Um, just to point out, Marines are not orbital drop troops... they are combat shock troops, dropships fill this role best.<br/><br/>Also, Paladin is right, there is no 'drop pod' or any kind of free fall reentry vessel in the Aliens universe. At all... I've never once seen mention of one such thing, only the UD-4L.<br/><br/>On the issue of the M557, its overall going to be relatively useless to us. In the movie, they used it for all of... 5 minutes, maybe. And never that effectively, it got blown up fuckin' quick, aye?<br/><br/>But, on that point, the best part of the APC versus MBT debat is an APC is very customizeable. We could get a recon variant of the M557, which would better reflect our overall mission, while not giving us unfair firepower or a place to 'camp out', so to speak, as its unlikely that the APC would survive acid blood and hiding inside really makes you a lunch in a tin can, type of deal. It ALSO provides a 'I can't believe he stole our APC' moment should a shifty Weyland Yutani employee feel the need to get to any secret research facilities ahead of the rest of us. :D<br/><br/><br/>Just sayin...<br/>