I think they was talk of canopian's waiting to get some 11T Warhammers. The Concordat and Majesty always seem to have a on and off relation.
The model only entered production in 3084 and hasn't been opened for export to anyone
yet, so I'd be cautious drawing any conclusions about their current relationship from that tidbit. More to the point, the Canopians certainly seem to expect it to be available to them, they're just waiting on it, and the Taurians were the first ones cleared for exports of the
Penthesilea. They are selling the Canopians
Brahmas, too.
(The wisdom of buying either 'Mech is something I'll leave for another time.)
Sure, but I think even the MUL people have said that if its on the list, it means there's more than one (in general, a handful, though relative to the size of the army in question, so you need more of them to make the list for the FedSuns than you do the MoC).
Right. That's basically what I'm saying to keep in mind - there's at least a handful but that doesn't make anything
common.
The weird stuff may not be common, and it may be focused in an individual unit, but its there. And some of the weird stuff is pretty weird. I didn't think the original Pillager was in production anywhere. Are these designs the MoC has had for hundreds of years (since they're Intro tech), or did someone start producing them for a limited time during the Jihad?
The original
Pillagers did a lot of service in the Periphery during the Reunification War so it's possible someone salvaged some centuries old hulks. Or they could be building them. Since modern
Pillager production is heavily based in the CC, it's possible they started a line and the Canopians picked up part of the production run.
I'd assume that the Dragoon hardware was bought on the open market. Those aren't the most cutting edge designs from the Dragoons, and I believe all of them were put on the general market. The MoC seems like its dipped heavily into that merc market to pick up designs.
Likely.
The Warhammer IIC is just odd. I can't help but wonder if the Diamond Sharks were offering too good to be true deals on them. I can think of better designs for fighting in the MoC (such as designs that don't rely on ammo based weapons..ammo that the MoC may not be able to manufacture themselves), and I can think of designs better suited for pushing into your R&D labs, since, IIRC, those RACs are worse off than the standard IS RACs.
The Sharks pushing ammo-using weapons on customers for vendor lock-in is not a new trick. They've been doing that since at least the
Mad Cat II. However, while the RACs are a bit bulkier, they're longer-ranged and share lineage with the older RACs, so there's some reason to examine them.