Dreadnought Drop Pod

The Lucius Pattern Dreadnought Drop Pod, also known as the Lucius Pattern Heavy Drop Pod, or more simply as the Dreadnought Drop Pod, is a specialised variant of the common Drop Pod used by the Adeptus Astartes for planetary assaults. A Drop Pod is one-way, sealed, armoured landing craft that is launched from an orbiting starship onto the planet below. The Drop Pod plummets through the planet's atmosphere at meteoric speeds, firing powerful retro-rockets just before touchdown to rapidly slow their descent. Having made what is little more than a controlled crash landing, explosive bolts are released and the armoured doors of the pod open, allowing the enclosed Space Marines to deploy. The Dreadnought Drop Pod is a larger variant of the standard Drop Pod, featuring a more powerful thruster and retro-rockets. Where internal seating and support harnesses are found in the infantry pods, a Dreadnought Pod is empty, and the five outer ramps are replaced three larger ones. The internal space of the pod is wholly dedicated to transporting a single Space Marine Dreadnought, of any type or pattern, and the design of the craft allows for the Dreadnought to be transported to the battlefield with the minimum of delay. The intense stresses caused by the Dreadnought Drop Pod's larger engines and support-free interior space are such that only the highly armoured shell of a Dreadnought could hope to survive the descent to the ground without being pulverized on impact.

The most common pattern of Dreadnought Drop Pod is the Lucius-pattern, manufactured principally on the Forge World of Lucius in the Segmentum Obscurus. These vehicles are tithed directly to various Space Marine Chapters in which with the Archmagos Forge-masters have protective treaties and ancient ties to debt. As with any craft that suffered from such a high attrition rate in battle, Dreadnought Drop Pods are highly valued and invariably always in high demand by those who use them most. During the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras of the late 30th and early 31st Millennia the Dreadnought Drop Pod was widely used by the Space Marine Legions, however many Legions preferred the more mobile, multi-role designs such as the Dreadclaw, as these craft could take off again after landing, be used in ship-to-ship combat and were also armed for protection against enemies.

Canon Conflict
The Legion Dreadnought Drop Pod page entries in The Horus Heresy: Book One - Betrayal, The Horus Heresy: Legiones Astartes - Crusade Army List, and The Horus Heresy: Legiones Astartes - Age of Darkness Army List all state that the Dreadnought Drop Pod was not as preferred as the multi-role Deathclaw pattern that had been made recently available to the Legions. This may be an oversight by the book's authors and may be intended to read Dreadclaw, as the Dreadclaw pattern fits that description. Until this issue is clarified, it is to be assumed that it was a mistake and should read Dreadclaw instead of Deathclaw.

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