Digger DGG-1R
Mass: 35 tons
Chassis: Standard DG
Power Plant: CIC 105 ICE
Cruising Speed: 32.4 kph
Maximum Speed: 54 kph
Jump Jets: None
Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: AS Compound 500
Armament:
1 Machine Gun
1 AC/5
Manufacturer: Confederacy Industrial Cooperative
Primary Factory: Goldbluff (Ryreson Confederacy)
Communication System: CIC Model 221
Targeting & Tracking System: CIC Model 417
Introduction Year: 3025
Tech Rating/Availability: D/X-E-E-D
Cost: 1,380,418 C-bills
Even for otherwise peaceful planets, the Battlemech has an unmistakable aura of prestige and power. In addition to being a weapon of war, conquest, destruction, and terror, a battlemech can also be a weapon of defense and deterrence, and a few mechs guarding a settlement can sometimes be all it takes to make a pirate band decide to raid elsewhere, even above and beyond the deterrence value of a much larger force of conventional vehicles or infantry. After all, pirates raid to take wealth, not losses, and in the heat of the moment it can be hard to determine if the mech across the field from you is a legitimate threat or cobbled together trash.
But battlemechs are hard to come by. So worlds that want and can afford the prestige of owning mechs, but can't actually get their hands on mechs, will sometimes have to improvise. That is where the Digger finds its market.
Of course, the Digger was not originally designed to be a cheap militia mech for isolated periphery worlds. The mech was first built by the Ryreson Confederacy, one of three nation states engaged in perpetual low level warfare on the world of Goldbluff, and was built with that functionally endless conflict in mind. The homelands of the Confederacy are centered on (and below) the rugged terrain of the massive Ryreson Mountain chain, and the many mining communities scattered across those mountains were no strangers to operating industrialmechs not just to work the mines, but also simply to navigate the treacherous terrain. This made those same industrialmechs, able to maneuver through ground conventional vehicles couldn't, an obvious choice as the Confederacy built up its own military forces to counter its neighbors, with successive generations of armed industrialmechs ultimately culminating in the modern Digger design in the early 31st century
In terms of design, the Digger might be described as a bipedal Scorpion tank. Locally produced copies of the ubiquitous Scorpion have dominated the armies of the Confederacy's two rivals for the last century, and it was this foe that the Digger was meant to match. It mounts a functionally identical armament of a single 60mm autocannon supported by an anti-personnel machine gun, and the arm mount combined with the mech's natural flexibility gives it a similar firing radius to the turret mounted gun of a Scorpion. Armor protection is overall a bit heavier than that found on a Scorpion tank, but the need to cover the greater surface area of a mech means actual armor thickness tends to be less. The Digger also comes up lacking in raw ground speed due to its greater overall weight, and its multifuel combustion engine, though able to burn anything from diesel to alcohols to a mix of coal dust and water, doesn't burn any fuel particularly efficiently, cutting back on the mech's operational range. The main element counteracting these limitations for the Ryreson Confederacy is the Digger's superior terrain handling compared to conventional vehicles, which time and again has proven decisive in many of the battles across Goldbluff's almost entirely undeveloped frontiers.
Of course, any operators must always keep in mind that the Digger is not actually a true battlemech. This means it lacks the environmental sealing standard on a battlemech, or even an ejection system, and it should never be expected to stand up to a true battlemch in one on one combat. A group of such mechs, however, can form a decent enough deterrence against most typical bandit raiders, who would rather look for easier prey than tangle with a prepared opponent.
Of the three rival states on Goldbluff, the Ryreson Confederacy is the most welcoming and open to trade with outsiders, and it was through this trade that Ryreson learned that there could be a lucrative offworld market for their home built combatmech. Lacking any jumpships of their own, The Confederacy normally sells Diggers and parts to maintain them to the merchants who come to their worlds, who in turn resell the machines to interested customers. The trade is profitable, though the actual market for the machine is somewhat smaller than what would normally be expected, mostly limited to those buyers with the money and resources to support a force of mechs, but who for whatever reason can't quite acquire true battlemechs. The search for buyers has resulted in the Digger spreading across a surprisingly vast region of space, with the machine showing up on worlds in the periphery from the Canopean Ruins to the Outworlds Wastes and beyond. Of course this widespread distribution means getting original parts to repair combat damage or wear and tear can be virtually impossible, so most Diggers outside of Goldbluff will inevitably accure modifications and patchwork repairs as they age.
Due to the gradual escalations in the conflict on Goldbluff in recent years, the Ryreson Confederacy has been increasingly reluctant to sell the Digger to passing traders, instead retaining them to replace losses or expand their own military forces. Though this supply of new Diggers seems to be drying up, it is believed that there are still several hundred examples of the machine scattered across the periphery standing vigil over dozens of worlds.
Variants:
Though the Ryreson Confederacy only produces the Digger in a single standard configuration, various users have made their own modifications to the design using weapons not typically available on Goldbluff. Most commonly, these see the autocannon removed and replaced with either missiles or lasers, with extra heat sinks added to deal with the increased heat debt these modifications impose.
Type: Digger
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Tonnage: 35
Battle Value: 397
Equipment Mass
Internal Structure Industrial 7
Engine 105 ICE 7
Walking MP: 3
Running MP: 5
Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sink 1 1
Gyro 2
Cockpit 3
Armor Factor (Heavy Industrial)80 5
Internal Armor
Structure Value
Head 3 8
Center Torso 11 12
Center Torso (rear) 4
R/L Torso 8 10
R/L Torso (rear) 2
R/L Arm 6 8
R/L Leg 8 8
Right Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm, Lower Arm, Hand
Left Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm, Lower Arm, Hand
Weapons
and Ammo Location Critical Heat Tonnage
Machine Gun RA 1 0 0.5
AC/5 RA 4 1 8.0
AC/5 Ammo (20) RA 1 - 1.0
Half Machine Gun Ammo (100) RA 1 - 0.5
Features the following design quirks: Easy to Pilot, Fast Reload, Gas Hog
You can find the record sheets for the Digger and its variants, along with many other units intended for campaigns in the Periphery, here:
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=84454.0
