>>12696638ODSTs usually aren’t dropped en masse, but rather one or two squads at a time. A squad pod would be a single, much larger target, and if it gets shot down you just lost an entire squad of elite troops to a single AA round. 1-man pods mitigate losses during the drop. And ODST squad can still function and do its job if they’re missing a couple men, but not if the entire squad is dead.
