Everything you think about the VF-8 Logan is probably wrong

[taalismn]

Ultimately, though, even with the hidden strengths of Logans and the qualities of AJACs, the Southern Cross still was beaten down such that they couldn't withstand another victory like they scored over the Robotech Masters.
In the greater context of story, the Logan, for all its virtues, was reputation-tarred by the overall tide of the Second Robotech War. Poor deployments, not enough numbers(and pilots like Marie Crystal who could wring the most out of the design), not enough fire-and-forget missile armaments, and a combination of bad ASC decisions and lucky Masters' strikes led to the 'Middle Generation' of Robotech defenders getting shellacked.

Could the ASC have deployed a better fighter? Certainly, if they'd had the time and resources and will to, but changing requirements, ambiguous intelligence about what they might face, and almost certainly politics, likely sidelined other promising projects. The Logan reminds me in many ways of the USAF's efforts to produce an economical light fighter(which ballooned into the F-A18 Hornet, while another program created the underrated F-5).

The ASC went to war with what they had, and they fought hard and paid high for underestimations and past decisions. And while no Lavochkin LaGG(a WW2 Soviet fighter known as the 'Guaranteed Varnished Coffin'), the Logan at least held.

[Rabid Southern Cross Fan]

Ultimately, though, even with the hidden strengths of Logans and the qualities of AJACs, the Southern Cross still was beaten down such that they couldn't withstand another victory like they scored over the Robotech Masters.

Because the Invid literally invaded the day after Zor Prime blew himself and The Masters to smithereens. Hard to 'win' when you're still locked in a mortal struggle with the Creators of Robotechnology when a fresh, battle ready force invades. The Invid Phoenix's arrival basically wiped The Interstellar Fleet off the map, which in chess parlance was the UEF's Queen. Its one of those serendipitous quirks of the animations for Genesis Climber MOSPEADA and SDC Southern Cross where the Invid's arrival in The Invid Invasion at Earth just happens to coincide nicely with The Masters Fleet massing above Earth as shown in Final Nightmare.

[ShadowLogan]

I'm not sure the fire-and-forget missiles is necessarily a (big) problem, the ASC mecha themselves seem to favor a different style of combat than that of the TMS/NG/Sent "missile-spam" given they seem to favor a "gun-fighter" style of combat in terms of armament (the nt-battloids are gunfighters for pracical terms compared to most of the Destroids, the Logan is missile light, and the AGACs while it carries more default missiles than the stock VF-1 but loses out to other designs of the era like the Alpha) The ASC does appear to be more setup for close range urban combat, where missiles might not be the best candidate. It's also worth pointing out that the Masters don't even use missiles (on their Bioroids), and the Invid don't adopt them until "later" in the NG arc, so while I will agree that missiles could be a force multiplier their lack of missiles isn't as much of a negative as it could be against the Zentreadi (who use missiles on at least 3x mecha).

It's not a (production) numbers issue with the Logan in universe that is the problem (just going by the animation), it's the out of universe animation production itself. The early focus was on the VHT as the "star" mecha of the show (which ended up giving way in part to the AGAC), it had 5x appearances 2x of which are blink and you might miss them combined with 1x focusing on Marie as the sole rep for the Logan (and she does as well as the VF-1 when using its GU-11), and 1x more that suffers from the "framing" of the story that has the Logan shown suffering losses sure but it also has that "fire and no indication of what happened" (so it might be giving as much/better as it got, it might not to but regardless it isn't shown so one can fill in the blanks however they want), with 1x more where it didn't engage bioroids (okay technically Marie did, but off hand I don't recall the white-blue-shirts and the situationally Marie was hampered by George Sullivan). For the record their are 24 episodes (23 in the OSM version) in TRM, which would be pretty low for a "star" mecha (all the "star" mecha get more appearances than 5x in TMS/NG).

As for Poor deployments, again just going by the animation the Logan doesn't do as badly as it is made out to be. At least in terms of losses, if we focus on big battles for the Alpha and VF-1 and AGAC (its replacement), the Logan doesn't suffer as many losses ON SCREEN*. What those other mecha have though is arguably better PR representation. IIRC the VF-1 and Alpha achieve similar level of "wins" and "losses" on screen (and I don't recall the AGAC off hand, I can look them up from a visual count I did years ago if you want, but I don't have it handy). That is the real reason they are more "loved" (okay maybe not the AGAC), they have more time in the light which people remember more than the background units.

On Screen deployments we can toss 1x appearance out as its background filler for battle prep. in one of the last episodes (and qualifies as blink and miss it). That leaves us with 4x appearances. "Volunteers" showcases just how effective it can be. In "The Trap" it has a blink and you might miss it appearance, but it doesn't do badly (it picks off a bioroid approaching the 15ths VHTs) but otherwise we don't get treated to its effectiveness other wise. "Star Dust", all I'm going to say is it is shown to do better than the Sylphids did in either "Southern Cross" or "Danger Zone" on the same type of mission to attack a City Ship (not the flagship granted, but the same class of vessel). "Southern Cross" had the units on the runway w/o pilots at the ready (and it wasn't just parked Logans on the runway either) and when it did take off it is suggested to be the only real (mecha) defender at the base until the VHTs arrive from elsewhere (this is also its first appearance).

*And this is the true source of where the issues arise with the Logan in that people tend to favor the OFF SCREEN stuff which is more easily changed than what is actually presented. OFF SCREEN we're told its (per the Infopedia) "armament was light, perhaps too light to reliably engage the Bioroids it found itself facing." While "light" is relative (and can change over time), on screen I do not know of an instance where the Logan's weapons are shown to have any reliability in terms of engaging bioroids when the hit (aside from Zor Prime, but he's got MCS going for him) or more accurately when it is shown to hit, as I've said there are a lot of instances of weapon firing but NO CUT to if the rounds hit or miss (and the VHT suffers this to). The Infopeida also brings up the issue of its small wings limiting lift, but if the unit is actually a lifting body (as seem to be suggested by the basic design) it would be generating more lift than it seems at a glance. The 2E RPG (IIRC) also mentioned its effectiveness against the Biroid Troop Transport, which it never engaged on screen (the Sylphid did, AFTER expending its limited missile load) which means it really isn't based on anything concrete IMHO.

[Rabid Southern Cross Fan]

not enough fire-and-forget missile armaments

Did you NOT pay attention to the fact missiles had a poor track record when fired? They had to be fired from very close to score a kill (one of the reasons the Ajax's cluster munitions worked so effectively). Also the war was EXCEEDINGLY short, despite HG's claims to the contrary. There are definitive time cues in the series that puts it ~5 months total. And the war really doesn't heat up until the First Offensive and that's around a month and change before the end.

[taalismn]

The ASC does appear to be more setup for close range urban combat, where missiles might not be the best candidate.

So Logan is flying Urbanmech?
"Hide that thing before the lawyers see it!"

"Can we at least keep the giant shotgun cannon?"
"No! It's damn near the weight of one of our veitechs!"

[glitterboy2098]

The ASC does appear to be more setup for close range urban combat, where missiles might not be the best candidate.

So Logan is flying Urbanmech?
"Hide that thing before the lawyers see it!"

"Can we at least keep the giant shotgun cannon?"
"No! It's damn near the weight of one of our veitechs!"

https://www.instagram.com/eldoniousrex/p/C16aiPsO_z4/

https://www.instagram.com/eldoniousrex/p/C12uzC0OZSm/

(also: urbanmech LAM is an actual thing:
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/BattleTech_S ... anMech_LAM
https://www.reddit.com/r/battletech/com ... m_is_done/ )

[taalismn]

Okay, I never saw the first one, but I've previously seen the others.
ASC Pilot: "Yeah, but ours are sexier."