ways to reach the same solution, but we do not know them. What we can say, with relative certainty, is that the most powerful and rich nation in that time would have failed the goal. The knowledge they had didn't included tools to make televisions. Perhaps there is ways to make ODST nudists (so we can arrest them, on arrival) and we just didn't developed the fields of science that will provide us the basic knowledge to develop the technology that will give us those nudists. But, probably not.

@WolmanLykos

11 ай бұрын

@@thiagom8478 Oh fun I had never heard of that argument with the British empire I might borrow that. We may be able to make a human to survive the impact but I can't think of any organic material that can resist that kind of heat. From what I recall re-entry heat shielding is mostly ceramics with some metals? Our current limitations are less can we manufacture that and more do those materials exist and if not can we make an alloy/composite/synthetic version to the desired specifications. And in the case ODST nudists can it be not only organic but a part of a human body. It would need to be flexible enough to allow a full range of motion [or more range then we have now!] breathable [humans breath through their skin as well]. Im now imagining what kind of caloric intake our "ODST's" would need and the logistics to go along with it : D

Just a little thing, you mention that mothership is not a term used in maritime but as a merchant marine officer I would partially disagree. In the maritime academy we learn to spot potential pirates or terrorist vessels by looking out for "mothership behaviour" in high risk zones, a single larger craft sending out smaller craft as we enter the area. It's just a way to help identify suspicious activity. Not sure if only my academy taught this or if it is a more widely accepted use. I also would not be surprised if the term originated from sci fi, but we do use it in an albeit niche way in the commercial maritime industry.

Speaking of beaming power to the Drop Pods, again depending on how much Power you have at your disposal. You don't really need to tightly beam the power down, esp as the beamed-power will muck with sensors. If you use the right wave length you can make it uncomfortable to very deadly or even heating/melting the metal outside when the drop-pods are falling.

14:42 A white fuselage with black writing that says “Reusable Rocket” totally made me laugh. For those old enough to remember this reference, this booster is the generic “Beer” of the launch industry.

A drop pod, we can do now. See powered landings with Crew Dragons from SpaceX. We can augment them for military. Also Spring Drop Crater Based drop pods are also good to use. Shocks and springs that remove the need for parachutes or rockets.

Something to consider, one topic you didn’t cover or I missed, is the use of electronic countermeasures, drones and decoys, with dropships /drop pods. The assault force commander would assume the enemy has effective anti-air or space defenses. To protect his landing force, he probably with use a combination of orbital strikes and massive ECM to protect his landers. Each lander could deploy it own decoys or the Mothership could Launch thousands.

Now combine the use of robotic troops with an AI driving them as the first wave with the humans as the follow-on troops in later arriving ships.

@tarektechmarine8209

Жыл бұрын

droid gunship.

"When the Tahsfoi invaded the Sol planetary system the humans didn't notice and Tahsfoi forces never returned. Upon research it was discovered that Sol was essentially a Dyson swarm with a population of hundreds of trillions. The sad invasion force was just considered to be an especially violent new criminal element. It was dealt with expediently, the event barely made the local human news."

I would also like to reference the kinetic rods/hangars/WMDs used by the Necromongers in chronicles of Riddick. It may not apply but it did serve multiple purposes and was essentially an enormous version of the "Rods from god".

Janking up cargo/people from the ground has already been done. I saw a WW2 movie produced during or immediately after the war where the protagonists left a jungle area in a glider plane. A powered aircraft essentially just swooped down to catch the glider without actually landing.

@SilverMKI

Жыл бұрын

They also had this for picking up spies/intel/etc rather than an entire glider.

@TheVillainInGlasses

Жыл бұрын

The Fulton Recovery System is the same concept, I think.

boarding torpedoes and drop pods, full of terminator squads and dreadnoughts, this is how it's done!

Your speech has gotten a lot better, my man! Kudos! :D

@johnymey4034

11 ай бұрын

This is better?? Than what? Was he just chewbacca before now?

Drop 'em Mechs!

@murmenaattori6

Жыл бұрын

Standby for Titanfall

"'Helljumper, Helljumper, where you been? Feet first inta hell and back again! When I die, please bury me deep! Place my MA5 down by my feet Don't cry for me, don't shed no tear! Just pack my box with PT gear! "Cuz one early morning 'bout zero-five! The ground will rumble, there'll be lightning in the sky! Don't you worry, don't come undone! It's just my ghost on a PT run."

There's a really good movie called "Genocidal Organ" that starts with a really cool scene of this... The main military agency wanted to extract a VIP so they 1st launched a fragmentation bomb from a plane in low orbit to destroy all armored vehicles and enemy clusters in the landing zone. They then launched pods made of a material that dissolved after drop. In the movie the pods are made of bioengineered dolphin meat for grimdark reasons but it can really be almost any material foam you can imagine and i would rather consider a form of aerogel since it would be cheap, resilient to both heat and kinetic energy and made of very little actual material so dissolving it would be easy and leave pretty much zero trace of what it was before or who made it. Those same pods carried high caliber machine guns to ensure the dropped troops safety by further saturating the landing zone with lead before proping parachutes and then eliminated any remaining combatants after landing before melting and letting soldiers and machine gun drones out. While the drones patrolled the area, anihilating everything that moved and wasnt marked as ally to clear a path and sow chaos the soldiers went and secured the VIP. If you have several million dollars around waiting to be burned away or those troops have some very specific and valuable missions like long term guerrilla warfare, espionage or extraction of high profile people/mcguffins then this method would be more or less how i envision a soldier drop onto a planet. 1st- Bomb the sh*t out of some specific areas chosen for strategic or military importance; 2nd - Drop operatives there into pods made to guarantee their survival and leave minimum traces of them ever being there in the 1st place after landing; 3rd - Allow the soldiers to move into an adjacent area; 4th - Disguise their drop with more bombing or pods with expendable drones and a secondary legitimate objective; 5th - Wait for contact and profit;

3:49 "You're pretty predictable in general course." i.e. downwards.

regarding lithobraking, this has come up in pop sci videos about things like power armour and jumping off buildings. Would it not be possible to have a massive crumple zone on a drop pod to enable you to slam into the ground and have the deceleration eased by the extra material? Either in the form of a kilometre long crumple shins on a mech suit, or perhaps something more complex like explosives and expanding foam?

One reason to send in infantry vs nuking to hell is its remarkably unlikely you would be at war with an entire planet.

Hahaha, I've been waiting for this episode for a long time

As you already touched upon I think there's definitely going to be cases where you want to land troops on the ground and can't just bombard it from orbit. Maybe the place is a factory both sides want intact, or you want to recover data, or you want to extract an important hostage, or it's a counteroffensive on an occupied part of your own city/space station. Sometimes you need a scalpel, not a hammer. I do think the scifi trope of landing troops to destroy the enemy is silly though. At the very least they should be supported with heavy orbital bombardments, and more often than not they should outright be replaced by them.

"Beam me up Scotty" - most well known captain in star trek

@icecold9511

Жыл бұрын

Fun fact. That phrase was never actually used.

@lelandgrubson2736

Жыл бұрын

@@icecold9511 wait what!!?? So it was just a meme!!!!!!!

@hithere5553

Жыл бұрын

@@icecold9511Mandela effect

"Yes anti dropship batteries may be firing low yield nukes at you" Look up the USAF NIKE program. We already tested this. The first anti air missiles were nukes. You only had to be close.

ODST's - Hell yeah give me a go at that - dropping in from orbit - fuck yeah.

@23:07 This is how the Necromongers did it in "The Chronicles of Riddick" (2004). Giant, building-sized spears, whose sides were lined with smaller drop ships and troop carriers.

I love the thumbnail the mechs are exercising trigger discipline

17:47 And at that weight, you can have a reserve chute that might even be bigger than the first one since it opens up closer to the ground with less time to slow you down.

@muninrob

Жыл бұрын

Since the air gets denser as you get deeper in the atmosphere, your "drag chutes" will be becoming more efficient as you descend. You don't have to make the chute bigger - you just have to make it strong enough to not shred when it opens.

"Prepare for the jump, and don't buy a grave!"

I always felt the Heinlein drop pods from Starship Troopers were fairly realistic. It's a disposable onion that, as it breaks through the atmosphere, it sheds layers that slow the pod down and act like chaff. Eventually opening up and dropping the trooper mid air. But their power armor has gyro-jets for slowing down further. Even with AI and modern targeting systems, the chaff off of 45 pods would probably blanket a good portion of the sky. Especially if it releases a lot of radio noise, junk, flares, what have you.

I’v always seen drop troopers as a evolution of paratroopers a way to deploy troops behind enemy lines either as shock troopers attacking the enemy’s flank or as commandos striking key targets within enemy territory. The augment against just orbital bombardment depending on the setting starship weaponry could have a similar energy output of atomic weaponry the destruction caused would be too costly potentially glassing the surface still causing long term damage similar to nuclear weapons.

I work for a company that has actually done work on developing these, as a troop insertion vehicle, an emergency evacuation system, and as a emergency bailout system for ISS or "Other vehicles".

Tungsten punji rods would be a nice reception present for DropShip enemies.😏

I think that Heinlein remains as the highest authority on this!

21:00 we already have something like this, called the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system, or Skyhook lol

The Space Force is furiously taking notes.

Could the business end of an engine serve as sorta shield going full throttle all the way to the ground in a suicide-burn style landing starting from space way faster than terminal velocity?

Starship Troopers drop pods are always what I think of.

So one thing I liked about 40k is they also have pods that are just for resupply allowing front line units to get emergency resupply when needed which I don't see much other then say halo with weapon supply drops

I imagine the ideal size and type of insertion vehicle will also depend on the stage of the invasion. For the first waves you probably want lots of small drop pods, thoroughly mixed with decoys and munitions that share the real thing's radar signature, to oversaturate and/or deplete ground defenses. I also imagine that many apparent landing sites will be targeted by nothing but decoys and bombs, in attempts to draw enemy QRFs away from your actual soldiers, and that even if you do use organic infantry there will be quite a lot of autonomous weapons, be they drones, turrets, nanites, or more general robots, and mine dispensers scattered around outside the LZs proper to hinder enemy movement while your troops get to work. Once they have gotten up to their business of securing LZs, descent corridors, and generally causing chaos you start reinforcing them with your larger landers. Send platoon dropships screeching through holes in the AA net, or your brigade landers drop straight down above suppressed zones, or, further down the road, send transatmospheric shuttles far closer to civilian grade to captured starports. Whatever floats your star dreadnought.

@muninrob

Жыл бұрын

Read Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" - what you describe sounds like Mobile Infantry doctrine followed by a full invasion force.

@shorewall

Жыл бұрын

@@muninrob Yeah, Starship troopers is the first thing I thought of. So cool!

@Scriptedviolince

11 ай бұрын

You'd also probably want the first wave hitting the atmosphere to be smaller ships less because of survivability but also because those big regiment landers and logistical ships are also very very big baskets with lots and lots of eggs in them. So for the first wave you put a few eggs in a many baskets as you can and throw them in all at once so that they enemy can't kill them all and you don't lose as much combat power per kill.

i had an idea once where ground troops themselves could be large mass-driver launched probes that float on a set trajectory towards their target with little to no guidance, using some sort of (if its even possible) particle shield for atmospheric entry and of course defense from projectiles. once it lands it just unfolds, gets up on whatever it has to move (my idea involved tall, lanky legs to pull itself out of whatever crater it made while lithobraking, like the tripods from war of the worlds) and starts the invasion wherever it happened to land. Effectively giant robots launched by the dozen like how the aliens from Starship Troopers got to earth, minus the asteroid and unexplained speedy arrival.

hey issac can you link those studies where the ESA did make studies on liquid breathing or being submerged in liquid to survive hundreds of Gs?

There's a happy medium between Space Marine with a drop-pack, and all eggs in one basket. Also Drop-ships can have Drop Pods, a best of both worlds.

My first thought when seeing the title on this one was the marine drop ship from the alien movies.

@earnestbrown6524

Жыл бұрын

"We're in the pipe, five by five"

If some semi-talented author was to apply even half of these concepts in a military sci-phy novel my only words would be "shut up and take my money"! Great episode!

Interesting ideas that you mention "beaming down energy from the mothership to the dropship to give the dropship energy/fuel to slow it down" cause I don't know if that would be possible. On a fundamental level, if you are blasting a dropship with X amount of energy, if it is absorbing that energy, then re-blasting it downwards to slow it down, or using it to power grab generators or something. Even accounting for 100% efficient engines and machines, it would still only be able to emit X energy downwards to slow it down, meaning that the net change in momentum would be Zero so the dropship couldn't slow down. Fascinating little loophole I think

Lithobreaking! 😂😂😂❤. It's 11:49 ' the sudden stop at the end!

The idea of armor doubling as FOOD is very interesting. Personally it made my brain go "bioships"!

Hello there, Isaac Arthur, I have some questions for you. 1) LET US ASSUME THERE IS FTL WHICH IS FAST. Well then, in interstellar warfare, what would warfare “feel” like? Would war “feel” like a war in the “Age of Sail”? Would there be no “front line” like ancient/mediaeval/early modern warfare and would there be individual battles? Or would there be a front line like WW1/WW2/modern warfare but the “front line” is 3D since you got to realise there is an up and a down? And would there rarely be individual battles because (for example, in WW2, the Battle of Stalingrad was not just about Stalingrad and the immediate area around it, it was also about the massive area surrounding Stalingrad such as Kalach, the Don River, the Volga River, Kotelnikovo, etc.) 2) What would the organisational structure of an interstellar military look like? In our world, a squad would be about 10 to 15 men or something. In an interstellar military, would the smallest organisational unit be tiny drones controlled by a single human? Or would a squad be like 10 to 15 robots which are directly controlled by 1 human, but SOMEHOW, that 1 human IS the squad? For example, you could think of the individual robots as limbs that could be disposable when damaged, (for example, if 1 robot got damaged, the human could easily discard that robot, and control the remaining ones, and when the whole squad gets wiped out, then the human gets killed?) Like, think of the WHOLE SQUAD of a “body” of a human. Would this idea be practical, or would it be a joke of an idea? 3)Let’s say that in the future, a single bullet can cause a nuclear explosion. If a single bullet has the potential to be that powerful, then how would planetary invasions occur? How would generals use infantry, tanks and IFVs, artillery, etc? If a single bullet can do this much damage, then what is the point of an Army for an Invasion? Wouldn’t planetary invasions just be pointless and be ridiculously costly, while you can just blow up the planet with your navy without ever sending ground forces? Not only that, if you have technology to turn civilians into very experienced soldiers in a matter of minutes, then what is the point of being careful, launching a planetary invasion to reduce collateral damage, and not commit to orbital bombardment so to try and avoid committing war crimes, if there are no innocent and unarmed civilians? If I am wrong, PLEASE, let me know, and I will change my thoughts. 4) This links to 3). If planetary invasions are useless, then what is the point of some military branches such as the Army, the Air Force or the Marines? In the future, would the Navy (in space, not the water one, of course) be the only branch which is needed in interstellar warfare? 5) We as human beings fight wars in the 21st Century, for resources, ideological reasons, and religion, etc. What would the motivations be for an interstellar war in the future? Not resources, because an interstellar nation has lots of those. Well, in Halo, the Covenant Prophets had a pretty good reason to wage war and commit genocide against Humanity and that was to keep the secret that their religion was bullshit. Humanity’s very existence contradicted the Covenant’s religion and the Prophets did not want the masses to find out, and potentially make the Prophets lose their power. So what would the motivations be for an interstellar war, if there is one? Or would warfare be obsolete, hopefully? These are all my questions. I hope you, Arthur, or someone else can answer them. Bye for now. Jans Kam.

The science fiction subject is remind me of special unit, Hell jumper, from UNSC in Halo game. Their situation is hellish against the enemy.

@tarektechmarine8209

Жыл бұрын

Helldivers and Odsts.