ISA Intruder

“The ISA has the perfect vehicle for infantry support and transportation – it’s called the dropship. Unfortunately it’s so overspecced that the damn thing costs a fortune and takes up too much hangar space. So they came up with the Intruder as a cheap and expendable battlefield taxi."

- Unknown mechanic

"Riding an Intruder down from a Cruiser to the ground is bone-jolting, terrifying, and ear-shattering. The exposed cargo bed has had very few comfort concessions – a few straps and a knee-height rail are the best you can expect. Under fire, they have been known to literally shake their passengers out into free fall, and even if you stay on you have little protection from shrapnel, airborne rubbish, and turbulence. Needless to say, the Special Forces troops love the bloody thing.”

-Major Andrew James, ISA Engineering

“Can you hear this thing creaking? It better fucking hold together until we’re off…”

-Natko

The Intruder is a versatile dropship added to the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance's military and saw action in the later stages of the Second Extrasolar War. It replaces the ISA VTOL due to being less expensive production costs and having a smaller frame.

Overview

ISA Intruder

The Intruder is a dropship commonly fielded by ISA ground troops. Despite its modularity and good reputation of reliability, it is often disliked by new recruits, often stating that it would break apart in midair. However, it is well-liked by veterans due to its lightweight nature, its modularity, and its speed.It has a small profile and the ability to drop troops on the dime. As a result, the Intruder is perfect for rapid deployment operations, but is fairly fragile, and despite great maneuverability has very limited protection for the exposed troops.

Design Details

The Intruder is essentially a cargo lift platform that has been modified for combat use. Initially it was seen as a way to quickly transport ammunition, supplies and other equipment to soldiers in the field in the heat of battle. Once, a desperate yet enterprising ISA soldier somehow managed to successfully convince an Intruder pilot to transport some of his wounded comrades to safety, and so began its good reputation as a reliable dropship. All versions of the Intruder are also equipped with flares and other forms of countermeasures.

Troop Capacity

Instead of the standard infantry bay with troops exiting from a forward or rear door commonly found in many military dropships, the troops resort to riding directly on top of, often in dangerous fashion.The Intruder can carry a total of 10 combat-ready personnel.

Armament

The Intruder is commonly equipped with wing-mounted rockets and a chin-mounted autocannon allowing direct-fire support in ground engagements, but is inferior in this role as compared to the Helghast Overlord; with its heavy armor, twoVnS-10 Scylla heavy machine guns, and a pair of unguided missile pods. Its advantage over the Overlord dropship is that the Intruder uses wheeled skids , allowing it to be moved around with ease while on the ground or when maintenance crews need to move it into hanger bays. Its main advantage over the dropship however, is its fast speed, its modularity and its versatiliy, giving it the ability to participate in multiple kinds of ground engagements. The Intruder can also lean on its passengers for firepower, as while they're exposed, they can use weapons ranging from rifles to miniguns to great effect and with very limited obstruction.

The dropships appear to use anti-gravity and thrust-vectoring (VTOL) technology. They are deployed from ISA Cruisers by way of being dropped from a track, in a similar fashion to the tracks on a roller-coaster drop.  

Killzone 2

Multiple Intruders are present in Killzone 2, commonly seen being destroyed by Helghast anti-aircraft weaponry, such as anti-aircraft guns and ARC cannons.

Killzone 3

Without any other means of air support, the remaining ISA forces have taken to carrying miniguns while riding Intruders, for performing more aggressive tactics such as actively hunting Helghast Overlord dropships, strafing flights and hit-and-run raids. The Intruders are also used as a means of active transportation and attack by the Raiders, an ad-hoc unit of airborne infantry commanded by Master Sergeant Rico Velasquez.

Killzone: Mercenary

The intruder is also used by the Phantom Talon Mercenary unit over Vekta and Helghan. Its lightweight frame and open top are perfect for the deployment of glidesuit equiped soldiers.

Gallery

Intruder concept art.

ISA troops on an Intruder.

A pair of Intruders landing.

The Intruder from E3 2005.

VAN-Guard statistics.

Trivia

• It's unknown how the troops atop the Intruder are able to breathe that high up in the atmosphere of Helghan since there shouldn't be enough oxygen (this could be a story error).
• It's also unknown how the troops are not getting blown away by strong winds since they're not buckled or holding onto anything (this also could be a story error).
• In an interview, Guerrilla stated that they designed the Intruder to deliberately seem unstable rather than provide a proper means of troop transportation.
• The Intruder may have been named after the Grumman A-6 Intruder, a twin jet-engine, mid-wing attack aircraft.
• The Intruders have no straps available for buckling up, yet in Killzone 2 on Cruiser New Sun , Sergeant Thomas Sevchenko is seen telling Natko to buckle up (could have been a figure of speech).
• As of Killzone: Shadow Fall the Intruder has been replaced by a more sound VTOL gunship transport similar to (and likely inspired by) the Overlord.
• Its role is similar to that of real-life MH-6 Little Bird. Both are small and fast troop transports with little protection for the passangers.