That'll be the day. I can't see it happening as it stands today, it just doesn't make economic sense. If you want to put a squad of marines anywhere in the world within 2 hours just make sure you have bases or ships within 2 hours helicopter ride of anywhere on the globe, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper.

I can't see it happening as it stands today, it just doesn't make economic sense. If you want to put a squad of marines anywhere in the world within 2 hours just make sure you have bases or ships within 2 hours helicopter ride of anywhere on the globe, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper. lol your joking right? Do yo uhave any idea of the operational cost of a base or ship and supporting assets in theater? THe political cost of maintaining alliances? Even if a Dropship cost 100 Billion it would be a hell of a lot cheaper over the life of the program.

How much does an LCS cost? How many are being bought anyway, buy a dozen more with helos and drop a platoon of marines on each one. The US already has bases in the Mid East, Pacific, Europe, carriers and amphibious groups. You've got marines at embassies, just make sure you have a discrete way to get them to where they need to be from there. These existing assets could probably do over 90% of the dropship's missions. How often will the US absolutely have to get a squad of marines to somewhere on the globe in 2 hours, not 4 or 5 or at most 15-20 hours. Is that sort of extreme niche capability worth that much money? How many C-17s, could be bought for that money? How many C-130s? How many LCS'? All of those would provide so much more than a couple of dropships. Basically, if you've got 100 billion, or whatever it costs, there are better things to spend it on. It's like spending 100 billion to develope a lightsabre bayonet. Sure it will be super useful when the guy using it has to duel darth vader, but most of the time it has negligible advantage over steel.

Sure it will be super useful when the guy using it has to duel darth vader, but most of the time it has negligible advantage over steel. Thats the problem you are failing to realise. This isnt a "most of the time" capability. This capability falls into the clandestine emergency contingency category where the threats are unpredictable. There arent embasy or coastlines where its possible to cover all the potential threats. There are some areas where access would be down right impossible due to geography or anti-access threats. So you have to think this through a little more, as the USMC is doing, before you brush it off as too expensive. Also you have to think from an American perspective. Our defense spending is by far out of proportion to any other nation as are our GLOBAL national security interest. Essentially we have a limitless ability to spend money compared to any other nation. In addition we are in possession of the worlds most advance technologies almost across the board. So a capability like this might seem insurmountable to other nations. Its just a penstroke away for us. And we need it more than ever now.

This capability falls into the clandestine emergency contingency category where the threats are unpredictable. That category is so narrow that it is very hard to justify the spending of ,presumably, such a huge amount of money when other more urgent requirements exist. The US does have an massively larger budget compared to most nations, however, it doesn't change the fact that the budget is still stretched to meet the immediate needs of defending the US and implementing it's foreign policy. Any increase in spending has to come out of somewhere else. Operationally I see some problems as well. It's use would be limited to special forces type operations due to it's inability to sustain any sizeable force. Those sorts of things tend to need operate in covertly, yet any decent radar will see a re-entry vehicle and it will be visible to the naked eye to anyone within 100 km. That sort of thing can't be helpful for a small force trying to operate in secret. PS: A bit of disclaimer, I don't think it's economical now but perhaps in the future. The one way system doesn't seem to make much sense to me. If it could truely fly like the dropship in aliens then it would be incredibly useful. But I don't think the technology is at that stage just yet.

Americans lose enough faith in the Space Program when there's a Shuttle accident that kills several astronauts. Now imagine how the public will react when something goes awry with a dropship and a few dozen or more Marines are killed (or would those Marines be labelled as "acceptable losses" as were those lost in Osprey accidents?).

Most likely Americans would be unaware of these operations as they would most likely be covert. Do you think when Fox News reports an accident involving military personel thats always how it happened? Think about it...;)

Yes but... ...it's a different story entirely when a full platoon or company is all lost at the same time: regardless of military protocols, spouses and families back at the base/post will start asking serious, unrelenting questions as to why the entire platoon/company/etc was all lost at the same time. Rumors will start flying just as rampant as the questions, and definitely the press will get involved. It goes downhill from there, especially if a whistleblower comes forth with the compassion to let those families know how their men died. Definitely a hard one to cover up, even moreso if no crash wreckage is revealed/recovered for families to collect/bury any remains. Even so-called "covert" ops in A-stan and Iraq where people were lost, the families and press were eventually informed of the helicopters or transports being shot down/crashed/etc. And considering the USAF eventually revealed pilot losses in the F-117 program, I seriously don't see them (DoD) being able to keep a permanent gag order in effect on any accidents that kill upwards of a couple dozen people or more all at once. Even worse if the "accident" happens over hostile territory. We all remember the Francis Gary Powers U-2 incident. Imagine the PR nightmare if the remains of 20+ US service personnel suddenly start dropping from the sky in god-knows-what-forsaken country.

If this is going to drop anything off in a couple of hours, its probably going to be something like a bunch of heat shielded JDAMS...send it up at some convenient time in a crisis, and drop them when needed.

I know it's not the same thing, but in just the last week or so a V-22 flew across the atlantic non-stop. Took more than an hour for sure, but the point is made. The USMC can send people a long way and have them land in a drop zone. It would seem very useful in places like Okinawa where we have forward bases already in position.