Talk to me about... the Buccaneer DropShip

[Middcore]

...specifically, talk to me about where/how the heck it loads and unloads its cargo.

(I apologize if this is the wrong forum, but for reasons somewhat opaque to me Fan Articles seems to be the go-to now for discussing the minutiae of a single specific unit.)





Fluff says the Buccaneer has two main cargo bays with 1000 tons of capacity each on either side of the ship. The areas shaded in yellow in the attached images look kind of like doors, and are the ONLY things that look at all like doors to my eye. The problem is that they are above the wing and would open directly on to the wings...

We're not even going to talk about the 300-ton secondary bay which is supposed to be above the transit drive because transit drives in general are such a groaner, but presumably most of the area on the bottom of the Buccaneer's (proportionally) very thin fuselage is taken up by the transit drive and the docking collar, so I don't see how there can be any loading doors on the belly. I guess since we have no rear view it's plausible there are ramp doors under the tail, but then I have trouble seeing where the atmospheric drive exhaust could fit.

Are we just supposed to assume that the ship's inner wings are reinforced to allow cargo to be stacked on them during loading/unloading, and that the vehicle carrier version, not being a dedicated military ship but rather a conversion, is only suitable for use in rear areas because you need a crane to get the tanks down? (I guess hovertanks could just drive off the wings without too much trouble but wheeled and tracked are stuck.) But remember that the Buccaneer was also originally supposed to have been a company-sized 'Mech carrier that lost out to the Union... hopping down off the wing is one thing but it seems to me 'Mechs without jump jets would be at a loss to get on board under their own power at all.

I am thinking about how this would work an unreasonable amount because I wanted to use the Buccaneer in a fanfic and it's making me unreasonably irritated. Someone, please tell me I'm missing something and that this isn't just a case of Dana Knutson drawing a really cool-looking "giant aerospace fighter" DropShip in 1988 that makes no practical sense.

Edit: OK, so we're going to talk about transit drives after all I guess. I just realized the DA novel Fortress of Lies features a description of a Buccaneer which strongly implies it's one of the aerodyne types which actually has no belly transit drive at all, rather featuring a reconfigurable interior where corridors pull double duty as ladder shafts and such. I guess this makes belly loading doors more plausible... but it also makes the original DropShips & JumpShips sourcebook description of "a central fuselage with a large cargo bay attached to either side" match up even less to the way the ship is actually drawn.

[JadeHellbringer]

With respect to the artist, trying to figure out half of the ships' features in '57 (or really, a lot of the stuff in '58 as well) is sort of 'nope'. The big quartered-globe things every unit seems to have, for example, or the weird paddles on the Aegis.

As for the Buc, I can't fathom why you'd put cargo doors above the wing appendages, that seems like the absolute worst place for them to be- any facilities for unloading cargo have to reach up and over the wing, which doesn't make a bit of sense. One wishes the ship had a high wing instead of the current setup, but I suppose the whole idea was to resemble the British attack jet of the same name (?), so the wing was put where it was. (I mean, I've always assumed that was the plan, for it to look that way.)

[Middcore]

With respect to the artist, trying to figure out half of the ships' features in '57 (or really, a lot of the stuff in '58 as well) is sort of 'nope'. The big quartered-globe things every unit seems to have, for example, or the weird paddles on the Aegis.

As for the Buc, I can't fathom why you'd put cargo doors above the wing appendages, that seems like the absolute worst place for them to be- any facilities for unloading cargo have to reach up and over the wing, which doesn't make a bit of sense. One wishes the ship had a high wing instead of the current setup, but I suppose the whole idea was to resemble the British attack jet of the same name (?), so the wing was put where it was. (I mean, I've always assumed that was the plan, for it to look that way.)

I totally agree about putting cargo doors above the wings, that's what I was trying to say... it's just that I can't see anywhere else for doors to be, at least that seems even vaguely in the spirit of the description of two main cargo bays on either side of the fuselage.

I guess it does look vaguely like the Blackburn Buccaneer. I'd never considered that before. They both have swept wings and T-tails (well, actually cross-tails) although that doesn't become obvious until the 3057 art, with Knutson's intentions for the tail in the DS&JS art being a bit opaque to say the least. The Blackburn Buccaneer actually has a mid-mounted rather than low-mounted wing, though, so if they had kept that part of the possible inspiration and put the doors below, it would be much easier to swallow.

[Hellraiser]

First off, this is clearly a beautiful sleek ship, I love the DS/JS drawings, but, yeah, it makes no sense how its supposed to actually work

I do have some thoughts on how it could work.

1.  Based purely on DS/JS, I'd almost think it needs a ramp coming off the wing like an 747 that can't get to a terminal.  (DS Wings are probably strong)
2.  Also a terminal style pull up where the cargo IS actually walked/driven across the wing would work.
3.  You could take that a step further & have some sort of loading dock where like w/ 18-wheelers the DS would drive in to a lower ramp thus bringing the wings to ground level.
4.  Finally, you could have an unseen ramp that creates a hole in the wing so they walk out the door & down through the wing.


5.  But to me the TRO3057 picture actually gives us a bit of an answer in the way there appears to be some sort of opening right next to the cargo doors but in that bulge at the bottom of the tail.  That bulge almost looks like you could walk out the cargo door & then into that bulge which then could be a down ramp fairly thin like something from the Millennium Falcon.  Only instead of walking up into the ship, you walk up and come out just outside the ship but go right back in the cargo doors.

6.  I always thought the smaller hold above the transit drive would leave via a rear drop down ramp under the exhaust like the back of a C-130.


Now that I'm thinking about this, what about combining both options?
The "bulge" locations house a pair of ramps, AND, half way down the ramps there is a side ramp/walk out from inside the smaller cargo hold that lines up w/ the 2 ramps going down so that loading from the ground is all done via the back of the DS.

We could simplify it even further & just have it be a single ramp like a C130 but that at the top of the ramp you basically would have 3 openings, 1 in the middle going to the small belly bay or 2 more that continue up both sides to get to the top of the wing where it is a short few steps back into the other doors.


Either way with this idea the rear ramps are going to be coming down between the Transit & Standard drives as I see it.
Walking out just behind/to the rear of the belly/transit drive & yet under the standard drive which would be at the base of the tail.

[Elmoth]

per the rules, are the doors locate in the sides of the ship? If not necessarily, you could always argue that the ship cranes its cargo from the centre. I can see a line of mechbays in the centre hold, and the mechs being all cranned down from the belly of the ship into the ground.

If not, I always assumed that the wings (and landing gear!) were sturdy and could take the load of cargo being driven to them and down ramps that deploy from the wings into the ground.

In the end the fact that it is mire cumbersome to load and unload cargo is A GOOD THING. Since it has 500 extra tons on a Union, something needs to be bad for it to have lost in front of the Union in the procurement trials.

[Frabby]

I always assumed there would (have to) be a rear cargo ramp that is lowered to the ground just like for cargo airplanes that obviously inspired the looks of this DropShip.

[Middcore]

In the end the fact that it is mire cumbersome to load and unload cargo is A GOOD THING. Since it has 500 extra tons on a Union, something needs to be bad for it to have lost in front of the Union in the procurement trials.

Well compared to the Union it's very poorly armed, and also has the tactical limitations of being an aerodyne.

[Natasha Kerensky]

You also gotta love the jet-like air intakes just behind the cargo doors.  Critical for the fusion bottle engine...

[Hellraiser]

Those are what I was referring to above.

The way they appear to have a swinging door on them almost compared to the DS/JS & the way the artist put something small out there in front of them on the wing like a cargo box or small vehicle is part of what lead me to think of the idea of there being a ramp back into the rear of the vehicle that lead down below.

[Middcore]

You also gotta love the jet-like air intakes just behind the cargo doors.  Critical for the fusion bottle engine...

Which Loose added for TRO3057 after they were nowhere to be seen in the DS&JS art. Makes me wonder if he ntended for those bulges with the "intakes" (or "swinging doors" in Hellraiser's estimation) on their fronts to be the cargo bays on either side of the main fuselage, although if they are they can't be more than ~40m in length which seems way too small for their stated capacity.

Oh, I just noticed the DS&JS fluff says that the Buccaneer's cargo unloading speed is "considered quite fast for standard merchant operations."  ::)

[Intermittent_Coherence]

Fluff says they are cargo bays, not cargo bay doors. They are probably only bay doors in that they can be opened if the cargo needs to be spaced, as in an emergency.

For everyday loading and unloading, it looks like they just go through an aft loading ramp like modern day cargo planes.

[Hellraiser]

Oh, I just noticed the DS&JS fluff says that the Buccaneer's cargo unloading speed is "considered quite fast for standard merchant operations."  ::)

Yep, it lost out to the Union, but it was in the running for military deployment speeds.

You know, makes me wonder if that speed might also come from having that whole wing to pull stuff out of the bay onto, lol.
It's really easy to pack & unpack when your not all cramped inside the ship but have stuff just sitting on the wing waiting to get loaded &/or moved around.

[Hellraiser]

After seeing the British fighter Buccaneer, I can see the resemblance.

I always felt the DS had a very "Leer Jet" look to the main body & only differed in the wings.

Now after seeing the fighter, its like a cross breed of the two.

[Wrangler]

If I were forced to say, I would suspect nether Loose or Dana (person who drew DS&JS) wasn't aware where the doors were supposed to be. It's abstract thing, fluff.

That being said to me if the doors are truly on the siders and on the ramp. I think there maybe a hidden ramp that slides out of the back of those wings or forwards to allow vehicle traffic roll or march down.

Realistically you don't want doors on under half because of reentry.  This vehicle despite being civilian cargo hauler now, was intended as a Mech Carrier. While not as well armed, it certainly designed to be rugged like the Union is.

[Hellraiser]

That being said to me if the doors are truly on the siders and on the ramp. I think there maybe a hidden ramp that slides out of the back of those wings or forwards to allow vehicle traffic roll or march down.

Realistically you don't want doors on under half because of reentry.  This vehicle despite being civilian cargo hauler now, was intended as a Mech Carrier. While not as well armed, it certainly designed to be rugged like the Union is.

Good Points, and to add to that, we see what the Buccaneer's final stats look like, the prototype that lost out to the Union might have had more weaponry.
This could be different, a final production model w/ less guns for the Civilian market.

[Wrangler]

In a homebrew campaign, my GM had us go to one those jointed Hegemony Colonies with Free Worlds League.  On it our dropship got destroyed, but we salvaged one these prototype Buccaneers.  Which essentially worked that way as he had to explain the mech loading / unloading thing.  Essentially Roll On/Off from the wing sections.   

A C5 / C17 Military Lift plane's nose raising gate won't work either due to the re-entry issue.  Again, doors are fluff issh, they need only to be there. The "Where" is another matter entirely..

[glitterboy2098]

A C5 / C17 Military Lift plane's nose raising gate won't work either due to the re-entry issue.  Again, doors are fluff issh, they need only to be there. The "Where" is another matter entirely..

don't see why not.. Spheroid dropships have big honking doors at the bottom and they never suffer issues, and the Gazelle has a nose ramp set p and it works just fine, aside from fluff stating it is a bit slow to unload due to the single exit point. (which really is just a description of the game mechanic limits of having a single door to the vehicle bays but carrying 15 tanks in said bay.)

it is worth remembering that dropships do powered reentries, where they use thrust to deorbit and drop almost straight down through the amosphere at speeds too low to generate the kind of friction based heat we tend to think of from IRL spacecraft (which due to our tech limits, have to do purely ballistic reentries and rely on that friction to slow down)

think like the Savage Chicken in Freefall, or the Rocinante in The Expanse