Battlefield Armored Assault Dropship: A Lego Star Wars Moc

I am so glad that this is done. Enjoy!
Behold the Battlefield Armored Assault Dropship.
Honestly, It’s hard to know where to start with this guy. Like most of my mocs, every single piece was placed for either aesthetic or structural reasons, and then changed multiple times to refine it and get the color scheme I wanted. Speaking of which, I went with the classic 501st white and blue combo, because let’s face it, it’s a gorgeous color scheme.
In front you can see the influence from the BAAT, modified down to a single pilot with landing pylons attached to the bottom. Of course, there was still plenty of room for the transparisteel underbelly for the pilot to gauge their Landing distance.
Of course, that’s kind of where the similarities end with the BAAT. Right behind the cockpit are 2 heavy laser cannons to assist in clearing out landing zones if needed. The cannons are a different color to help give that feeling that these massive guns were added after the fact with parts from another ship or weapons platform, retrofitted onto this vehicle to make it more intimidating or useful. Or both.
The center “neck” of the ship is where all of the carrying mechanisms are housed, along with a trusty astromech droid ready to do the heavy calculations needed for hyperspace and balancing large loads.
The back end on the top is meant to reflect a comms center with a large variety of antennae and detection equipment. These wouldn’t be standard for all BAAD’s, but I imagine that this one was the Advanced Carrier or BAAD/A Carrier. Of course, all of these have multiple uses and functions on the ship. The forward horizontal antennae double as a carrying handle, and the AWAC-styled radar dish is actually the actuator for the wing mechanism!
The struts going to the engine are unfortunately pretty bland, but they house the linkage going to the wings, and the structural elements used to hold up the whole back end with very little if any wiggle when landing. You can also hold the ship in the back from these struts without worrying about it falling apart.
Now the wings. The idea of using these large wings is the same as for the LAAT, they contain a large number of repulsorlifts throughout to help with lift when carrying a heavy load. Each wing rotates from the exact center of the engines, which, if anyone has tried to do that before, you know, that getting this to work is a ridiculous feat of engineering if I say so myself. I built the wings with a snot technique because I had never actually done that before, but considered it a fun challenge that tied in with the Imperial shuttle inspiration.
And on the very back, the TJ’s Lego room standard, Anti-pursuit cannons! (they also double as tensioners for the wing mechanism)
Now, ready to see it carry stuff?
First up: the bb-tank! Unfortunately the bb-tank did not lend itself very well to being carried into battle, but with a custom built harness, it ties right on and can even be picked up and dropped off with the BAAD/A’s wings out!
Next is the T-49 speeder transport! In order for this build we need to make a couple of adjustments. Close to the end of the building process, I got inspired by the cables for the real-world Chinook Helicopters, and built a cable attachment that adapts with the existing drop mechanism and uses the forward shaft I had luckily included so you can operate all 4 winches simultaneously! Now, the dropship can carry pretty much anything as long as it has 4 attachment points! Including, the t-49.
Now, I didn’t just end there, Heres a couple of other ships this guy can carry!
First off, a speeder bike harness with 4 speeder bikes, the imperial tank from rogue one, and of course, one of my favorites, a 501st recolor of the republic fighter tank!
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this, I gotta say it’s been such a hard project. For the last few months, every time I looked at this thing, I would say ‘oh, man, I’m never gonna finish that’. Luckily like every other problem on every other build, there was a solution, and all it took was about 6-7 straight hours in the Lego room on a Friday night and Saturday morning just going nuts on it! I will probably get the instruction out sometime this year, but I’m not in any hurry right this minute, I’m just going to enjoy the fact that it’s done for a few weeks. And I hope you can too.
Until Next time in TJ’s Lego Room, Play Well.
Bye!