| AMX-30D "Jairus" Armoured Recovery Vehicle | |
| |
| Faction |  Order of the Talon
|
| Unit Type | Tank |
| Designation | Support |
| Prerequisites | Reliquary |
| Secondary Ability | Rebuild Vehicle |
| Cost | Unknown |
| Production Time | Unknown |
| Veterancy Upgrade(s) | •Twin machine guns (vet) •Increase repair rate and autoheals (elt) •Wrecking ball, anti structure attack (her) •Recovered units retain veterancy (div) |
| Dev. Status | Conceptual |
| Country of Origin |  France
|
| Forged by | GIAT Industries, Loire |
| Key Features | » Armoured superstructure with crane » Talon Steel towing cable » Pintle-mounted 7.62mm machine gun » Mine-resistant bulldozer blade » Engineering crew |
"Grab the hose. It's messy in there."
- - Jairus artificer, preparing to clean out the interior of a tank shredded by a Colossus
Tactical Analysis[]
- Armoured Recovery: The Jairus Recovery Vehicle repairs friendly vehicles at a brisk pace in the field, restoring HP and cleansing debuffs and damage-over-time effects.
- Armoured Recovery: The Jairus itself is heavily armored and comes with a dozer blade specifically designed to plow up minefields in safety to clear the path for friendly units. And veteran crews expanded knowledge means they know how to quickly repair any vehicles, theirs included.
- We Can Rebuild Him, We Have The Technology: The Jairus' secondary ability allows it to reconstruct a Talon vehicle hulk on the battlefield, restoring it to fighting shape. Rebuilt vehicles still need repair work, though, and between a new vehicle crew and difficulty repairing more exotic pieces of equipment in the field, resurrected vehicles lose all veterancy and associated benefits. Though highly experienced Jairus crews mechanical knowledge, with the help from accompanying Alchemist, can repair the more advance pieces of a Talon vehicle and save any survivors (rather common thanks to Talon Steel), ensuring the recovered vehicle retains its experienced crew/advance equipment.
- Not Quite Harmless: As a vehicle intended for front-line service, the Jairus does have a limited ability to defend itself with a pintle-mounted machine gun, though it is wholly ineffective against anything but infantry and the lightest of aircraft, such as Imperial burst drones. Though crews would, if they live long enough, attach another machine gun, likely salvaged from an enemy vehicle. While more experienced crew would even attach a wrecking ball to demolish buildings, and vehicles too slow to get out of the way.
Operational History[]
The Jairus Recovery Vehicle owes its origins to the heady days of World War Two in Europe, when the various nations that made up the Allied Nations had not yet standardised equipment across the board. So long as two vehicles produced by different nations had roughly similar performance characteristics, they were dubbed the same machine on the organisational chart: Pershings, Panzers, and Churchills were all deemed medium tanks.
As the war dragged on and the Allies continued to lose ground, however, many of these national designs were scrapped as the Allied Nations grew more authoritative and introduced sweeping international military reforms. In a single stroke, the Mastiff tank became the medium tank of every Allied nation, and all countries were ordered to switch to producing them.
While there was a very good reason behind this in that such standardisation would greatly simplify logistics and maximise efficiency, the ensuing chaos in the military-industrial complex throughout the western world had far-reaching repercussions, and one of them reached the Order of the Talon. GIAT Industries, formerly the premier military manufacturing corporation in France, took particularly severe losses as French-designed weapons and equipment were quickly phased out of service among the Allied military, which favoured American, British, and German designs.
The concessions to minor Allied nations to spur their military industries, such as Finland, Australia, and South Africa, further rankled the collapsing French military-industrial complex, which had only won acceptance with a scant two military designs--and one had been produced in cooperation with FutureTech, a corporation that more than a few Allied military contractors had grown to resent. France, the Allied Nations had apparently decided, would base its economy on things other than its proud military tradition and efficient home-grown equipment for the sake of benefiting the global economy.
Traditionally, the only recourse for corporations shut out by the Allied Nations was joining the Mediterranean Syndicate or colluding with the Empire of the Rising Sun. GIAT Industries was extremely reluctant to abandon its heritage and history of service, and publicly shot down a proposal by the CEO of the corporation to establish offices in Rome.
This uncharacteristic display of principles brought GIAT Industries salvation from a very unexpected source, not that the board of directors have ever learned who their benefactors are. Hiding in plain sight, GIAT Industries, formerly France's premier military-industrial corporation, has been co-opted by the Order of the Talon to supplement that organisation's capabilities.
The most common GIAT Industries vehicle to serve with the Order is the AMX-30D armoured recovery vehicle, known to the Order as the Jairus. Manned by Allied reservists who believe themselves to be involved with a secret branch of the Allied Nations employing particularly unusual technology and methods, these engineering support crews have found themselves unwittingly supporting Talon operations around the globe, repairing Talon vehicles and equipment, and even restoring burned-out hulks to fighting shape.
Surprisingly, Jairus crews have not proven a significant security risk. All are carefully vetted and selected by Order personnel before deploying, and are convinced that Allied black operations demand a great deal of secrecy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, once a man or woman has been chosen for service with a Jairus unit, they are very unlikely to ever see their home or family again. Some actually do die in service to the Order, but most are eventually indoctrinated and brought into the Order proper. In particular, the artificers of the Order draw most of their new recruits from Jairus veterans.
