POS Shooting Sucks.

Two nights ago, I was asked by Bitzan if I could lead an alliance rrbs op to hit a tower in a low sec system near our staging point in 6-C.

Checking the schedule, I realized I wouldn't be able to make it, due to school. I checked with Cardking and Easley, and Card was willing and able to take the fleet.

Yesterday while at work, I checked forums, and someone asked the question "what kind of bs". I simply replied "rrbs" and went back to work. In the 15 minute downtime I had at home after work and before class I logged onto IRC to find angry alliance directors. "We don't have RRBS!"

I simply replied thats what I had been told to FC, so I figured that was what was called for. I also mentioned how snipe bs in the day of BC/HAC with logistics was weak sauce. Not much time to say more than that and I went to school.

Hour and a half later and I come home from school to a mess. Card had taken the gang out in snipe bs (he didn't want to dissapoint alliance leadership) and Cry Havoc and shown up with an armor HAC gang and was stomping on the IT fleet. In large part due to not listening to orders (align points and warp outs) but its just so easy to probe down bs fleets these days.

The moment I had logged on he had opened a convo with me explaining how his gang was outmatched (although not outnumbered) and without probers he was getting slowly chewed up, and wanted to call it but was afraid a director wouldn't allow it. I just told him screw it, hes the fc. If he thinks things are bad, he takes it home. I also told him if they make him choose snipe bs, he should just refuse to take the gang out. Its his call.

Remember that.

Whether its a bad situation, or you aren't comfortable with FCing the kind of ships an op calls for... don't do it. Card can FC snipe bs... they were just a piss poor shiptype when thrown against a close range armor hac gang. Had this been in 0.0 one well placed bubble would have annihilated the fleet. Card was exremely frustrated at the situation (I would have been too). He asked on command if anyone else wanted to take the gang out, I decided to take it and give him a break.

We burned home and re shipped to shield bc with logistics. I refused to take out the gang with less than 5 scimitars. I got them. I also called for Drakes Drakes and more Drakes. Harbs were fine, Canes were fine, Brutix's... meh (we got one of those).

Why Drakes?

We were going back to shoot this pos. We were going to get a fight (obviously). Against armor HACs we were going to lose some ships. Key is... we kill an armor HAC they kill a Drake.... who loses more? Yup.

Drakes have great buffer and more importantly... for a T1 BC they have great resists. Balance between the two is key. Why is "the fist" so powerful? High resists mean incoming damage is light. They don't have the hugest of buffers, but they don't need them since incoming damage is minimal. The repping power of Guardians/Oneiros (or Scimitars/Basi) is still the same, but it goes a helluva lot further on a HAC/BC due to the high resists. Makes sense? So when I look at a Drake I see a cheap ship that can hang in there. High resists and good buffer for a fraction of the cost... and guess what else? That low sig radius from those armor hacs, which was keeping our bs from doing damage to them? Yeah, missiles don't care. They will hit hard, albeit taking 10-15 seconds flight time to do so. Also... for those that don't know... if a missile is fired BEFORE a ship enters the POS shields, it will follow the ship inside the pos and still do damage/kill.

Its a win win situation. We can tank about as good. Our weapons are hitting them. If we lose ships its 1/3-1/2 the isk loss.

So off we went.

I formed up fleet on titan, cyno'd into Bab (next door to target system of Hare). We hit Hare gate jumped and warped straight to POS. The Cry Havoc armor gang sat in the shields and didn't respond as our gang landed. We lit up the pos.

To be honest, POS bashing sucks. Only thing worse is shooting TCUs and Ihubs. With battlecruisers... it sucks even more. But with the potential for another fight with Cry Havoc it was a neccessary evil.

We shot the pos for a good 20 minutes, warping in and out every 5 minutes to keep Cry Havoc on their heels and screwing up any cloaked warp ins they were getting.

Then the Cry Havoc gang warped to a spot 300km or so off their pos. I got everyone ready...

and waited...

Cry Havoc sat there... and sat there. I didn't give two shits, as I was still shooting their pos.

They warped back into shields and that was that.

We continued business as usual... until about 15 minutes after that, as POS was hitting low shield. Cry Havoc gang warped out to a spot within range weapons range, and the fight started...

We engaged at moderate distances, 30-60km. With the gang bonuses the Cry Havoc fleet had Arazu's pointing at decent range... but our Scimmy repping power was awesome. Props to the Scimitar pilots. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, who broadcasted for reps got em. Despite the ability for most pilots to warp out, and the outstanding reps by our Scimitar pilots, we lost a few ships. Unacceptable, and I made sure they knew it. But the engagement ended with the Cry Havoc fleet disengaging, and leaving system shortly after.

Then the long, boring job of shooting a pos with battlecruisers continued. We had to rearm some of the missile boats, and I handed off fleet to Hom3grown, as I needed to hit the hot tub up with some friends... whom by this time were in my apartment staring at the EVE screens with blank expressions.

Props to Cry Havoc, who gave us a good fight, and made snipe bs look exactly as I think they function. Like shit.

Props to Cardking, who took out a snipe bs without really wanting too... and gave it a go. Despite the losses he took, he stayed calm and gave it his best. Card is an excellent FC, but much prefers smaller gang warfare (as do I, to be honest). I told him next time a situation looks bad, don't do it. Don't take gang out. Take gang home. If he gets flack, let him hand the reigns to someone else and let them suicide the fleet.

After a couple hours of relaxation to Bob Marley in the hot tub, I bid my friends farewell (and the one girl worth snagging a number from) and headed home. I was a bit tired, but logged on for a quick few and found a blue in intel clamoring about an Abaddon named Bait warping around F67E. Despite yelling for fleet for 5 minutes, Dienekes IV, Cjeff, Bigmajelpro and myself didn't get one... and the Abaddon got away by the time I jumped into system.

I got ready for bed when the same blue exclaimed "hes back in 8-8".

Almost in unison we exclaimed "TACKLE HIM". To our surprise he did... in his Nemesis

As I heard the shiptype I rolled my eyes, expecting the Abaddon to get away. To my surprise, he didn't, and in the IT randoms jumped and straight to the Abaddon. Within a short period of time his ships exploded... and his pod stuck around long enough to get locked and pointed (no bubble) as well. Checking out the Abaddon's fit I have no idea what his thought process was. Literally no clue. He safed on station when I was in local, but got ballsy with a non-IT in local... As for being bait... 0ok. His buddies were nowhere to be seen when he died.

Eyes droopy, I went to sleep. Sadly, when I closed my eyes all I could see was a big ass Amarr pos being shot by tons of battlecruisers... what a nightmare :)

That is all.