Logistics Wins Wars - J-27 Ordinance Carrier
Logistics wins wars. While Battletech is a game of small scale armored combat if you have ever fought an extended campaign the reality of mechanized warfare becomes apparent - even with big, stompy, robots. If you can't bring up the autocannon and LRM ammunition, or the replacement parts and armor slabs then your campaign is going to be very, very short. In later years of development the game has (to my great delight as a campaign oriented player) introduced a number of logistics units to add to the complexity of game play. I will save my commentary for the distinct lack of clan logistics units for a later post - but one can only presume that the clan dominance of orbit allows resupply via drop-shuttle and dropship... but I digress.
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| What I imagine the logistics from a typical Succession Wars planetary invasion would look like... i.e massive. |
Today we pay homage to the grand daddy of all Battletech logistic units - the J-27 Ordinance Carrier. This little firecracker with a trailer is an oddity to say the least. Here we have a tracked logistics carrier with an open trailer designed to carry lots of things that go boom. In and of itself not a terrible idea to have an open trailer, the tracked carriage has always struck me as odd - perhaps in the 31st century off road resupply where a tracked vehicle makes a difference is more common, but it seems over designed.
There are not many renowned units of J-27s - as you can imagine when anything other than a machine gun armed locust looks sideways at them they tend to blow up. However we have at least one example of a unit having inspired a notation in the original TRO 3025 - the 125th Deadman. If ever there were a name to inspire motivation to desert, it would be this logistics company. The notations for the J-27 take pains to point out that the crews of these vehicles, especially in the Draconis Combine, were mostly prisoners given the choice between crewing these roman candles on tracks and a firing squad. So it should be no surprise then that an ordinance company of House Liao would have some gallows humor surrounding its moniker.
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| J-27 resupply convoy politely tell forward units when they will not make there on time delivery with very large signal explosions en-route. |
In the TRO 3025 description the 125th came under attack while operating in support of front line units on New Hessen and off loaded the LRM ammunition they were carrying in order to create makeshift firing points. Having some personal experience with makeshift indirect firing points from my tours in Afghanistan I can say that doing this with any kind of accuracy, even shooting giant walking tanks, would require nothing short of insane luck. Let alone who knows how they actually fired the ignition motors to launch them? One can only imaging a row of LRMs laid over a log, gunner with thumb stuck out for aiming and another crew member with jumper cables stuck together to light the engine. Good times.
So here you are, a pair of J-27 ordinance transports painted in what I imagine a company of logisticians would do with them in combat. These are from Ironwind Metals sold in combination with Thumper field artillery pieces that I will be doing in a separate post. I used contrast paints from Games Workshop on most of these - going for a canvas bed cover look with some technical ground effect paint from Games Workshop for the base. Overall a quick job - though I will say that painting any kind of detail onto the cargo missiles with a brush is damn near impossible - only way to really get good coverage is probably with an airbrush.
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