A dropship is a science fiction landing craft used to deploy troops and vehicles from orbiting mothership to battle on a planet's surface. Dropships vary in size and capacity. Small dropships may transport only a single squad, while larger dropships can accommodate an entire regiment. Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Landing craft Rapière LCU 1656 departs USS Bataan (LHD-5) well deck during Hurricane Katrina relief operations. ... A mothership is a vessel or aircraft that carries a smaller vessel or aircraft that operates independently from it. ... In the fire service a Squad is a Engine Company with a compliment of rescue tools. ... A regiment is a military unit, consisting of a group of battalions, usually four and commanded by a colonel. ...

Dropships are usually heavily armored, and may possess some weapons for suppression fire. Dropships tend not to be very maneuverable, but do usually have a high speed descent, making them difficult targets. Dropship ascents from planets meanwhile are typically much slower. Suppression fire or suppressing fire is weapons fire (for example, from rifles, machine guns or artillery) designed primarily to keep an enemys heads down and prevent them from carrying out operations, such as moving or firing. ...

Examples

Some examples of dropships include:

• UD4L Cheyenne from Aliens
• Variety of craft featured the PS2 game Dropship: United Peace Force
• The terran class of character in the PC game StarCraft has a dropship available which can transport land based units by air
• Sentinel-class landing craft and Trade Federation landing ship from Star Wars
• BattleTech dropships
• Pelican, Albatross, Spirit and Phantom from Halo and Halo 2
• Dropships utilized by jumptroops in Exosquad, e.g. Arnhem
• Thunderhawk Transporter utilized by Space Marines in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
• Combine Dropships in Half-Life 2. The Dropships in Half-Life 2 are more versatile and maneuverable than most incarnations of the theme. They are a flying semi-organic creature with magnetic feet used to carry troop containers or APC's.

The UD4L Dropship is a fictional dropship and tactical transport used by the United States Colonial Marines in the movie Aliens. ... Aliens is a 1986 science fiction movie directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Carrie Henn, Bill Paxton and Paul Reiser. ... PS2 can mean: PlayStation 2 (Sony PS2), sixth-generation video game console PS/2 (IBM Personal System/2 office PCs, or the interface standard for mice and keyboards that the PS/2 series set) Phantasy Star II, second in the Phantasy Star seiries of video games. ... For the racehorse, see Starcraft (horse). ... The Sentinel-class Landing Craft was a transport used by the Empire to carry troops or supplies in Star Wars. ... The following is a list of fictional Star Wars assault gunboats, dropships, shuttles, space transports, and other support spaceships. ... This article is about the series. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Master Chief emerges from smoke and rubble that litters an African plain in Halo 3. ... Halo 2 is a first-person shooter developed by Bungie Studios. ... In the 1993-1995 sci-fi animated television series Exosquad, Exofleet was the commonly used name for all battle spaceships built by the humans of the Homeworlds. ... Phaeton, leader of the Neosapiens Exosquad was a science fiction cartoon that ran on the USA network and Fox from September 1993 to May 1995. ... The Space Marines are one of the major forces available in the table-top wargame Warhammer 40,000. ... This article is about the tabletop miniature wargame and the fictional universe in which it is set. ... Half-Life 2 (HL2) is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game and the sequel to Half-Life. ...

Other meanings

Another meaning of Dropship (or Drop Ship) in commerce context —

Drop Shipping: The shipping of a product directly from the manufacturer to the customer without requiring inventory carrying by the retailer. It also refers to a form of sales where the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead passes the customer's order and shipment details to the wholesaler, who then dispatches the goods to the customer directly. The retailer makes their profit on the difference between the wholesale and retail price. Drop shipment or drop shipping is a type of retailing where the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead passes the customers order and shipment details to the wholesaler, who then dispatches the goods to the customer directly. ...

See also

• http://mybuzzpoint.blogspot.com for blog on dropshipping.
• Space battleship
• Mother ship
• Starfighter