That is not a compliment considering most of cinemasins' so called " sins" are invalid criticism or over the top nitpickings based solely of personal taste.
Not only did the Cheyenne inspired the Terran dropships in StarCraft, but there are even Easter Egg references, mostly in the dropship pilot dialogs. _"Up the pipe, five by five"_
You also don't kill crew that could be loading another drop ship / pause work on doing other things like refitting or repairing or valuable munitions floating off or getting sucked out into space. Then there's multiple layer hull of the war ship that is the Sulaco because the last thing you want is a hull breach in space so like war ships of today there are layers in the case the first hull is breached or metal fatigue which is cause by the sudden drops in pressure and being pressured over and over again. Think redundancy. Like metal mend it backwards and forwards it will fracture and break over time.
The airlock is dropship-sized at the very least no matter what. The efficiency of air loss is a poor choice against efficiency of deployment. The other dropship was apparently in it's own bay, no sign of it being stored in the same loading bay as the first.
@@xheralt The efficiency of deployment argument would work in the Star Wars universe, but in the Alien universe your crew isn't even awake when the ship arrives.
it was all about the rule of cool, you can have more than one door to protect the hangar without having an airlock in between. Space is premium on an spaceship no matter how magic the tech is, and if not space then mass as long we talk about an universe that losely follows real physics. Making the actual hangar just big enough to serve it function and maybe have seperations close around the ship to reduce the volume that serves as "airlock" would be an logical option. You do not need to have that super ackward lowering mechanism either, close your seperations around the dropship, suck out air, open door(s) and off it goes, elegant solution.
Why? WHY?!? Because the Aliens movie franchise needed an A10 Warthog to have sex with a C130 and spit out this glorious beast! If I had written the movie, I would have given the Aliens a really crappy time share deal on LV 426 with elevating maintenance costs that cause them to skip planet over to the LV 427 housing market with lower interests rates and NOT blow up the Sullacco and the colony. Problem solved! No need for Aliens 3 to be made at all! Looking forward to your videos, I'm binge watching them now!
That’d be the AC-130J “Ghostrider”. One 30mm Bushmaster II autocannon, one 105mm field gun, wing mounted hard points for any guided weapons you’d need, and one launch tube for more guided weapons. I imagine one would have been a hell of a lot better for the mission in this too. Evacuate who you can and then open fire from a few kilometres away with the field gun and then scram. M
There's a great colonial marines RPG PDF where they explain the folding pylons were for stealth reasons, don't know if it was simply made after the fact to try and explain the weirdness but it does make sense to have internal stowage. The turret makes sense if it was trying to copy the low velocity 30mm that the apache has, you're basically lobbing them out like tiny mortars rather than bullets. The binary propellant they use can also be dialed up or down for power so i could see it making sense in universe. Everything in universe was also designed by corporations who were really cheap also so weird inconsistencies would make sense if they were cutting corners.
Double on the "designed by corporations leading to weird design decisions" thing. My theory is that those folding missile racks were probably the result of design creep. It would go something like this: 1. First design had wing stubs with external weapons because stealth wasn't a requirement. Also assume a reasonable payload is expected (4 smaller rocket pods and 8 Hellfires kind of thing). 2. Some Marine General decides stealth is necessary, but instead of redesigning the whole thing to have rotary launchers it was thought to be cheaper to just have the pylons fold into the chassis. Of course this doesn't end up being cheaper, but that's how the corporation sells it to the military. Kickbacks and delays ensue. 3. Marines come back and say they need more firepower as now the Cheyenne is expected to loiter around and provide fire support before AND after dropping the troops off. No problem, stuff more rockets into every conceivable space. What's that? Now we have to redesign the chassis (make it even bigger) AND redo atmospheric re-entry and wind tunnel testing? Oh darn we really wanted to avoid all that with the folding wing thing, but let's just call this another cost overrun and keep going. 4. Ignore the fact that no money was really saved by "simply" making the pylons fold into the body over designing some new rotary rocket launchers. Besides, those rotary launchers would've just made reloading ordinance harder right??? right???
@@josetrujillo2394 Honestly, the reasoning for the folding missile racks are pretty obvious. The entire internal space where you could fit any sort of loading mechanism is taken up by the APC/troop/whatever bay so every rocket needs to be held inside the pod itself, and the "main" ordnance packs need to clear the smaller forward mounted packs so they can't just be strapped to the side of the hull. Now, obviously you could just delete the forward racks, but maybe they serve as some sort of aerodynamic surface that helps stabilize the ship while it's in atmo or something and if that's the case you would still need to have the pods mounted on an extension, which would seriously increase the ship's already decently large radar cross-section. And then you also have to worry about making those extensions durable enough to survive re-entry. If they're more or less folded away and only pop out once you're in-atmo, you don't have to worry as much about how durable the pylons are.
the Cheyennes loading ramp and and the Conestoga drop bay make sense. having the apc underslung wouldn't work when entering a planet's atmosphere the apc would melt with everyone inside not to mention the drag. also having a ramp allows the Cheyenne to Carrie Infantry,supplies and vehicles safe then if it was underslung. the drop bay with the air lock is way better then have a massive door due to two reasons. one being doors are weak points in a ships structure and Armour. So having one large hangar door on the side of the ship the place where its most likely to get hit doesn`t make a lot of sense especially when a rail gun slug for bend or break the hinged/rails the door is using to open.also when opening said door you would vent all the oxygen in the room into space depressurising the the hangar bay would take time more time it would take to just drop the ship through a airlock. also havng the airlock on the bottom means it has less of a chance to be hit. i could go on but i`m sick of writing.p.s i hate the pod folding thing just stick a 40mm auto turret up there.
To be fair, without extending the rockets, a lucky shot wouldn't just cost you the pilon, but the entire ship, as the whole pack goes off inside the body. I like extending the weapons outwards in general, gives you forward firepower while still retaining some semblance of aerodynamics for re-entry. But the Cheyenne does go out of its way to extend everything as far as possible, which is exactly the wrong way around.
If those gullwings are 16x MLRS HE for arty fragging half a gridsquare I can see wanting that much explosives to have as much standoff as possible from hull if the pod goes critical.
@@rwbimbie5854 Getting more distance from the hull also help by allowing a bigger spread factor on the rockets. you basically want a bit of overlap between the cone of death from each pod to ensure a properly clean landing strip. you want a wide area of destruction even at pretty short ranges for that job. you never know your exact landing spot until you are uncomfortably close to the enemy occupying said spot already.
The slanted window actually makes a degree of sense. it lets the pilot look diagonally down past the left side of the nose. Yes, it could all be lower but then the pilot would just have a great view of the upper-right side of the nose.... as for those asymetric pylons.... that bugged me since the fist time I saw "Aliens" >.< though within the context of what was publically know about "stealth" and retractible weapon pods at the time it was made? ... that's at least worth a nod.
I will always love the Starship Troopers (book) version of landing Space Marines... Get into battle Armor, then each gets into their "egg". The troop carrier than skims the Atmo at a shallow curve and "fires" the eggs out of the bottom hull. Eggs serve as ablative Heatshields, somewhat powered craft (clustering the ground pounders together) and the last few layers serve as chaff to confuse AA defenses. Not only is it relatively low tech for a spacefaring species,but killing one "capsule" kills one grunt. Whereas killing a dropship kills a Squad or Platoon
I’m going to quite the tech manual here as much as I can remember. The UD4L handles like a cow most of the time. In full combat loadout it handles like a drunken cow. It’s said the dropship is so unwieldy that the flight computer works overtime to keep it controlled. As to the weapons I can see the forward turret having a retracted configuration to prevent heat warpage and support the gun on atmospheric entry. The rocket pods are for possible solo deployment into a hot drop zone where it’s got to kill a bunch of individuals intent on keeping you away or possibly blow open your own LZ. As to the airlock the UD4L is fully supported by its deployment arms till its set in the airlock mid section. It sits on retractable tabs which engage on the sides and rear. I suspect the APC has a mag lock somewhere to secure it until right before it deploys
The two pilots sitting one in front of another, it's the rear pilot that's probably the actual pilot, with the front seater being the Gunner. That's how it is on Attack Helicopters like the AH-1 Cobra and AH-64 Apache. The Co-Pilot/Gunner (CPG) is in front where they have maximum visibility in all sides to aim the gun(s) and other weapons, with the Pilot in Command behind them (but with being slightly elevated still has a clear view forward for actually flying the aircraft. Pilot is obviously in control of where the aircraft goes, CPG is (when not engaging targets) doing the co-piloting things like operating radios, navigating, etc (hence CPG not just Gunner). The pilot does have some basic weapons controls (like can fire the fixed forward facing non guided weapons like rocket pods since as pilot they're the one "aiming" those) and the CPG has some basic flight controls as well as needed. Unlike the Navy or Air Force 2 seat fighter WSOs who aren't actual pilots themselves, Army Apache pilots graduate flight training fully qualified on both seats, able to operate as either pilot or gunner in either front or back when they get to their units. They still need to be paired with senior pilots and "checked off" on various flight things, and depending on various things like mission tempo, range availability and even the preferences of the senior pilots in their squadron that they get paired with, will fly either role as needed until they're checked off and can be the senior pilot taking the newbies themselves. Of course non of that means the fictional Cheyenne from Aliens doesn't do things a completely different way with a forward pilot and a backseater non-pilot WSO/RIO/BN/etc or some other setup because, hey, its a movie lols :)
I can see the ramp being handy for being able to deploy the precisely. It could be deployed onto an elevated roadway or close to an entrance. Hell, might even be worthwhile to deploy on rooftops that have massive elevators to access other massive levels. The APC is clearly designed to travel inside of standardized corporate freight corridors. The APC platform actually lowers as it does the final landing meaning that the APC can scoot off immediately after touchdown and then the dropship dusts off immediately, retracting the ramp as it ascends. Granting this might be a better system if it deployed rearward, but this does mean that the pilots can see the APC approaching & anything beyond it is in line with its weapon systems. Backing up into the APC doesn't really seem that hard. The ship should be designed in a way to make that as easy & as fast as possible. a turntable might not be a bad idea. The weapon pods might be a nod to star wars for all we know. I can ALMOST see a utility for having missile pods so high over the fuselage in very select conditions such as hovering behind buildings but still being able to fire on targets being relayed by other units. However, they would just make shit awkward in gravity & sheer off.
Backing in doesn't seem bad until you consider a combat recovery. *tank goes screaming towards the LZ under fire* *dropship plops onto said LZ* *tank has to stop, pull a three-point, and back into the loading bay* "Everyone just hold on a second!" Now, for all we know, they could back it in on the ship and still allow front-loading on the ground, but just clamping it to the bottom of the dropship is not only faster but involves fewer moving parts. And, amusingly, running the APC into the front of the dropship obscures the /one/ weapon the said dropship is likely to use on the ground - that whackadoodle minigun. The biggest problem with the pods - apart from their absolute weakness - is that you're sacrificing internal space. That whole missile rack, and the arms, and all the mechanisms necessary to move all of that are cutting into your internal volume. Slicing that down to just half of each pod, with the other half dangling out the sides or top of the dropship would be far better.
@@malroadkill Depends on the configuration of the bay. That dorsal turret on the APC slides down on tracks (*twitch*) to sit on the back of the APC, so is the bay meant to snug up around the APC when it's in, or is there space around it? I know the personnel can move between the pressurized cabin of the dropship into the APC and back, so how is that handled? Is the entire bay pressurized, or is there an airlock meant for one orientation of the APC? And, if the former, how does it handle drops on toxic/vacuum planets?
@@SacredCowShipyards it does not seem to snug like that. The entire bay is open. The cockpit has an access corridor & likely an air lock there. They are going to go in with environmental gear & have to stay in it. There is no airlock inside the APC either. There may be specialized versions to handle such conditions. Also the dropship maybe able to fill or evacuate the air as needed. Marko Kloos's series features dropships that operate much similarly. Its just kinda nervous went shuttling between ship and planet when you're helmet is off.
@@malroadkill Yeah, see, allowing transfer between the APC and the cockpit already is... somewhat unnecessary. You don't really win anything from it, aside from back-seat drivers. The Cheyenne seems to have a passenger section abaft the cockpit, but it's really unclear whether that's a pressurized space or just a part of the cargo hold that's above the loading platform and just happens to have seats on it. And if we're treating the entire space as pressurized - because allowing the APC crew access to the cockpit is a thing they do specify for the buildout of the Cheyenne - it's either venting that volume as it discharges the APC, or it's got to depressurize and store the space. Alongside, I guess, the tanks for the hyperglic nonsense for the minigun. Because why not?
I think the idea with the Cheyenne is that it was designed as a very capable multirole craft, the primary purpose of which being a dropship and a gunship in one. Apparently that thing is armoured like crazy and built to take a beating and keep going. Also iirc, the weapons loadout for the Cheyenne was made to be modular so those 16 rockets on either pylon could be easily swapped for guided missiles if necessary, in this case they had unguided rockets because Wyland Yutani has basically no morals and likes being cheap when it comes to this sort of thing with the pylons themselves actually being aligned with each other but made so that the Port side pod deploys first (presumably that pylon is the one exposed on the upper surface and the Starboard one rests underneath when retracted.) to avoid the pods from smacking into each other.
"Why...." "IT WAS THE 80'S OK AND ILM WASN'T RETURNING MY CALLS AND MY CUBAN ASSOCIATE HAS THIS MASSIVE PILE OF COKE AND IT WAS JUST SYNERGY MAN" That's why. More wryyyyyy than why but you get it my guy. You get it.
To be fair many modern attack platforms still rockets. The A-10 and AH-64 both carry 2.75 inch rockets including the LAU-61C/A launcher which holds 19 rockets capable of single and ripple launches. They are very effective against thin skinned vehicles and troops and better at saturation strikes than their larger guided cousins.
I actually like using liquid propellant more than solid if you're gonna go the caseless route. Hypergolic can be an issue, yeah, but a lot of military ammo is pretty nasty and corrosive too. Also, being a space dropship, I imagine it's carrying hypergolic fuel anyhow for RCS or ullage motors since ignitors are harder to use than hypergolic fuel mixes. If it's got hypergolic fuel for RCS; it's a moot point for propellant. Hypergolic liquid propellant would also eliminate complexity from your gun too; you could have it be a catalytic hypergolic mono-propellant too, where a component of the projectile or barrel catalyzes the explosion instead of two distinct chemicals mixing. It would eliminate the need for firing pins, and for a gun that would have 6 of them, that's a lot of complexity saved. Downside would be that fully loaded barrels automatically fire after a while, but with a gatling gun I think the 1-3 extra shots that ire off aren't a huge issue. Whether or not the complexity and weight savings are worth the downsides is another issue, but there are upsides to liquid propellants in guns, and not needing firing pins. Not to mention not carrying a ton of brass too. Gun mounting is definitely silly if it's to be a turret, even if it has stub barrels, I don't think there's room for the motor and receiver in that tiny nose anyhow.
Ok, in real world, Cheyenne was an experimental high speed attack helicopter that never saw production. Set severely helicopter 🚁 speed records. Used to be one at the Patton Museum at Fort Knox, KY. As for the APC : M577 as you called it, in real life, was a Command and Medical Variant of the venerable M113 series APC. Sooooo, yeah, someone took a lot of liberties with naming conventions here.
Bare in mind this is a weapons system built by USCM, descendants of the USMC who build the A-10 Thunderbolt II. I think this is meant to blend that esthetic with an Apache/Blackhawk kind of feel so the missiles are likely let off the chain like a hellfire system, which were brand new at the time Aliens came out and look "frigging cool"
Pretty sure the A-10 Thunderbolt and all variants were built by the USAF, not the USMC…. And IIRC James Cameron and Syd Mead built the model from a few different kits including F4, AH64, and a few others, but those are the o es I can remember.
@@SacredCowShipyards true, but it gets unnoulded in close combat distance, that is spot where ship get shot at most so it kinda make sence (just kinda but i can see some logic there XD)
To be fair, Do you SEE how much Ordinance that thing can carry! If even one of those gets hit and goes off I want it as FAR AWAY as Possible! Especially if they all cook-off, so maybe putting them on arms away from the fleshy bits as far as possible isn't THAT bad of a idea
@@SacredCowShipyards actually it looks like being directed more on the other pod. Double kill! 😂 Probably taking the dropship with them in the process by shrapnels and blast wave (well, exact way of dropship's demise would depend on type of warheads - if they're thermobaric to deal with fleshy targets, the could actually even survive it... Since it must be from its nature designed to handle excessive heat.)
Those unguided rockets in the big pods are actually MIRV rockets. The warheads carry cluster munitions that carpet bomb an area... so imagine 1 or several of these dropships landing in a hot LZ. All those MIRV rockets would effectively eradicate everything in & near the LZ, allowing the dropships to deploy troops with relative saftey. The reason for the unguided MIRV rocket pods, extending out on long pylons... is to increase the dropship's survivability. Should they be mounted close to the fuselage, or mounted in a magazine fed launcher close to the fuselage... a lucky hit from an AP round would effectively destroy the dropship. A lucky hit to the MIRV pods mounted on extended pylons, would just destroy the pylon & its payload with minimal damage to the fuselage, as the dropship would be moving away from the blast at high speed, as opposed to being in the hreart of the blast. If you watch how the dropship deploys the APC, it does so very quickly. It's literally a 4 second touch & go. Ramp is opened before touch down, APC is clear, & dropship is off the ground in 4 seconds. It doesn't even wait for the ramp to close before lift off. Touch & Go. The reason for the stubby gat... is less drag on reentry. The dropship's haul & gun being made of an exotic heat resistant metal, long barrels would still be prone to bending from aerodynamic forces during reentry. The gun is only meant for defense at close range in atmosphere, during deployment, so long range accuracy is not nessecary. Plus if used in space combat, long barrels are not needed to achieve maximum velocity, because there is no atmospheric friction to slow down the rounds. The reason for launching the dropships out of small airlocks, is efficiency. Smaller doors... means smaller weak points in the ship's haul. Smaller airlocks... means faster depressurization, thus faster deployment. Stowing the dropships in locks directly over the airlock doors... means faster deployment, as less time is needed to possition the dropship. As far as the airlock doors being in the floor... the ship is in space. Does not matter. Airlocks in the walls or ceilings would be just as dangerous.
Airlocks in the floor require that the armature supporting the craft go through one of the airlock hatches. And barrel length achieving maximum velocity is independent of atmo. Longer barrels make fast things go faster, up to a certain limit, and if that barrel's at its limit, it's a horrible gun.
the stubby nose gun actually goes back to the original version of the script. I read it years ago, and apparently both the pulse rifles and the nose gun on the Cheyenne were originally supposed to be energy weapons- pulsed charged particles or plasma from the description, probably like the PPGs from Babylon 5, able to do a LOT of damage to organic matter without blowing through a hull as easily as a hypervelocity projectile. They retconned it when filming began due to budget issues with the special effects, but it's also why the smartguns are disarmed by removing the charge packs rather than any notably absent ammunition bin, and why the rifles' magazines look more like battery packs (though they held .45 blanks to give recoil and some muzzle flash for the SFX team to then later add elements to, which they obviously never did). They'd already begun work on the designs and didn't want to go back and retool them, and figured no one would notice :D EDIT: Pvt. Hudson even had dialogue in the director's cut as they're dropping dirtside where he reveals the nature of the weapons on the Cheyenne and that they are carrying- "Independently targeting particle beam phalanx. Vwap! Fry half a city with this puppy. We got tactical smart missiles, phased plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, we got sonic electronic ball breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks..." So apparently, the nose gun was a phalanx cluster of particle beams.
I believe you are missing the point of this drop ship. The purpose of this drop ship is the ability to wear Aviator sunglasses while piloting a ship carrying a brick in the darkness of space entering a planet with horrible visibility.
As a fan of this interpretation of a Sci-Fi dropship design, I believe this design is deserving of more appreciation. First ill star t with main problems with the design, which i believe suffered from the same development fiasco the real life Bradley troop transport/light tank in the 80s. One vehicle can really only be great at one thing rather than several. Having to consider what the Cheyanne had to: Be capable of orbital and Atmospheric flight, Carry a fully loaded APC all while carrying enough firepower to hold the front lines against any/every known threat! The switch blade style weapons pylons were a bit much, but they were kind of unique can those extra "wings" and pylons could assist in flight control and stability. I did like how the missile pods were possibly designed by being mounted precariously and away from the main fuselage so that if one takes damage it would be ripped off earlier than if it were directly attached. Kind of similar to the A-10 and its two turbofans. If one is damaged the other still has a chance to operate without the other. As far as the nose mounted gun turret, it really doesn't even belong there when you consider that is where the majority of the heat will be located during re-entry. The barrel length I thought was kept to a minimum because its only a defensive weapon and doesn't require longer barrels. But also so any longer barrels protruding past the nose section would just melt and deform. Or it may just be a only for firing in space where barrel length would not matter? The Cheyanne would of been a solid design as a atmospheric flight only aircraft. Its overall design lacks really any support for space flight or reentry especially considering no obvious thermal protection and nobody utilizing any sort of breathing apparatus. So what I like about the Cheyanne design is in fact the ramp design. You can clearly see how it operates when the ship reaches the colony. Also the APC is already sitting on top of the ramp and it opens before the the Cheyanne even touches down. It does a quick survey, lands, deploys APC, and then immediately takes off just like how a routine quick drop off insertion should go. Then once the APC reaches its designation all the troops can quickly egress from the big sliding "barn door", like unloading all your children from a minivan. Really no matter what anyone's opinion is on the overall design. you really have to appreciate the level of detail and "functionality" of everything just blows away just about everything else you would see on film of this sort.
An addition to the chin turret gun barrels being short, the historical precedent is the first version of the AH-1 Hueycobra in Vietnam that was armed with a pair of very stubby miniguns in its chin turret. Also, that's a cupola, not a turret. Also, it was designed by a few of the best guys at this at the time. Sid Mead (Civilization), Ron Cobb (the Gunstar starfighter), and Jim Cameron himself is no slouch with a pencil.
The subsonic aerodynamics of the Cheyenne always bothered me too. If I were writing it I would say it creates a plasma sheath in front of it when it needs to go fast. It's rumored that the B-2 stealth bomber can do this and is actually supersonic.
The bradley's mission creep is almost entirely something that already happened with the Soviet BMP and we were just copying them but using an autocannon instead of a more conventional cannon. (And then they copied the Brad and added autocannons)
The Cheyenne is aerodynamic at subsonic speeds, but in its defense the device above the gatling gun may be a microwave emitter that creates a plasma sheath around the Cheyenne at high speed. It's the only way that thing is going to survive reentry, especially with partially exposed ordinance under the forward wings.
With weapons deployed, it's like an X-Wing, and we all know what a perfect weapons platform the X-Wing is 😉. In 1986, at the cinema, that launch sequence was one of the coolest things ever, in one of the coolest movies ever..... great video, keep up the great work 👍😎
well on its defense unlike the x wing it has the excuse that uses missles which has it own tracking system once you fire so it adjust itself once it leaves the wing.
The X-wing could be explained by saying the wing guns generate dangerous magnetic fields in their plasma containment systems, and these fields would kill the pilot if they were too close as well as interfere with each other. The engines are further out than the BSG Viper that everyone loves, so they have more thrust vectoring leverage. The X-Wing really isn't a bad design at all. Now the TIE fighter on the other hand . . .
@5:40 A "hot landing' could be done with the ramp being deployed and the APC driven off, just as the dropship touches down. Notice that the Colonial Marines don't seem particularly worried about the "bug hunt" they are going on and so are probably doing things in a much more relaxed manner than what would seem to be prudent later in the movie.
6:30 in space nerdyness there is a say "unpressurized storage is unheated storage", you don't want every auxiliary, weapons, maintenance, and logistical system inside the bay to go bust because it's exposeed to the elements
Erh, I'm not an actual pilot or something, but I am a novelist and used to play a lot of ARMA2 and 3 which is essentially military simulation. I was most of the time a combat transport pilot, either for troops or for ground vehicles and supplies. Since the tactics, flight approach and situations are based on reality in mil-sim, I could say that coming to a full-stop hovering in a hot LZ where incoming fire is expected is way worse than coming in hot, deploying the APC and dusting off. Not to mention if you need to fly low, then you really don't want to have sling-loaded cargo dangling under your bird. Hovering makes you a stationary target with high visibility if your cargo is sling-loaded because you have to be at a certain altitude to ensure safe release of the APC. The dropship in Aliens doesn't have this issue, because the release is on ground level, so you know for sure that you won't mess up the APC because you are on the ground. Touching down ensures that the APC is rolling out, and as shown in the movie it takes like 10 seconds. As for the loading being "convoluted and time consuming process", I will assume that you combined the fueling, arming and troop loading process into one procedure. Just because otherwise the loading of the APC consisting of the vehicle simply backing up into the dropship, which is also about the grand total of 10 seconds. The rest is something any present day helicopter and APC would need to go through at base. A helicopter in non-combat situation would still take "forever" to be armed with that much ordnance and troops still need to file into an APC, or any troop carrier. I do agree on the unfolding stuff later in the video but still looks cool :D (BTW In the more freeform jump-in-jump-out type of Arma3 combat situations we actually had something we called the Colonial Drop where you take a helicopter, sling load an APC with a driver and turret gunner in it and you release the APC from a flat angle flying very low by just slowing down and not actually coming to a hover.)
9:01 Actually, the primary pod arms, the big ones, are hinged opposite each other on the primary hull/fuselage so the pods aren't offset one forward, one aft. when deployed so the craft does wallow as these are unfolding and the center of gravity shifts. This craft is basically a Mil-Mi-24 Hind assault gunship that can carry a tank instead of only 6-8 troops. It's also a jump-jet like the AV-8B/Harrier II, so it's primary lift comes from the jets not the central lifting body, though the thing is pretty damn big from birds eye so it has a lot of surface area, and the massive tail plane surfaces help there, too. The designers thought about this which is why the primary engines are so huge. And freaking loud!
My guess is that they were originally thinking “and then it’s got wing hard points that fold out when in attack mode. So it’ll be like an X-wing but it reveals armament like a Cobra or Apache. It’ll be sweet!” And then, instead of implementing this in a reasonable way (likely realizing that unfolding surfaces would have to be small if they were on the bottom because of the drop ramp) they were just like “yo what if it looked like some big transformer X thing from the front that had macros cluster missile packs just say they’re unguided it’ll be cool”.
I'm gonna respond to this video from the POV of the CM-SS13 server for Space Station 13. "Hypergolic propellent is extremely dangerous and liable to explode!" Welcome to the Colonial Marines. "That floor based airlock doesn't seem safe at all" It's not. It regularly gets people killed, usually by crushing them into jelly. This helps weed out the dumber Marines and keep them from later having a friendly-fire incident with a grenade launcher or planting claymores backwards. "That's not aerodynamic with the pylons extended" YOU'RE not aerodynamic with your pylons extended. "Those rockets are unguided" The 16 pack is actually laser guided. Don't ask how, I don't see the sensors either. "It's a huge target" any large AA weapons will have been destroyed via Orbital Bombardment long before the DS hits the ground, and it is armored against small arms. Believe it or not, the missiles are armored too. Don't ask how or why, but they are resistant even to a 12.7mm round. Also, it tends to land far away from the actual front lines which is the point of the APC. "The barrels are too short" It was cold in that room okay? "Deploying the APC takes too long" It doesn't take that much longer than a sling drop as ColemanV pointed out, but it tends to run over Marines. There are additional chairs inside the DS, the APC force is just part of the typical detachment. Typically the on-foot Marines will build a FOB to protect the LZ and the DS then ferries supplies, reinforcements, and wounded back and forth from the FOB to the mothership.
The use of airlocks makes sense, but it still doesn't make sense why the floor is an airlock and not, let's say, a wall. Like normal airlocks. Starship troopers actually get's it by mounting dropships on rails that are designed around the airlock doors. Battle Star Gallactica also does it even better since the entire viper launch tube is an airlock. Somewhat.
Galactica is an designated expensive aircraft carrier and designed as a primary combatant for an all out war in space. Sulaco is a multirole ship designed to be used at relatively peaceful time at universe without space fighters and "aircrafts in space". Technology of the universe do not require a fast launch for landing crafts. As the result is reasonable to use existing artificial gravity system as a launch mechanisms.
The ship class is designed for several groups of soldiers. Several dropships are being prepared, ammunitioned and repaired in the hangar. When a dropship is ready to take off, the lifting device is used to move it over the drop lock, let it into it and throw it off without the crew working in the hangar having to leave it.
I seem to recall that extendable weapon pylons that fold out to deliver ordnance were part of the prototype RAH-66 Comanche helicopter design, and similar internal weapons bays are integral to the stealth of F-22's and F-35's - though those designs all came about years after 'Aliens', so I doubt they were influences for the UD-44 Cheyenne. Still, they're not a completely foreign concept. I dunno, I guess we'd have to ask Syd Mead where he got the idea.
@@SacredCowShipyards Not according to the tech-specs. Yes, I know, it's not exactly the best design geometrically, but apparently it's got Radar-absorbent material or something in the hull. It's in the Tech manual I mentioned about the same time I posted this comment.
With one hinge location, you get the weapons load out away from the ship. I'm also betting that they are not firing one rocket at a time. Watch how the military fires rockets. Like with helicopters, you go in clear out the location then leave. dump all the rockets on to the landing zone make the drop and then leave. Fly back to a forward base and you get reloaded for the next run. You act as if the drop ship/helicopter will stay on location and fight it out. That is for the Attack and Fighter Aircraft, Considering it has any offensive weapons at all is rather surprising.
to be fair, they were doing a basic welfare check on an outlying colony with a communications loss. With no UPP or other enemy ships in orbit, no obvious signs of combat on the ground such as orbital strikes or major structural damage, it made sense to do a scout run. If they movie were made today, it would likely have been done by drone, but drones were generally not in the mindset of most cinematic types back then (other than Lucas in Empire Strikes Back, gotta give him credit on that one). For the time, it makes a little more sense when you take that into account. At the time Aliens was made, the canon enemies of the US were the Union of Progressive Peoples (they later retconned everything from the Yautja to the Three Worlds Empire to far more Xenomorph encounters) with whom the United American States had been in a cold war since the 2160s, so there wasn't an active war on at the time.
Loading time - in this case they prepped and dropped as the Sulacco approached LV426, so they probably have until the carrier ship gets a low orbit, and they drop on perriaps of that orbit. Time to deploy, if I remember correctly the ramp starts extending right before touchdown, the APC hits the gas as the landing struts compress, and then it dusts off pretty much straight away. If there's an actual problem, then its the APC, with the side loading doors offering no cover while the troops deploy. Admittedly, a problem shared with APCs like the BTR-80 for example.
not sure apc door placement is a problem. the front turret is opposite side so if you roll up to enemy positions you point that side at enemies and squad has entire vehicle as coverage. several together and you can circle the wagons
Yeah, that's what I thought about the deployment of the APC, it really works better than just dropping it from underneath. It lets the drop ship absorb the landing impact and the APC just rolls forward, a lot easier on all the equipment and the troops. I don't think it would increase the deployment time by more than a second or two, if that, since it could come in a lot faster, those struts could take quite a hard landing. The drop ship leaving the Sulaco and it's flight dynamics make some sense too, though for a different reason. It looked cool. {Space Marines arrive with a menacing flair, ready to kick a**} Plot armor FTW. =)
Side doors are fine considering that APC is lightly armored and can't be used as a cover against enemy fire. And back side of the vehicle is used to retract the turret. Any vehicle is a compromise and millitary vehicles multiply this 10 times
I was going to try to defend the APC loading into the drop ship for aerodynamic purposes but everything else just… Le sigh. And I’ve always hated the pods that unfold asymmetrically. WHHHHHY
Almost all carrier aircraft fold their wings to save space. The Cheyenne's pods have to unfold asymmetrically because otherwise the missile pods would hit each other.
Ah, hypergolic propellant... "It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively... the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes."
Ahh, chlorine trifluouride. Pretty much the nastiest substance I've ever heard of. About the only way to make it worse would be if someone could make it radioactive, and even that would just be icing on the cake.
If you can find the Colonial Marines Technical Manual, a lot of the questions you pose in this vid are talked about or answered. FOr example, the big rocket pods were a feature added after production began (C model onwards from memory), so they would have had to have been installed in a way that didn't interfere with existing systems. If you want to find it, the book seems to still be for sale, I've added the reference details below: Brimmicombe-Wood, L. (1995) "Aliens: Colonial Marines Technical Manual". Boxtree Press (original issue) HarperPrism (1st reissue) Titan Books (2nd reissue).
Yeah... which would simplify their construction, maintenance, and so on... I do hope, however, that they nice smooth paved roads, with that almost nonexistent ground clearance/low-profile. It looks like you go "high center" if there was a brick in the road.
The weapon pods have to be my personal worst part. I can see extending weapons. Tuck them in nice and tight in transit. Deploy them out for combat. Why do they flip out from the other side? Was this designed as an action figure playset and the marines said build it for real?
@@blackc1479 The missile pods flip out while they're still at altitude. All it does is roll the plane to one side for a moment. Search RU-vid for videos of planes landing in bad crosswinds - pilots can handle worse than what the Cheyenne's missile pods throw at them.
That liquid propellant sounds like it dips from the well of CLGG technology. Very scifi, very 80's, just like caseless. I also suspect the slow dropping time, and how complicated is, could be rationalized that the Colonial Marines own space superiority, so they do not need to be quick doing things - or not to the level that it is a life or death issue a few minutes here or there.
@john smith different universe, I am an elite pilot of the Imperium in Elite Dangerous, but if you want, I can frameshift over and let loose the dogs of war
@@iStormUK no you can't, because wings isn't working again and you aren't in the same server...you can however, pick me up a mug at Hutton Orbital please
During the deployment of the dropship, the arms attached to the top of craft lower it into the airlock proper and then retract before the upper airlock doors close. The dropship body itself rests on 4 large arms/platforms which fold/drop down providing the "drop" part of dropship. On a side note as much as I love this ship I always found the large cris/crossing arms to be its oddest design choice.
Thats probably the most realistic/achievable way to drop a craft i can imagine. Simple but effective. (Granted lots of moving parts) But the pros are there. Smaller volume of air to evac to launch, main hanger is never exposed to vacuum (or direct fire), launch can be done while loading other ships w/o dicking w vac suits etc. And you get a gravity assist if youre close enough to the grav well. (I admit, i had not thought about the internal grav part, but im guessing the airlock is zero g.
Liquid propellent has been a wet dream (pun intended?) of Tank and SPG designers for the last 50+ years, so they can carry more propellent per gram compared to bag charges or combustible casing and the two liquids being inert or at least close to inert compared to the little "sticks" in bag charges.
@@SacredCowShipyards For sure, considering the total lack of success with the tech its even less likely for a aircraft or spacecraft and in the timeframe it might be possible you might as well use reactive chemicals to power a laser or magnetic accelerator (like a Chemrail).
I figured the Cheyenne was a utility craft that could be fit to different roles and not a dedicated dropship. With that perspective, the ramp makes more sense as it provides an enclosed cargo bay.
If you bolted the APC to the hull of the Cheyenne, then the APC has to be capable of re-entry and vacuum rated, and you'd lose a lot of the versatility of of the bay. Can't deploy without an APC or 'module', and, say, for instance, the APC gets blasted, but the marines survive . . . still not going home unless you can cling to the hull or cram into the cockpit.
I'd like to point out that the bsg reboot raptor had a similarly ridiculous rocket pod variant. Also never noticed till now that it's not the only thing it stole design wise from the aliens ship. Never noticed the similarities before
I wonder if the silly unguided pods were designed with the rationale such that the exhaust from the sixteen-pack of unguided rockets didn't immediately just get sucked into the intakes, so had to be more like wing-pods. Still, that offset thing is a massive "the hell?..."
Window cut for best line of sight looking to the left and the right, where is metal plate, the pilot can not see out of that location to start with so why place a window in a location a pilot can not see
Look up the Lockheed AH-56 it was decades ahead of it's time: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eDo04Lw_vbA.html It never went into production due to politics and the USAF throwing a hissy fit about the Army acquiring an attack helicopter with the the weapons load of a fighter-bomber and the performance of a fixed wing aircraft. When they tried again a decade later with the AH-64 they had to agree to lower performance limits to keep the Air Force off their backs this time around.
Despite it's potential flaws, I think all the tech in that movie fits in well with the kind of society humanity has become in the Aliens universe. What bothers me more than the tech is why they literally left NOBODY on board the Sulaco in case of emergencies or to execute contingency plans when stuff went south. I guess they figured flying stuff down on remote was good enough.
The Sulaco looks like it ought to be crewed by hundreds, right? Wouldn't it be great to have someone up there providing fire support to the ground pounders? Shouldn't they at least have enough troops to operate the other drop ship? Do they only have one APC? I don't see enough people for two. I can understand secrecy being important, but maybe give us a line as to why this huge ship that is clearly meant for more people doesn't have them. I mean, the colonial marines can't normally be sending huge ships like the Sulaco across interstellar space to deploy a mere 8 marines (or however many there were). If the U.S. Marine Corp were operating it, the Sulaco would be carring 10-20 drop ships and have nearly 2000 marines aboard!
@@XTINFILM - the Conestoga-class troop transports (the Sulaco and others) were obsolete by the 2170s when Aliens takes place, and due to post-war (the Tientsin Campaign in 2162 against the Union of Progressive Peoples) budget being re-allocated to build more advanced ships (they were in a cold war with the UPP at the time of Aliens) and having been reduced in status from primary transports to rapid response assault ships (think a glorified PT boat) as a result, the ship was heavily automated. It originally had a crew of 90 or so in addition to the 2,000 troops it could carry, but they replaced most of those with a pseudo-AI computer capable of flying and fighting even if the crew were all killed or still in hypersleep. The novel even mentions that the Sulaco was a slap-patched aging rust-bucket behemoth that was too expensive to scrap and replace, so they relegated it to lesser duties. Still, it should have had at least some Marines remain aboard to repel boarders, as the computer may be able to handle weapons and maneuvering but there weren't really any internal security measures in place.
@@SacredCowShipyards Well, yes - and I am also curious how you take the ships down to their nuts and bolts - is it before, or afterwards? In the latter case it will be oddly shaped nuts and bolts! Also why a cube? It could be a nice, round sphere, or anything else, really. So many questions!
1. Gatling: Barrel length is unfortunate, but not a deal-breaker: Just a matter of using it within ballistic limitations (like .30 carbines). 2. APC: Only problem is low-mobility: Wheel configuration limits it to decent roads, and even a good speed bump could hang it up. The rest of your problems with it aren't problems. Everything's a trade-off. 3. Wings: Legitimate problem with the arms not in lateral line with each other.
The Army was looking at using flamable gases as a propellant for the guns on the M1 awhile back. They dropped the idea for various reasons, some of which you listed. P.S. The M577 is a command vehicle in the US Army which is where they got the nomenclature. I used to ride around in one. It has tracks, no gun turret but it did come with a tent extention that attached to the rear of the vehicle and a diesel burning stove.
Cheep casing, solid state fuel and a lot of explosives. The Soviet way. Fancy electronics just complicates things (raises the cost) so they did what every Motherland loving Soviet would do and that is to follow the old folk wisdom - It doesn't matter where it hits as long as the bang is big enough ... and doesn't cost a lot!
I think I read somewhere (I could be wrong) that the missile pylons were inspired by the fold out weapon booms on Huey Helicopters from the Vietnam War. I always thought it was a cool way of protecting the missiles upon re-entry but it does raise some concerns.
I think of a lot of these issues are based on the idea that these ships are meant to be somewhat flexible generalists more than doing exactly what we see them doing. The ramp system could be used for the APC, Special cargo delivery, direct infantry loading, and more without any new stuff. And the APC may have been designed afterward to fit in that space vs being designed together, and the post hoc loading system is a mite awkward but expands the use of said drop ship and gives the designer a juicy contract. Also the frigate they deploy from can run multiple support operations in the cargo bay servicing multiple dropships at a time in different stages of their deployment cycle if they don't have to depressurize the main hold. Doesn't do the job we see it do perfectly but has a lot more options we don't see.
Who knows, they might have the dropship deploy from the bottom of the carrier ship because they got confused by the name? "Dropship" as in: it gets "dropped" :-)
The lower-side deployment makes perfect sense. Load up, mag-clamps (literally could be flat plates) deploy the ship through an airlock to the ventral surface for deployment to surface. The ship has artificial gravity, so the orientation in orbit is almost definitively going to "bottom faces atmosphere." Dropping vertically through the bottom allows the transport to simply dip the nose and be in-atmo. As for the ramp...Why does the ramp need to be fully lifted to take off with a VTOL craft? Why even stop moving? If under fire or in a hot zone, drop the ramp while skimming the surface and slower speed, allow the APC to roll out onto the surface, then tip up and lift while closing the ramp. Dropships don't have to land to deploy. The same is true for the D77 Pelican variants in Halo; they land for safety or convenience, not necessity.
Tbh one thing to explain the airlock thing could be for time saving, takes longer to depressurize a full hanger than a single dropship sized "room". And two doors gives you extra armor to limit any attempts to breach the hanger doors.
My problem with the Cheyenne is... rivets. Most of the hull, especially around the cockpit, is riveted. This is supposed to be a spaceship too. I'm not rocket science but welding wouldn't be way better then rivets to seal the ship?
@@米空軍パイロット Maybe on civilian spacecraft/planes it's not a big deal, but on military crafts i would say they most propably won't use it. Rivets are heavy and actually making the hull less sturdy. Good quality welding can make the hull more durable. Tried to look up currently used spacecraft that has riveted hull, but by the looks of it, modern designs, ones that made out of aluminum honeycomb or carbon composite, uses bolts. If you want the strongest pressure vessel, you either use a single block or welding. For example a few of the ISS's modules made out of a single piece of aluminium. For welding you just have to look on modern submarines.
I think there's a fair case to make that the _Sulaco_ is hovering above LV-whatever, and is not in orbit. The gravity field in the ship is therefore the gravity field of the planet, rather than an artificial field. Consider that the dropship appears to actually drop from the airlock, rather than undock and boost away, and also that the _Cheyenne_ doesn't appear to experience any significant heating from atmospheric entry. This latter would explain why all those cool-looking greebles on the outside of the ship don't get melted off.
It folds out its weapons racks like a Transformer: Well, given that Aliens came out in 1986 and there were multiple transforming-robot animated series about the same time ("Robotech/S.D.F. Macross", "The Transformers", and "Gobots"), with the latter two ongoing with extensive toy lines and both having feature length films also in 1986, the production choice of having Transformer-like features isn't too surprising.
The Armament pod arms could act as extra lifting/maneuvering surfaces, even if they're offset. They flew an experimental plane once with one wing swept forward and 1 back, it still flew as normal. It's called the "NASA AD 1 Oblique Wing Concept" It still is a pretty silly design, maybe it would provide enough spacing from the hull in case of magazine detonation of the missile racks?
Shall I also mention the dropships starts in orbit? How the heck is it then dropped? It's not shown to fire thrusters to get out of the hatch. So then what? A spring is used to separate the ships? But then the dropship is shown accelerating down. But that's not the best, not even a good way to get out of an orbit, that's done by burning retrograde. I'm confused.
Rewatching this one, and a new WTF just occurred to me. Those weird stubby lighthouse spinny lights. I get warning lights/strobes, but why a sweeping searchlight in a hanger? That could disorient someone doing something potentially boomy or whooshy? I cant even retcon a decent reason to have em. And i do disagree about the deployment mode. The ship opened the bay in flight, hit the pad and unloaded the apc, and then got back up in a matter of seconds. Honestly, i doubt they could have gotten that many folks on the ground even if they fast roped or something. Though i guess if you have to worry about mines the apc deployment is kinda screwed
What I've always wondered is why in the hell an entire colony disappears and the government sends a solitary squad of marines? 12 men? If someone attacked the colony, they needed to overcome 158 Colonists. And someone thought one squad was "good enough".
And then the SOP is to leave the _very expensive_ and very powerful interstellar warship *unmanned.* Let's assume a hostile player (foreign power if there is one - there's a need for marines so it's not all Kumbaya out in space; a terrorist/raider group, or even just the colonists all going cultist), and they somehow overcome the marines with a ambush. Then that really powerful warship is left unguarded and ready to be commandeered. At the very least if there's serious opposition on the ground for the Marines then the big guns on the Sullacco could do a orbital bombardment to help out. Shooting from orbit to the surface isn't that hard as gravity is helping, and a kinetic round from orbit on a enemy strong point could solve a lot of issues. And just having someone looking down from orbit can help, that's what recon satellites are used for. Then there's this conversation if it turns out to be a enemy military force they're facing: "That rocket they just launched looks like it's heading to our ship, did we remember to leave the phalanx system on?" If you ignore the difference of 200 years, what's to stop the crew of the Betty (Alien Resurrection) from simply docking with the Sullacco and making off with it? I'm assuming that the USMC does not send the entire crew of a amphibious assualt ship onto the shore and leave their ship just anchored offshore with no one onboard and a steering club-lock on the helm.
@@casbot71 actually i was going to answer the marines do cause that why they have the navy its there job to stay in the ship then it hit me you still have marines to guard the ship while they do there assault so yeah your right
@@casbot71 The Sulaco was able to handle the second dropship's entire prep and launch on its own, so it's reasonable to infer that it could defend itself against hostile intrusion and attack. The USCM Technical Manual explores that further, saying the Sulaco's AI was fully capable of maneuvering, defending, and fighting the ship entirely on its own authority, and was set to do so as its standard operating mode. Even without that, though, the ground team lost communications with the Sulaco when Ferro's dropship and the APC were destroyed. At that point, the Sulaco would have had no idea what was going on and no way to contact the ground team, regardless of whether it was fully manned or running on AI. Along with the comms, the ground team lost any access to orbital recon from the ship - though since the bugs were all either underground or already inside the various buildings, and with the planet being heavily shrouded in thick cloud cover and thermal interference from the atmo processor, it's not like that would have helped much anyway. The Sulaco carried a variety of weapons specifically designed for orbital bombardment, and using them was pretty much what Ripley and Cpl. Hicks planned to do; it's just that with the colony itself being the only thing worth shooting at, calling in fire missions onto their own position would be a more suicidal option than they really wanted to take. A "danger close" warning doesn't help much if it touches off the fusion reactor they're sitting on, and there wasn't much else worth shooting at.
If you think the way the AP is dispatched, you should look into actual C130 military cargo planes dropping tanks out of the rear while in flight by parachute.
I really hope at some point you do the Sulaco from the same movie. The Aliens Colonial Marines technical manual does a incredible deep dive on it and the Aliens Blueprint book is pretty impressive as well. I would love to see your take on it. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person to ask this so hopefully one day that video will show up and I will jump for Joy when it does.
Overall, I really liked this bird when I first watched the movie, lo these many years ago, but even then the deployable ordnance raised my skeptical eyebrows. The forward batteries weren't atrociously bad; they would have had a detrimental effect on the aerodynamics, but steering the craft would still be feasible. Those two after batteries; all my bullshit alarms started braying the moment they popped out. It looks to me like the designers didn't even really think about it; they just wanted LOTS of boom-boom. For sure, nobody did a wind-tunnel test of how the thing would fly when they extended those arms. That's my only real prob with the design, but that one prob is a whopper.
Ogh is that so? to do list: copy it and upgrade it by having allot of extention, xwing sfoiling, and many diffrent podes on many different sticks and with many stacks. Hope your happy.
Ok I think I need to point out that those rocket pods are long, to long. Given the size of the very visible flight crew where's the tank? I get the feeling looking at it that the designer of Dr Who's TARDIS was involved in the development.
The only thing I think is they act as air breaks to help slow down more quickly, but mechanically it's like making your cars break pads out of compressed cardboard, it probably work but gonna be fragile as hell and not last.
I can't imagine the contingency planning you would have to do in the case you got a pylon jammed open and still had to be prepared to return to orbit. Pilot, engineer we had a hydraulics failure, can't withdraw the left pylon. Damn looks like we have to put her down and call for a rescue. Much simpler to have a magazine or hatch or tube or something.
Okay so I know I'm late to the party here, but my contribution is that the rockets all being mounted on the same weapon system and being deployed together is actually pretty common for helicopters and ground attack craft. This is especially true for unguided weapons. The general idea is that while simultaneous fire isn't used consecutive fire is, and being able to rapidly reload the one deployed missile with more is a process that can break if a single missile fails. This means that having them all exposed means the full volley will always be able to be used. This design principle tends to hold true for any externally mounted smart weapons, but those are also the first to be internally mounted and thus would require the more complicated loading process
2:00 Well okay maybe when the thing is locked forward for atmospheric entry the gun's actual mechanisms slide back for protection, then when it deploys the weapon assembly barrels and all are shoved forward into the turret and the barrels stick out?
