RVN-4H Raven

Weapons                  Loc.        Crit
Streak SRM-4..............RT...........1.............3
Ammo (SRM) 10.............LT...........1.............0.4
CASE II...................LT...........1.............1
2 ER Medium Lasers........RA...........2.............2
Bloodhound Active Probe...RT...........3.............2
Angel ECM Suite...........RT...........2.............2
TAG.......................CT...........1.............1
C3 Slave Unit..............H...........1.............1
Anti-Personnel Pod........RL...........1.............0.5
Null-Signature System......*...........7*............0
Cargo.....................RT...........1.............0.1

Overview:

Early in 3058, the 3rd Tancredi Highlanders hit the Chaos March and skirmished with Liao forces on a number of planets.  Amongst their spoils was a damaged RVN-3L Raven mech.  Realizing the value of this capture, Colonel Houlden brought the mech with him when the unit returned home to Tancredi IV for rest and refit.  Upon arrival, he brought the mech to Burger's Battlemechs and requested that they repair and refit the mech into a top notch reconnaisance unit.

Meanwhile, the mid 3050's had brought numerous advances in BattleMech and equipment technology across the Inner Sphere, and at the New Avalon Institute of Science.  By doing some "horse trading" by giving the NAIS samples of Clan technology and OmniMechs that Burger's Renegades RCT brought back from the Clan front, Burger's Battlemechs and Precision Weaponry engineers managed to obtain samples and blueprints for this new technology being developed, and started incorporating this technology into their products and designs.  They saw the "Nevermore Project", as the Raven refit came to be called, as the perfect opportunity to operationally test some of this new technology.

Capabilities:

The goal of the project was to maintain the Raven's firepower while improving its protection and giving it even better reconnaisance abilities.  Burger's Engineers started by stripping the remaining weapons and armor from the Raven, and repairing the internal structure, a relatively simple job.  Concurrent with repairing the internal structure, they incorporated experimental CASE II into the left torso to replace the older CASE, drastically improving the mech's chances of survival if the ammo bins are hit.   That done, they replaced the old damaged engine with a new Hermes 245 XL, which fit nicely into the engine compartment and gave the Raven a 20% higher speed curve, as well as double heat sinks, almost doubling the heat dissipation capacity.

Testing new systems was an additional goal of the engineers.  To this extent, they incorporated a Null-Signature System into the Raven, giving it near-stealth capabilities to elude detection.  Supplementing this are a Bloodhound Active Probe and an Angel ECM Suite, upgrades of the old Beagle and Guardian ECM.  Rounding out the reconnaisance equipment are Target Acquisition Gear and a C3 Slave Unit.

For offensive punch, the medium lasers are upgraded to Sutel line Extended-Range Medium Lasers, giving the Raven better medium range punch.  Though the Narc Beacon and SRM-6 are gone, short range missile power is improved with the addition of a Streak SRM-4 rack.   Utilizing Streak technology greatly increases ammo efficiency, which is important as the Raven carries only ten reloads, one of the few weaknesses.

Deployment:

The "Nevermore Project" was completed in the fall of 3058, in time for the mech to join the 3rd Tancredi Highlanders in their reassignment to the Arc Royal Defense Cordon.  The Raven and it's pilot, Lieutenant Erin Cordall, are assigned to the unit's 2nd Company.  The Raven should see quite a workout against the Jade Falcons in the wake of their Lyran Alliance invasion.

Page last modified 31 December, 2003