The Stage
February 16: 1-3HWZ, Cloud Ring. Just after 19:30 EVE time, Imperium forces conducted an assault on a Suddenly Spaceships-owned, Cadmium-harvesting control tower. After successfully destroying the POS, a 56B ISK fight occured between The Imperium and multiple alliances from the surrounding regions.
The Fleets
The Imperium assaulted with Proteus and Jackdaw fleets, supporting at least thirteen capitals, led by Apple Pear, Esildra, and Papusa of Goonswarm Federation. Eventually, reinforcements from The Imperium would join the brawl under the command of Cainun, leading a secondary Proteus fleet. Aiding the defenders of the POS, -T C-, Suddenly Spaceships, 16-13, TISHU and Snuffed Out responded to the enemy’s Proteus fleet with Cerberus fleets. ChaosTheory, PH, and Waffles also came to the fight in Ishtars, Svipuls, and a stealth bomber wing, respectively.
Personal Account
TMC reached out to Goonswarm Federation’s Esildra, a senior fleet commander in the alliance, for comment on the engagement.
TMC: Thank you for providing us the story. Could you tell us about how all of this happened?
Esildra: Sure! Apple Pear made a fleet with me and we headed off to attack the Cadmium moon in Cloud Ring. When we arrived, we sieged ten dreadnoughts to kill the POS, but just as we extracted them, the hostiles began jumping into system. I made the call to keep carriers on grid, as we still had a secondary objective which was to save a Cadmium POS in MJYW-3.
TMC: You ended up successfully getting the ten dreads out, but there was also a Rorqual loss during the fight?
Esildra: Yes. The plan was to get the new POS anchoring and running, but the Rorqual pilot in charge of setting up the POS decided to cloak on grid instead of first warping to a safe. So, yes, eventually he lost the Rorqual.
TMC: How was the fight in general?
Esildra: We fought two different Cerberus gangs, but I am not sure who merged with who. They were split up into two groups. PH brought in interceptors and T3 destroyers and there were two other bomber groups from Waffles and Jump Drive Appreciation Society. As the fight drew own, our Jackdaw fleet was probing down disconnected hostile ships and killing them, while coming back to the main battle to hold down the enemy fleets. There were command destroyers on field that managed to split The Imperium’s fleet five or six times, but not into the hands of the enemy. Most of the time our ships were still within our ships range, so we killed the destroyer and repositioned.
TMC: At what point did the fleets decide to disengage?
Esildra: After a while, we warped off to Planet 1, hostiles put ‘GF’ in local chat, and one of the Cerb gangs when home. We warped back on top of the Ishtars who were busy picking up drones and pretty much wiped out their entire fleet. The second Cerb group came back and after a lot of maneuvering, they finally took off. Cainun had formed a reinforcement fleet and the moment they landed on the in-gate, the Cerb fleet ran to A-S and was camped in by Cainun and Papusa. During this time we flew to MJY and supported the POS save operation.
TMC: Sounds like a lot of fun. Was there anything that could have gone better?
Esildra: If we hadn’t lost the Rorqual and if the POS would have gone online when it was supposed to, those capitals wouldn’t have been lost. Had they not died, the fight would have been even ISK-wise. But, for all the ISK lost, we won two objectives and our Imperium fleets held ground and cleared the grid of six hostile fleets. I’d say it was a hell of a brawl. People love a bloody fight.
The Cost
The Imperium did successfully take two strategic objectives; however, they sacrificed nearly 32.5B ISK to do so. In comparison, Cadmium moons only net around 800-900M ISK each month in raw materials. Winning the ISK war, the defending groups took many more losses, taking 23.6B ISK in damages across all of their fleets.
