The Raptor was one of the first homegrown Inner Sphere OmniMechs. Many in the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery considered the Raptor, classified as a light ’Mech, a "proof of concept" ’Mech rather than a fully operational design, but nearly a half century of service has earned it a place on the Combine line of battle. The Luthien Armor Works engineers began to reverse-engineer Clan OmniMech technology as soon as they received it from the units that conquered Wolcott, but many of the Clan improvements were beyond the technological abilities of the Combine at that point. The modular weapon concept that gives the Clans their incredible tactical flexibility, however, was not beyond their reach.
         The DCMS commissioned Luthien Armor Works to develop a light ’Mech chassis capable of accepting various weapons modules, with the goal of testing the Combine’s manufacturing capabilities as well as providing the DCMS with operational experience using OmniMechs. When these tests proved successful, the Draconis Combine launched full-scale production of the Black Hawk-KU, Avatar, Sunder and the Raven's other OmniMech cousins.
         During the Jihad, LAW lost their orbital fabricators to the Word fleets and were forced to redesign the Raptor using a standard chassis. This required a redesign of all pod sets and resulted in the current production version of the Raptor.

         The Raptor is built around a massive weapons bay that is very similar in shape to a Clan Vulture missile pod and can carry as much as seven tons of equipment. The weapons bay contains five communications ports that connect to the targeting systems of the weapon modules, simple containers that can be loaded into the bay and connected to the ’Mech and to other ammunition modules if necessary. An extensible rail mounted on the top of the weapons bay helps technicians change modules. Weapon modules can also be fitted to the unit’s arms and usually contain small-caliber weapons like small lasers.
         Star Slab Glaze armor protects the OmniMech against the energy weapons that most other light BattleMechs use, making it hard to take down. The armor is easily crushed though, and so physical combat is strongly discouraged.
         The weapons bay of the Raptor's primary configuration carries two small LRM modules a medium, and a small laser. Other configurations use light particle cannons, SRMs, massed medium laser arrays, machine guns, LRMs, and even a Snub-Nosed particle cannon.

       The original Raptor was deployed to units loyal to Coordinator Kurita, and many also saw use in the Davion space thanks to the peaceful relations the two realms had at the time. Coordinator Ricol only allowed his most loyal units to receive the modern Raptor though and so its use outside the Draconis Combine is rare.