A War of Attrition

As I stated before, my ability to convey up to date and accurate information on the current state of conflict is somewhat limited due to operational security.



The best part of the invasion so far, for me, is their renters, and their renters of renters. They talk so much in local... it makes me laugh.The problem is, that for all their boasting of us staying safed and/or docked up... they are all combining to fight us. We are the only ones on the front, at the moment. Other entities which may partake in the festivites will be arriving later. I rapidly expect the smacktalk in local to diminish once the 3-4 vs 1 mentality fades into distant memory. For now, I say let them enjoy it. The "we're winning mentality" which has been expressed in various dispatches I have seen to the NC fleets (SPIES!) show they actually believe they are winning the conflict after 3 days. All the more joy when that house of cards comes crashing down. The short term mentality I am seeing is also astounding. Its no secret we plan on being in the area of operations (AO) for onwards of 6 months. I honestly doubt that many of the holders in NC and all of the pet/renters are prepared mentally for that kind of conflict. I'm sure their wallets are deep, of that I have no doubt.

Many of you who read this blog... may or may not live in 0.0. Those that do may have, at some point, been locked down. By this I mean you are being invaded, there are constant roaming gangs in your space and your ability to make money is reduced or even shut down. You are on constant alert to form up for large fleets to defend your space. Initially this type of action may be exciting and stimulating, especially for carebears who have never hard constant PVP. But after the first couple weeks it starts to drag. After month its horrible. Many will drop corps, return to high sec or just stop loggin in as often. If your fleet commanders suck (the NC has a few good ones, assuming they aren't intoxicated) your wallet starts to look dry (unless you are an officer or one of the uber carebears with tens of billions stashed). This all adds to the sadness. Don't get me wrong, the attackers have some of the same issues. The difference, however, is that our space (Delve) is still ours. We can clone jump back to make 100 mill to replace a ship. We have alts still ratting/missioning/mining in our space. Sure, there are the occasional roaming gangs. But thats all they are. When you are the invaded the front line is your backyard. We shall see how the resolve is for those local smack talking pets in a month.

This is a war of attrition. For those familiar with the definition, this means wearing down the enemy slowly, over time. This means degrading troop strength, quality, equipment, morale, and anything else.

Yes, this is just a game. Yes, its pixels on a screen. Yet the same military tactics and doctrine apply. In fact, a war of attrition is easier to run on internet spaceships than in real life. In real life you have no way to escape. You are fighting for your home. In EVE you can just turn off the computer. Just doing that means that we are winning. You are sick of getting blown up, sieged, beat around. You turning off the computer means you are one less pilot in fleet.

Now, backing off from doctrine and tactics a bit, let me tell you what has happened recently.The last two days have been interesting. Our forces in x-7 have been under constant blob... in and out. NC can sustain high numbers for limited periods of time, and they certainly showed that. We had towers reinforced, and then they would leave. The interesting part is that these fleets are mainly Morsus Mihi, with some Mostly Harmless. A few Razor but not too many to be seen.  Their fleet composition has been mainly random crap. Yesterday they did op for close range RR which was the smartest thing I have seen them do, which negated our bomber fleets. As discussed before, they are fighting IT. Thats it for the time being. I have run several fleets, mainly in the EC- Torrinos area. As we are organizing the USTZ currently, that has been the extent of the operations. This will change.

The NC has made a point to "show off". What do I mean by that? Yesterday they dropped 5 titans on the EC-P8R gate on... our battlecruiser gang? Effective. No, really, awesome. Then last night while I was running the camp/roam in Torrinos/EC-P8R Robert Katrix (those of you who know whos Titan that is, know how much we are anticipating killing it :)) warped his titan onto the gate. The idiot was bubbled promptly. He had a large NC fleet 1-2jumps out... boy did they rush in and warp to the gate to save him. This type of behavior will work... for just a little bit longer. We are still moving assets and ships into the theatre of operations. I look forward to the next time he does it :)

Last night I was... indisposed for much of the evening :) but I did find some time to log in earlier and very late. Broke a camp in Torrinos (Wildly Innapropriate) and a Brick Squad camp in EC-. WI bailed and docked up when our bait ships undocked, Brick got themselves bubbled and lost a couple ships. The majority of their gang got out (they had 4 Cerbs at snipe range). Oddly enough, about 10 min after we took control of the gate one of their Cerbs warped to it and got caught in our hictor bubble. Ooops. He popped in about 5 seconds with the damage we had. Fit completely for gank and a low probability of being scanned out. I also popped a WI Cormorant who got tackled in Torrinos. His Onyx buddy got out, sadly enough. We also popped a few other randoms before I handed off the reigns to another alliance member to bring the gang down to X-7. It was time for bed.

That is all.