Intruder Infantry Dropships

The Intruder is a versatile, recent addition to the ISA military, notably the Marines, after the Fall of Vekta, and were temporarily used as a dropship during the counterattacks against Vekta, along with the defense of the planets on the Border, during the Helghast's Border Campaign a year later in 2358.

Overview


The Intruder is a dropship commonly fielded by ISA ground troops. Despite its modularity and good reputation of reliability, it is often disliked by new recruits, often stating that it would break apart in midair. However, it is well-liked by veterans due to its lightweight nature, its modularity, and its speed.It has a small profile and the ability to drop troops on the dime. As a result, the Intruder is perfect for rapid deployment operations, but is fairly fragile, and despite great maneuverability has very limited protection for the exposed troops.

Design Details
The Intruder is essentially a cargo lift platform that has been modified for combat use. Initially it was seen as a way to quickly transport ammunition, supplies and other equipment to soldiers in the field in the heat of battle. Once, a desperate yet enterprising ISA soldier somehow managed to successfully convince an Intruder pilot to transport some of his wounded comrades to safety, and so began its good reputation as a reliable dropship. All versions of the Intruder are also equipped with flares and other forms of countermeasures.

Troop Capacity
Instead of the standard infantry bay with troops exiting from a forward or rear door commonly found in many military dropships, the troops resort to riding directly on top of it in a dangerous fashion.The Intruder can carry a total of 10 combat-ready personnel.

Armament
The Intruder is commonly equipped with wing-mounted rockets and a chin-mounted autocannon allowing direct-fire support in ground engagements, but is inferior in this role as compared to the Overlord; with its heavy armor, two VnS-10 Scylla heavy machine guns, and a pair of unguided missile pods. Its advantage over the Overlord dropship is that the Intruder uses wheeled skids, allowing it to be moved around with ease while on the ground or when maintenance crews need to move it into hanger bays. Its main advantage over the dropship however, is its fast speed, its modularity and its versatiliy, giving it the ability to participate in multiple kinds of ground engagements.

The dropships appear to use anti-gravity and thrust-vectoring (VTOL) technology. They are deployed from ISA Cruisers by way of being dropped from a track, in a similar fashion to the tracks on a roller-coaster drop.