[avatar of cane]

hi all,

ok first off i dont play marines at all so im not too hot on the fluff and stuff
but i play against them often enough,
if this is a realy noobish question then feel free to dreadsock me :P
im just wondering why marines, and the imperium in general dont
use helicopters.

thanks

cane

[Zen]

They do. Space Marines use Thunderhawks while the Imperial Guard uses Valkyries. Both Aircraft are quite capable to be used as Troop Transports or Gunships. Thunderhawks can hold up to 30 Marines while the Valkyrie can transport 10 Guardsmen.

Of course, they don't have rotor blades to create lift. They use VTOL Engines to hover and anything else a Helicopter can do plus they're much faster (Turbo Engine. Duh!)

[Hoarday]

That's basically the short and long of it. Valkyries and Vultures perform basically identical roles to modern Black Hawks and Apaches respectively. The Thunderhawk is bascically a mega sized version of them. The Imperium does still have helicopters, but they're called Ornithopters and show up occasionally in the fluff as transports and gunships used by mercenaries, private citizens/organisations and stuff like that.

They're basically out dated technology in the same way that the autogun is. They're still out there, but it's bottom of the barrel stuff that Imperial military avoids using itself whenever possible.

[Domitian]

Not to mention Space Marines have access to anti-grav technology, which they use for Land Speeders. Anti-grav technology > rotary wing aircraft.