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human
[Edge of Tomorrow] How are drop ships meant to work in an ideal operation? (Minor spoilers)

The assault on the Normandy beaches by the United Defense Force was a mess, but I'm confused as to what would have happened if Operation Downfall had gone as planned.

The drop ship used by J-Squad seems to be primarily designed to drop soldiers straight into combat. But the soldiers being dropped are wearing very heavy exoskeleton combat suits, so how are their landings softened so they don't get knocked out?

From what we see they are dropped but still attached by cables to the drop ship, which I guess lessens the distance from them to the ground, but it only means that they are now dangling helplessly from an aircraft. In the first drop shown we see how bad that can be, with soldiers being swung into each other like dysfunctional puppets. Plus thanks to that gangway that runs through the middle of the drop ship, any bit of turbulence can have men knocked out as they drop away.

If that drop ship hadn't been hit by anti-aircraft fire, how would the drop have occurred? If they'd dropped from the ship, dangling from cables, would they then have released themselves to drop only a few feet to the ground? If so why was the ship so high up, when they were about to drop before being hit? Why doesn't the ship just descend until the men can disembark from a safe height?

Why even have the soldiers be dropped like this when, unlike an airborne force, they were only being transported to the front line rather than into the middle of hostile territory? Surely infantry wearing heavy combat suits could be transported by one of the hovercraft shown in the invasion? Considering how close to the beach they were dropped there seemed no purpose to having them transported by aircraft (bear in mind they dropped roughly were they should have, as they were hit by anti-aircraft fire just before they were planning to drop anyway).

I had a few other problems with the military tactics in this film, but this one really leapt out at me!
gpt
First and foremost the invasion was planned for cameras, not warfighting. Remember that the mimics were supposed to be caught totally by surprise. No one was supposed to be shooting at the droppers.

If there had been no enemy fire the suits would have been deployed down onto the ground much like soldiers of old who used to fast rope out of helicopters. The dropship swings up a moderate distance above the ground, the doors open, troops fall with the assistance of tensioned cables, the cables are released and retracted, the dropship pulls off and the troops muster forward to allow the next drop to occur behind them. It's not a tactic at all designed to be done in the face of enemy fire any more than fast roping was.