Aarsvogel Medium Dropship

“The power of chelti colonialism is carried on the wings of the aarsvogel, the vile butcher birds.”

• ♫ Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter

The Aarsvogel is a moderately sized dropship able to carry some light vehicles and infantry squads into battle and provide air support after dropping them off. It has VTOL capability and good handling, the side doors can also fold down part of the floors to assist in rappeling or debussing the vessel, the rear cargo ramp is rather more conventional.

Armed with a chin-mounted machinegun turret and large internal missile and bomb racks, the Aarsvogel is a powerful air support craft, but is no dogfighter even when empty. If left unopposed its capacity for area destruction has given it the name Butcher to many native insurgencies on chelti occupied planets.

• Space and air capable dropship.
• Medium cargo capacity, light vehicles or multiple squads.
• Moderate armament

Designed as a versatile deployment platform for ground troops, the Aarsvogel is capable of both limited fire support and troop deployment while being capable of self-defense from enemy intercept. This makes the Aarsvogel an excellent fast response dropship where operations must be improvised using ad-hoc units, or where support is otherwise limited.

A successor from multiple adapted designs, the Aarsvogel has been built to handle alien environments, with its engines able to be tuned and refined or even refitted completely to various atmospheres quickly, its navigation software can be calibrated using naval sensors, and it's high thrust ratio allows it to operate even in high gravity worlds. By taking lessons learned from the previous generations of dropships, often adapted from homeworld designs and brought along, the Aarsvogel is able to operate an almost every environment replacing a large number of once specialized transport options.

Being primarily a transport, the Aarsvogels agility is nothing special, however by manipulating the thrust of its four engines it can be surprisingly maneuverable in level flight, and has extremely fine control in the hover. It's not particularly fast for aircraft, but can reach orbit through high altitude ascent.

Moderately well-armed, capable of carrying a mixed load of Air-to-Air missiles, a variety of air-to-ground ordinance including rockets, dumb-bombs, anti-tank missiles, or smart munitions, the Aarsvogel is capable of being equipped for almost any situation but suffers from Jack-of-all-trades syndrome. It has a chin mounted ball turret operated from the cockpit, as wells as hydraulic arms which can hold heavy weapons for crew operators to fire out of the sides and rear. The Aarsvogel also often carries a single Cashew Aerodrone for LZ defense deployed while landed to maintain defense, the drone is able to target active munitions, provide target saturation, and perimeter security while protected the vulnerable dropship.

Equipped with grapple lines, troops are able to quickly slide down lines to the ground from all sides of the vehicle even while hovering up to sixty feet above the ground. Static rappel lines can be deployed for less able troops also. When deployed, the side doors also open part of the floor to assist disembarkation.

Two flight crew, one Systems Officer, sometimes separate from the Systems Officer will be a Loadmaster responsible for cargo and troop embarkation along with two Gunners for manning the internal weapons.

In the transport compartment the Aarsvogel is able to fit up to 12 fulled equipped infantry as stock using fold down seats along the walls, along with two light vehicles. or 36 troops if seated on the floor very closely.

Carried as a secondary for both air and ground targets, the turret is controlled from the cockpit and can be manipulated by both the Systems Engineer through TV operation, or the Flight Crew by slaving the aimpoint to their helmets, allowing them to aim where they look. The Turret is set low underneath the cockpit and so cannot fire above the dropship or to the rear.

Probably a good idea to bring one of these if it's a warship or armed freighter. A brief description of the type and capability. A laser system, or otherwise.

The ships armor, secondary protection, damage control measures, and anti-boarding measures, a sub-header for each.

Optional out of character notes for players and

Dropship: United Peace Force