On Sunday, June 14th, Red Alliance/Dream Fleet coalition formed a 245 men fleet of Dominixes for two defensive timers: the IHUB shield timer in GRHS-B and Dysprosium moon in F-EM4Q. Pandemic Legion formed a 150 man fleet – a hundred of Tempests Fleet Issue with triage carriers and support ships. TEST Alliance formed a 100 man fleet of 100MN AB Ishtars.
The fight for the first timer did not happen as PL bridged 40 supercarriers in GRHS-B and quickly reinforced the IHUB.
For the second timer, TEST formed a 200 men fleet – 60 Maelstroms with heavy electronic support and a few Dreadnoughts. Their allies Gentlemen’s.Club were to assist them with a relatively small fleet of 25 heavy drone Ishtars with support. The PL’s plan was to take RA/DRF by suprise and bridge a 150 men T3 armor fleet in F-EM4Q on top of their triage carriers during their engagement with TEST/GCLUB.
As fleets were getting ready to jump in F-EM4Q, the TEST’s FC leaked the PL’s plan in comms. According to the RA/DRF FC greg2010, they didn’t have any spies, but had intel on the PL’s fleet from scouts:
“It’s fairly hard to miss a 100+ men red spot on the map within a titan range from you.”
PL, on the other hand, did have spies in the TEST’s fleet. The leak infuriated the PL’s FC Wrik Hoover so he left the coordination channel. TEST’s FC told his pilots that PL was probably going to shoot them.
This was actually true. TEST’s Dreadnoughts were shooting the POS that exited the reinforcement mode, and Wrik decided to kill them. PL’s cyno was already drifting towards Dreadnoughts when the RA/DRF’s fleet jumped in the system.
The triage carriers of RA/DRF stayed within the forcefield. Despite that, Oneiroses were able to save Dominixes that were quick enough with broadcasts. Heavy neuts drained PL’s T3 cruisers instantly when the latter were getting close enough.
Soon, Dominixes MJD’d away from the enemy. PL bridged a number of tracking Dreadnoughts, but they could not hit Dominixes that had afterburners. The RA/DRF fleet left the grid, so PL switched their fire to the TEST’s fleet. TEST’s subcapitals had to retreat, leaving their capital ships behind.
The video of the fight:
The PL fleet returned to HLW-HP. As HLW’s local started dropping, RA/DRF realized that PL had probably called it a night, and they had a chance to engage TEST’s Maels that were finishing off the RA’s POS at the Dysprosium moon. After losing half of logis and a moderate number of Maelstroms, TEST retreated.
Meanwhile, PL were reforming the T3 fleet. RA/DRF killed incapacitated POS guns, started anchoring a new POS and escaped before PL could drop them. Wrik decided not to wait for half an hour until the POS anchored and became vulnerable and moved the fleet from the bridging titan.
Expecting TEST to continue the fight for the POS, greg2010 told his pilots to fit scramblers on Dominixes. As soon as RA/DRF warped to the TEST fleet, Maelstroms started MJDing away, but a number of them were scrambled and killed, as well as some Scimitars and a Naglfar.
However, this time the TEST fleet did not retreat. Despite lacking the alpha to cause any damage to the Dominix fleet, Maelstroms performed three poorly executed hit-and-run attempts, each time losing ships.
Soon the plan behind these seemingly fruitless attacks became clear to RA/DRF. PL formed a supercarrier fleet with a number of interdictors, and a TEST cyno Archon warped to the POS at zero. A recent patch prohibited lighting a cyno within the potential forcefield range of an anchored POS, so it was a fatal mistake from TEST. As they realized it, they started throwing cyno frigates and cyno rookie ships in the grid, trying to save the Archon. Finally, an Ibis lit a cyno for PL’s supercarriers but was killed instantly. PL’s ships ended up in random spots, allowing RA to kill the Archon and retreat with minor losses.
The RA’s POS was killed, and TEST anchored their own, thus successfully accomplishing the strategic objective.
For the battle over the IHUB’s armor timer in GRHS-B, RA/DRF formed a Tengu fleet. PL brought armor T3 cruisers once again, this time fitted with webs and warp disruptors to prevent Tengus from running away. Both fleets jumped in the system almost simultaneously. The fighting began with PL’s fleet warping to the enemy at zero. Tengus started moving straight away from the PL’s fleet, RA/DRF’s logis overshoot from webbed Tengus that ended up out of the range of reps and died. Seeing this, the RA/DRF fleet arced down towards the enemy, putting more and more Tengus under the PL’s webs. As the RA/DRF FC realized his mistake, he disengaged, leaving tackled Tengus behind.
Video of the battle:
Between the three engagements, 102.91b ISK was destroyed, with TEST suffering the lion’s share at 56b ISK in casualties over the two fights in F-EM4Q. RA/DRM forces inflicted 4.43b ISK in combined losses to Pandemic Legion, at a combined cost of 41.44b ISK of their own fallen.
TMC thanks Stalex BigNoise for providing screenshots, video and information.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Randolph Sykes.
