PL's Super Drop

I get into my ship and am simply monitoring the situation around the area, nothing major just keeping an eye on local and our intel channels.  We have cloaked hostiles operating all over the place in our systems.  We have been harassing Pandemic Legions (PL) renter alliance (BOT) for the past about two weeks.  Hitting pos’s and sbu’s and generally just making a pain in ass out of ourselves.  We all knew that eventually PL would get tired of us doing this and drop the hammer on our heads.  Well just over a week ago they did just that and reinforced three of our outposts.  They however declined to return and finish the job so we successfully repaired all the damage they had done and our systems were stable again until approximately two days ago.

PL has apparently decided that enough is enough with us and has hit six of our systems including at least four outpost systems and put them all into reinforced mode.  Now we are at last night, we have outposts still in reinforced mode and there is nothing really that can be done against them until they come out and are vulnerable to attack.

I am sitting in my hound class stealthbomber just monitoring the area when intel comes in that a PL gila gang has arrived in 3-J and bubbled the outpost and set up just off the docking port.  Now that is just annoying but I want to see what they are doing and give my fellow alliance mates eyes on the situation so they know when it is clear.  I jump into the system and warp to an observation spot I have a few hundred km’s off the outpost and just sit and watch.

Nothing really happens, just about a dozen or so gila’s with some tackle support sitting on the undock just waiting for people.  They have managed to kill one of my alliance mates rifters that he had fitted with a cyno to move a jump ship of some kind, and that is really all.  Turned out that another alliance mate was also sitting watching the station in a stealthbomber but I didn’t realize it until we both started reporting on the changes occurring outside the outpost.

All of a sudden a cyno goes up near the outpost, and am surprised to see a cyno going up with the outpost in reinforcement mode and not capital ships of our own on the field I can’t figure out why PL has just light a cyno.

My sensors feel the gravitational stress as capital and supercapital ships jump into proximity with the outpost.  I can’t believe my tactical sensors when they report not only a dreadnaught and carrier but supercarriers and titans on the field.  Sitting at the outpost with the sub-cap fleet just waiting.  They launch fighters and fighter bombers and proceed to attack the outpost trying to disable the station services to make our lives harder as we try to work out of the outpost.

In the end PL jumped in 3 titans and at least a dozen supercarriers.  Their net effect was to reinforce one customs office in the system and damage some of the station services but they didn’t knock them all out.  While this was going on I was able to get into good camera range and get some pictures of the fleet shooting the outpost (linked below).

In my opinion this was an operation because the PL super pilots were bored and wanted to do something and this was the best they could come up with.  Not sure how much they spent in jump fuel to reinforce that POCO but I am sure it was worth it to them.

Before they withdrew from the system one of the titans did bridge their sub-caps back off the field with the sole exception of a hound class bomber that was in close proximity to a hel class supercarrier that stayed on the POCO in 3-J for some strange reason.  They both eventually left the system with no further action.

  

Ranger Gama

Roaming Gangs

I log into my hanger control system to get my ship ready for the operation planned in roughly one hour.  Nothing major we are planning on attacking some enemy structures so the alliance fleet commanders have called for close range fitted  teir 3 battlecruisers.  I select my tornado and realize that I need to adjust the fittings to get it ready for the operation tonight.  As I am preparing to adjust the fit several alliance mates report hostiles in our space in tech 3 cruisers and other assorted ships.  The order comes down from several of the FC’s to get into our standard shield battlecruisers to engage the enemy and drive them out of our space.

I give the order to prepare my hurricane with 650mm artillery to be immediately moved into the dock and ready to launch.  My executive officers have to make sure that the crew is ready given the quick change and they don’t disappoint me.  My ship is ready by the time I get into my pod and have it docked with my hurricane.

I undock my hurricane and redevous with the fleet and we begin trying to engage the enemy with some success.  The high point comes when we get a ship behind the enemy proteous and manage to get him webbed and nueted.  He engages our tackle ship and the rest of the fleet rushes to reach him before his ship is lost to the high volume of damage coming from the proteous.  We land on the gate and our logistics pilots get shield transfers onto our tackle cruiser in time to prevent his distruction.

The enemy ship is unfortunately able to break away and get into warp to another gate and escape the system.  We pursue the enemy ship and manage to engage him on another gate in the next system.  Unfortunately for him he attacked one of our other ships and the stargate would not allow him to jump because of the aggression he had just shown.  The enemy capsuleer forgot about engaging our other ship and this small thing allowed the rest of the fleet to land and get points and webs onto him, along with neuts.  With his cap drained, and his ability to warp away and even maneuver in nspace we quickly take down his very expensive ship.

As we finish him off we have reports of a 10 man gang nearby that is heading our way.  The fleet consolidates on the gate and reloads guns preparing to engage the enemy.  We wait a few moments until the hostiles are on the other side of the gate and they decide to come in after us.  All of the enemy ships jump the gate and are greeted by 10 battlecruisers sitting at point blank range waiting for them.

The priority targets are called and the fleet launches drones to engage the enemy.  The area immediately around the stargate is now crisscrossed with lasers, missiles, drones, projectiles and hybrid rounds as both fleets engage one another.  Ships begin to go down on both sides but for the moment no one is doing any damage to my own hurricane and I keep engaging the enemy as the priority targets are called.

The fleet commander goes down in flames and he gives the order to switch to the back up who begins calling priority targets as well.  We don’t have enough logistics to hold our fleet up as more and more enemy ships arrive and I become primary of the enemy capsuleer fleet.  I look at the tactical display of the area and realize that we will not be able to hold the gate against the enemy and my shields are falling.  I have been webbed and scramed, and disrupted.  They apparently want to make certin that I am not allowed to escape from the gate with an intact ship.

My shields hit the 50% point and the damage is only increasing as more and more of the enemy fleet concentrates their fire on my ship.  I align to an exit gate to help get my capsule out as soon as my hurricane goes down.  My shields have failed and my armor is taking damage.  It is now only a matter of time before my ship is lost.  As my armor fails and my ships structure begins to fail, I give the order to prepare the escape pods for my crew.  Once my structure hits 50% I know the ship is lost and give the order to abandon ship.  The damage control unit holds my ship up long enough for my crew to make it to the escape pods and flee the ships before it explodes adding to the wreckage already on the gate.

Given that I had already aligned I am able to get my pod to safety before the enemy can lock onto it and trap me.  The sole interdictor they had has either been driven off the field or destroyed, and thus I am able to escape without being podded.  Fortunately given how deep into brew space we are at this point my crew is able to easily get to one of our outposts and wait for alliance transport to take them back to my staging outpost.

The fleet commander orders us to reship and we eventually get into T1 cruisers to engage the enemy for the next round believing that the number of frigs dictate that we have faster tracking speed on our ships weapons to be able to hit them effectively.

The enemy fleet looses only a single hound class stealth bomber before withdrawing from the area and we head back to our outpost to get ready for the operation that had been planned for that night.  On the way back the FC orders us to destroy all the wrecks on the gates, I am not sure if I fire into my own wrecked hurricane but if not me someone has destroyed it.  We clear the entire gate of wrecks and cargo cans and dock up for the next operation.

In the end I loose one hurricane for approximately 80 million and destroy 8 ships worth 2.5 billion isk.  While I am annoyed I lost that hurricane, I have had that hull for a good while, I can’t complain on the fact that all of my crew survived and I was involved in the destruction of nearly 25 times the amount of enemy shipping.

((OOC, different systems so three different overall kill reports.  We got hammered in the second one but with the shiny expensive kills on one and three overall I think we cost them more.))

Overall #1

Overall #2

Overall #3

Ranger Gama

Schwarzschild Casimir Collective