Developed by the Ghost Bears in the wake of the formation of the ilClan Trials, the Urban Brawler is an interesting throwback to the earliest days of Battle Armor development, along with a surprising look into some of the changes that were done during the process of designing the classic 'Elemental'. Such as, the almost uncanny resemblance to the humble UrbanMech.
Being as the armor was created by a team of native Rasalhagians and that it was the company's first foray into Battle Armor - although it should be noted that they did have a line of quite successful light industrial exoskeletons going back well into the 28th century - the Ghost Bears were hesitant at allowing them complete access to data on more modern, cutting edge, technologies. Weapons, yes, due to being fitted into hardpoints, but not for the suits themselves. In some ways, this was a sort of test of cunning and creativity. What the Bears didn't expect, was for the team to work backwards through the memory cores to the very creation of Clan Battle Armor. After all, the original armors were based upon sealed deepwater aquatic exoskeletons, and the company was very well acquainted with those.
What surprised them was how bulked up the original designs were, using simplified cylindrical shaping for ease of armor production, or how the earliest armored prototypes used a kind of modular mounting around the legs, waist, and chest regions as different alloy types and shapes were worked on. While in most cases, this was due to modifcations to the aquatic pressure suit, the Rasalhagian had the benefit of 200+ years of minor refinements by the Clans, plus those innovations developed by the Inner Sphere or even the Periphery states. Their new design deliberately incorporates modular armor plates not as mere add-ons, but as functional integral pieces that allow the wearer to quickly exit or enter the suit in less than seventy percent of the time of the standard Elemental design, along with being almost absurdly easy to repair as whole sections can be quickly removed and replaced in their entirety. Another point towards the design that, at least on paper, made it appealing to Dominion leaders, was avoiding the more costly advanced medical - and increasingly rare Hargel - components found in classic top of the line Clan Battle Armor, for one based upon the decades old Kobold and sharing a 80% parts commonality with said older design.
The downside to deliberately using a more primitive appearing, and somewhat bulky design, is that it turned from being the towering, nearly alien loooking, and highly intimidating, Elemental, into something nearly approaching a comical 'fat suit'. To the engineer's credit, they were so focused on the functional, that they nearly ignored the form. It wasn't until they revealed their first prototypes to test pilots that their first true challenge appeared - Ghost Bear Elementals outright refused to put one on due to feeling insulted at a near bone deep level by the 'chubby' Battle Armor. It took three Trials of Grievance and a direct order from their saKhan to finally get Warriors to don the suits, albeit grumbling lowly the entire time. In the opposite, native Rasalhagians chosen to test it, did little more than make a few playful mocking commentaries about 'waddling trash compacters', before putting the suits through various field tests, all to glowing reviews. In their view, who cared about how it looked, so long as it was effective and deadly. The more hardliner Bear traditionalists, having expected another semi-Totem like the Rogue Bear, were vastly cooler in their reports. Going so far as to refuse to even name it, thus leaving the decision up to the native engineers and freeborn test crews. Shrugging at this - truly, the R&D staff were about as blissfully unaware of social cues as could be tolerable - the staff did the ultimate faux pas and named it after the BattleMech it most closely resembled. The Urban Brawler was born.
Regardless of one's opinion as to its appearance, once in use, the design is quite deadly to virtually all opposition. A point of them can wipe out an entire infantry platoon in seconds with barely scratched paint, only to turn to the task of slagging down a medium tank nearly as rapidly. This capability can be laid squarely upon the choice of armaments for the design, which is to forego the usual missile launchers and to focus on both a heavy ballistic and laser loadout. A virtually unmodified Bearhunter autocannon - quite literally so, the entire mount can be pulled from the unit with only five lock-down bolts removed, revealing the normal handgrips still present - is placed on the right pauldron, while a compact pulse laser is placed on it's opposite. Between them, at the back of the unit, is a T-bar shaped sensor cluster that can raise up slightly and act as a wide-angle spotlight/searchlight, although there is alternative sub-model variant that appears more like a small periscope/antenna aerial combination. Moving down to the arms showcases where the design crew went a little overboard with the room available. Rather than attempt to mount a large weapon system, they used the internal space to fit in triple-digit battle claws and integrated anti-personnel weapon ports at the core of these, which can easily be swapped between ballistic or laser weapons, usually pulse types or Gauss SMGs, although Rasalhagians swear by auto-shotguns that are available. Additionally, the Battle Armor comes with a quite generous amount of open spaces along the arms and legs, especially behind the raised armored kneepads; allowing clever users to carry all manner of tools, devices, or the usual explosive 'toys'. While the overall range brackets are rather sorely lacking in said range, within what the Urban Brawler considers it's effective range, it can chew through armor in a way very very few units can. As one mechwarrior of Hell's Horses put it after tangling with several Stars of them, "They were like the unholy fusion of a rotary autocannon, and a swarm of piranha". Unfortunately, this lack of range makes them very much a niche unit, as they are practically useless on an open battlefield. However, within heavily built-up terrain, or even steep walled valleys/canyons, the Urban Brawler truly comes into its own.
EDIT: MegaMekLabs for some reason, when showing stats, has the Bearhunter AC listed as a Machine Gun. The stats below are correct for the mass used, as it is a Bearhunter AC that is mounted.
Urban Brawler BattleArmor
Type: Urban Brawler
Manufacturer: Unknown
Primary Factory: Unknown
Tech Base: Mixed (Advanced)
Chassis Type: Biped
Weight Class: Medium
Maximum Weight: 1,000 kg
Battle Value: 247
Swarm/Leg Attack/Mechanized/AP: Yes/Yes/Yes/No
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Equipment Slots Mass
Chassis: 175 kg
Motive System:
Ground MP: 2 40 kg
Jump MP: 3 150 kg
Manipulators:
Left Arm: Battle Claw 15 kg
Right Arm: Battle Claw 15 kg
Armor: Stealth (Basic) 3 270 kg
Armor Value: 10 (Trooper)
Slots
Weapons and Equipment Location (Capacity) Mass
Micro Pulse Laser Body 1 160 kg
Machine Gun Body 2 150 kg
Anti Personnel Weapon Mount Right Arm 1 5 kg
Anti Personnel Weapon Mount Left Arm 1 5 kg
Searchlight Body 1 5 kg
Mission Equipment Storage (10 kg) Right Arm 1 10 kg
