Space Marine Land Speeder

Space Marine Land Speeders

The Land Speeder is a light anti-gravity vehicle that serves as the primary reconnaissance, reconnaissance, supply, and fast attack vehicle of the Adeptus Astartes of the Human Empire. The Land Speeder is based on a Standard Template Construct (STC) design recovered by techno-archaeologist Arkhan Land during his famous expedition to the Librarius Omnis on Mars in the early 31st millennium.

Land's Speeder, later known simply as the Land Speeder, was soon in large-scale production and used throughout the Empire of Man by the various Legions of Space Marines and the Imperial Army. The use of landspeeders by the Imperial Army's successor, the Astra Militarum, was gradually phased out as the plasma and antigravity technologies required for its manufacture became rarer over the millennia since the landspeeder's rediscovery.

As such, only extremely resource-rich Imperial planets or Adepta such as the Forge World of Ryza and the Space Marines can afford to create and use them. The Landspeeders used by the Space Marines use this ancient technology to glide across the ground at breathtaking speeds. They use anti-gravity repulsion plates to perform breathtaking maneuvers that would seem impossible to conventional vehicles. Landspeeders' grav drives do not function at high altitudes, but they can be used to perform a controlled descent suitable for use by overflying Thunderhawk attack helicopters.

Because the Landspeeder design was not rediscovered until the time of the Horus Heresy, and because of the difficulty and expense of maintaining them, there are no Landspeeders among the Chaos Space Marines' Traitor Legions, although they are available to Renegade Space Marines of the divergent turned to chaos in a chapter created after heresy. On the battlefield, Landspeeders are often deployed in squadrons of three. Landspeeders are fast-reacting units that quickly drop from orbiting transports to add their firepower to ground-based Space Marine forces. The Landspeeder is not an airplane and literally cannot fly.

While it is capable of reaching altitudes of up to 100 meters and gliding down from obit onto a planet's surface, it is much better suited to ground skimming. It is known that some Astartes formations, such as the Dark Angels Chapter's Ravenwing Company, will use Thunderhawks to quickly and safely deploy Land Speeders while in atmosphere. Landspeeders can fulfill a variety of battlefield objectives ranging from reconnaissance and scouting to tank hunting or other search and destroy missions. The Space Marine Land Speeder often acts as a mobile reserve vehicle - charging forward to exploit weaknesses in the enemy line, or augmenting the Space Marines' attack wherever they need it most.

Although lightly armored, Land Speeders are heavily armed and versatile, capable of carrying devastating infantry or anti-tank firepower. The Land Speeder Tornado is even more heavily armed, with an additional chin-mounted heavy weapon to bolster its mobile firebase role. The Land Speeder Typhoon is another common variant that, in addition to its manned heavy weapon, mounts a formidable rocket launcher battery to smash enemy troop and vehicle formations from afar.

All Space Marines in a Chapter are trained to fight in close support squads as a Land Speeder crew while on duty, but the ships are usually piloted by the bravest of all - those capable of the high speeds of which a Land Speeder is capable , really accept . Landspeeder pilots don't think twice about flying close to the land's contour, weaving between jagged crags, leaping through forests, or performing abrupt dives and barrel rolls to avoid incoming gunfire.

Considering the incredible mental and physical toll of accomplishing such mind-bending maneuvers at top speed, the fact that few Land Speeders are lost to pilot error can be attributed solely to the superhuman reactions, training, and stamina of the Space Marines who fly them man