Rambler RMB-3R
Mass: 40 tons
Chassis: AMC Rambler
Power Plant: Nissan 200
Cruising Speed: 54 kph
Maximum Speed: 86.4 kph
Jump Jets: None
Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Starguard III
Armament:
1 AC/5
2 SRM 6
Manufacturer: Allerton Manufacturing Company
Primary Factory: Allerton (destroyed 2817)
Communication System: Achernar Electronics HID-21
Targeting & Tracking System: Federated Hunter Mark II
Introduction Year: 2750
Tech Rating/Availability: D/C-E-D-D
Cost: 2,782,127 C-bills
Yet another design that failed to find success until Stephan Amaris came calling, in the later days of the Star League the Rambler was best known for the small scandal it had triggered in the AFFS, and the lives that had been lost during acceptance trials due to its critical design flaws. Billed as a sleek new medium weight trooper mech and initially praised for a compact design that would allow two Ramblers to share the same transport bay in transit, this product of the Allerton Manufacturing Company scored an easy win for a contract of one hundred units for the AFFS in 2749, with promises to extend the contract by several hundred more in the future. While some suspicious individuals expressed concerns over just how easily this largely untested mech from a relatively new production company had gotten a contract, their concerns were initially dismissed.
Concerns would re-emerge almost immediately once the first units were delivered to the AFFS in 2750. The technical staff that went over these machines were quick to point out numerous signs of slipshod manufacturing and cut corners on each mech delivered, and very quickly the narrative got out that AMC was cutting corners either to save money or to meet the production schedule. In any event fully a quarter of the first run were denied certification by the technical staff that had evaluated them, despite considerable pressure from higher up the command chain to loosen standards to let the mechs pass.
As AMC made promises to improve production standards on later production runs, the Rambler was claiming its first lives on the testing field as its truly fatal flaw was revealed.
As a fairly basic medium trooper, the Rambler relied on an armament of an arm mounted autocannon supported by a pair of short range missile racks mounted close to the cockpit, and while the autocannon was a reliable and dependable weapon system, the missile packs posessed a critical design flaw. In order to slim the mech's profile, the launchers were placed close together in a unified flexible mount that also included the mech's cockpit, with a single ammunition bay directly below it. And due to both poor quality control and a flawed design, not only was the feed system between the ammunition bay and the two launchers prone to jamming, but a jammed system could exert so much force on the munitions contained within to detonate it, in the process channeling the force of the magazine explosion straight up through the head and the pilot's compartment, inevitably killing the pilot. This would kill two pilots during initial acceptance trials, and would draw enough attention that the AFFS immediately flagged the entire run as unsuited for service and called for an immediate investigation.
The results of that investigation were sobering, revealing the bribery and corruption in the Department of Military Administration and the Department of the Quartermaster that had led to AMC receiving the contract, as well as evidence that several senior managers were aware of the design flaws in the Rambler, including its fatal ammunition problems, and had simply hoped that they could fix the problems before anybody in the AFFS they couldn't pay off would notice. The most sobering result of the investigation, however, was how few people would actually go to prison over it, with AMC in particular successfully arguing that the corruption, bribery, and manufacturing errors that had led to the scandal were simply the result of "individual bad actors", rather than a systemic problem in the company culture.
Though AMC would save itself and the most important members of its board of directors from criminal liability, the Rambler contract was definitively dead, with the company forced to return funds already paid out by the AFFS and now sitting on not just the original run of Ramblers, but additional production they had already completed in the belief that by greasing enough palms they could simply make the scandal go away. And with news of their "death traps" having already made the rounds of the HPG network, they weren't going to find a buyer for their tainted mech anywhere else in the Inner Sphere. Fortunately beyond the Inner Sphere was a buyer more concerned with getting weapons at a bargain price than he was with their quality.
Knowing a "deal" when he saw it, Stephan Amaris would use intermediaries to arrange to buy AMC's entire stock of Ramblers as is at a steep discount. Then he would go one step further and commission AMC to resume production. Sure, these mechs might have a chance of killing their own pilots, but it would still allow the secret army to put more mechs in the field, and AMC was so happy to have an infusion of cash after their prior scandal that they asked no questions were these mechs were going or what they would be used for. Ultimately several hundred Ramblers would find their way into the Secret Army, and the only ones unhappy with the arrangement would be the poor souls who would have to pilot these mechs into battle against the SLDF.
Even beyond the glaring problem with the missile feed system, the Rambler would be at best a fairly mediocre mech. With ground speed more typical of mechs at the higher end of the medium bracket and fairly thin armor, the mech has to rely on firepower to compete against mechs in its own weight class, and even on paper it could expect to struggle in that regard. While the autocannon is a decent weapon well suited to skirmish at range with other light and medium mechs, the Rambler was clearly designed to get close and rely on its short range missiles for its main punch, and even if the ammunition feed system works properly without errors, the mech only has a limited supply of missiles with which to do that. If those missiles are exhausted or (as was often the case) never loaded in the first place, then this thin skinned mech would have to rely on its autocannon and physical attacks to down an opponent, leaving it horribly outclassed by almost any enemy mech it can expect to come across. And once again, it has to be acknowledged that the Rambler gained its reputation as a death trap for a very good reason, one that was not corrected by AMC at any point during the initial production runs and simply could not be fixed by pilots or techs in the field. Pilots in the periphery armies would very frequently take their Ramblers into battle with the missile launchers empty, or loaded with only a single volley for each launcher and just try to do the best they could. Some pilots and resistance cells, being already familiar with the mech's reputation, would actually refuse to use them, leaving the mechs behind. Various cells would also trade tips, tricks, and rumored remedies for the jamming problems, with widely variable success rates.
Counterintuitively, the poor reputation of the Rambler would actually do wonders for its survivability. Often used rarely, or cautiously, or simply just abandoned, a surprising number would survive the Periphery Uprising in good or even excellent shape. It is even alleged that the ammunition feed flaw contributed to the mech's longevity, as a detonation in the missile ammo would actually leave the greater part of the mech intact for later salvage. Though very few pilots would be happy to find themselves piloting a Rambler, as the Star League crumbled and the Succession Wars swept over humanity, the luxury of being able to choose your mech quickly became a memory, and these machines simply soldiered on. Even today, there may be as many as two hundred ancient Ramblers still stumbling around the Periphery long after their heyday, and their checkered past, has faded from common memory.
Variants:
Every variant of the Rambler created has been based on trying to solve its ammunition feed problem. This is no simple task, as every workable solution thus far has required significant changes to the head and upper torso of the mech to redesign and reroute the ammo feed, due to the mech's overall compact package. The most successful workaround was actually created by the original manufacturers, who put a redesigned version of the Rambler back into production briefly during the First Succession War. This eliminated the centralized ammunition bay entirely, removed the compact launcher mounts, and replaced them with two separate self contained missile racks, one built into each side of the chest. This redesign requires using smaller missile racks (either an SRM or LRM launcher), but the launcher and its ammo bay is a single self contained package, actually making it a very reliable system. Though hoping to add armor to the mech with the tonnage saved by this setup, the need to get mechs into the field quickly compelled AMC to go with the simpler option of doubling the ammunition capacity of the autocannon. Production of these new model Ramblers would run only briefly before the Draconis Combine conquered Allerton during the First Succession War, and the factory would not survive to see the planet's liberation. While the plans and specifications for the improved Rambler are publicly available, very few Rambler pilots have the money and resources for such an extensive reconstruction of their machines.
The simplest solution to the ammo feed problem was, of course, to avoid having to feed ammo in the first place. Technicians in the various secret armies would sometimes go to the extreme of physically removing the ammunition feed system entirely from the mech, effectively turning the two missile launchers into single shot weapons that needed to be reloaded manually through each launcher's maintenance hatch. This "conversion" was primarily intended for green pilots, as an experienced pilot was more likely to be aware of the risks of loading more than a single shot in each launcher. Subsequent generations of pilots would create their own spin on the one shot launcher concept by removing the missile racks to mount a pair of single shot rocket launchers in their place. These rockets just barely fit in the original mounts, offered a decent enough single shot punch at a respectable range, and also saved enough weight to replace the arm mounted autocannon with a heavier model, improving the machine's firepower even after it's expended its missiles.
Notable by its absence is any variant that replaces the autocannon with an energy weapon. While some pilots and techs are likely to insist that such a refit is a must on almost any mech, the stock Rambler is a poor candidate for such a refit, as by a quirk of design (and the same poor quality control that is a hallmark of the Rambler) the power feeds and connectors in the mech's limbs aren't rated to supply the amount of electrical power necessary to operate a heavy energy weapon, and correcting this defect would require a fair bit of extensive re-wiring.
Type: Rambler
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Introductory)
Tonnage: 40
Battle Value: 790
Equipment Mass
Internal Structure 4
Engine 200 Fusion 8.5
Walking MP: 5
Running MP: 8
Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sink 10 0
Gyro 2
Cockpit 3
Armor Factor 104 6.5
Internal Armor
Structure Value
Head 3 8
Center Torso 12 15
Center Torso (rear) 5
R/L Torso 10 11
R/L Torso (rear) 5
R/L Arm 6 10
R/L Leg 10 12
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
Heat Sink LL 1 - 1.0
SRM 6 RT 2 4 3.0
SRM 6 LT 2 4 3.0
Heat Sink RL 1 - 1.0
SRM 6 Ammo (15) HD 1 - 1.0
AC/5 RA 4 1 8.0
AC/5 Ammo (20) RA 1 - 1.0
Features the following design quirks: Compact Mek, Narrow/Low Profile, Bad Reputation (Inner Sphere), Poor Workmanship, Ammo Feed Problem (SRM), Jettison capable weapon (AC/5)
Record sheets for all four variants of the Rambler discussed here, as well as many many more units suitable for a periphery campaign, may be found in the record sheet book downloadable through the link in the first post of this thread:
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=84454.0Author's notes: The Rambler was based entirely on a single image of the Fang of the Sun Dougram mecha named the Bushman, and the idea of it being a compact mech with its SRMs and missile ammo being crowded tightly in and around the head came from how that image looked. Other images of the Bushman may not encourage the same judgement, and if Fasa had snagged the Bushman for their original set of mechs, they would probably have been more generous than I (or at the very least the ammo feed problem quirk wouldn't have existed yet).
Also, the name Rambler is an indirect reference to the original Bushman name by way of the song "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" and in universe would be a reference to a sort of romanticized vagabond traveler. So it's not actually a reference to a car, a rose, or a style of ranch house.
Though now that I think about it, I wonder if I should add a Pacer, Spirit, or Eagle to the book...
