Forums of the Megaverse®

I've been looking at my Robotech comics and I have some basic questions that to my knowledge have no official answer in regards to the Crusader Drop-ship. (BTW the folding design kinda reminds me of the imperial shuttles in Star Wars)

What are the basic dimensions to the Crusader Drop-ship found on the SDF-3? Do we have anything about about cargo/troop capacity, weapons, and flight capabilities?

based on the artwork in "The art of robotech the shadow chronicles" I'm guessing it is a 2/5ths of the length of the sdf-03. that would make it's length 496 meters. This does not include the tail fins.

~366m long and ~134m wide when connected to the SDF-3 would be my best estimate from AotSC. As far as troop capacity, no idea. Prelude depicts 2 decks per "leg", so while they have the volume for a lot of mecha in terms of deck space seems limited (unless they hang them).

The Crusader DS in its landing mode makes me think more of Tron than Star Wars.

i'd assume that the back 1/3rd of the 'legs' are drives and engineering related stuff.

While it's difficult to know the arrangement of the space inside the Crusaders (and the one image we have of the hanger doors open gives an appearance of wasted space) I would say you could look at the mecha compliments of the ARMD and the Daedalus of the Macross era, and the Garfish and come up with something in between for an idea of cargo capacity. As for weapons. Prelude seems to show one of those standard tri-beam particle turrets (HPC-SC240) mounted under the Crusader bridge. Also, when separated from the Crusader, one of those standard UEEF hexagonal style launch bays is visible on the hull of the SDF-3 where the Crusader docks, so there would likely be a similar dock on the underside of the dropship.