Massive Fleet Battle in Syndicate
Y-W6GF, Syndicate - A massive fleet battle in the early hours of 05.04.111 in Y-W6GF in Syndicate saw blues fighting on opposite sides and reds banding together in a battle which resulted in well over a hundred billion ISK in damage from capital-class casualties alone.
White Noise., SOLAR FLEET, Triumvirate. and ERROR. fought Cry Havoc, Pandemic Legion, Penumbra Alliance, HUZZAH FEDERATION, Dara Cothrom and Balance of Judgement, with each side fielding just shy of 200 ships. Losses are estimated at between 116-119 capital ships across all parties, which makes this either equal to the largest destruction of capitals in recent memory (the second battle of E-OGL4 caused 119 capital losses) or second by a narrow margin.
The Set-up
High-end moons claimed by Cry Havoc were put into reinforced mode by SOLAR FLEET attacks. Cry Havoc had manipulated their strontium fuel levels to give themselves time to prepare and to make sure the towers would become vulnerable at a time they felt their enemies would be at more of a numeric disadvantage than themselves, and invited friendlies along for the potentially-exciting defence.
After a brief engagement in Cloud Ring with what turned out to be a Dara Cothrom fleet invited to the same engagement, Pandemic Legion forces packed fuel for their dreadnoughts into a jump freighter to move as quickly as possible to the Syndicate hotzone.
A 40-strong SOLAR FLEET gang of battleships and support craft made its way to the system while some 16 Triumvirate. and White Noise carriers cynoed in to a nearby station. Cry Havoc brought in approximately 10 capitals and a small sub-capital sniper fleet to protect them while they started to repair the tower, hoping the show would force the enemy to escalate.
White Noise, Triumvirate. and SOLAR FLEET warped to the tower and activated a cynosural field, bringing in 50 dreadnoughts and additional carriers. Cry Havoc and HUZZAH began maneuvering to escape to a second tower from which to use hit-and-run attacks when, in Mistress Suffering's own words: "WHAM, POS is dead. Carriers are bubbled and not going anywhere."
Into The Meat Grinder
Cry Havoc dreads entered siege mode and engaged at point-blank range, just as Pandemic Legion forces arrived in jump range of the system.
In a move Viper ShizzIe described as "no-risk warfare at its finest," the Pandemic Legion dreadnought fleet came in at 190km from their enemy, able to snipe while their enemy's dreads were unable to lock them. The snipers picked off enemy dreadnoughts and a number of carriers their enemy moved to their position. Viper says:
"In total, we killed 25 hostile capitals before losing a single capital of our own."
The Triumvirate. dreadnoughts finished their siege cycles - the last of the Cry Havoc dreads dead - and warped to close range on the Pandemic Legion snipers. Viper decided his fleet would stay and fight, bubbling the Triumvirate. dreads and going toe-to-toe. "Any opportunity to kill entire capfleets can't be passed up."
Cry Havoc and allies reshipped to carriers wherever possible, and focused on remotely repairing the Pandemic Legion fleet. They managed to inflict heavy losses on the opposing ships, but their support was gradually wiped out.
Triumvirate. and White Noise took advantage of their superior close-range rate of fire and used Falcons to disrupt remote repair efforts, while deploying bubbles of their own. Cry Havoc and their allies withdrew to the station in system, but the Pandemic Legion Fleet was trapped.
"We're bubbled to hell and can't jump. We're going to keep calling primaries and go down to the last hull." Over 50 pods were lost inside the bubble as pilots losing ships had no other escape.
Miklas Laces of Triumvirate. described it thus:
"Losses on our side were heavy but we were clearly on top, having killed some 55 capitals with about 35 losses (rough estimate)."
The attackers' ships were low on strontium and jumped out to refuel, pick up reinforcements and reship where necessary. A tiny proportion of Pandemic Legion's original fleet took advantage of that to escape.
The defending forces focused their fire on carriers over dreadnoughts, breaking up their remote repair capability, while sending their support ships to engage enemy falcons so they could not disrupt the defenders' own repair efforts. Triumvirate. and friends had fielded two capital groups in this second stage, but one was too far out of range to assist the group engaged by the Cry Havoc forces. As the engaged group thinned out, Mistress Suffering picks up the tale:
"Close-range enemy capitals started self-destructing, particularly out-of-stront dreads. As we finished off the last of their close-range ones, I warped off to the station and we got a warp-in on their secondary capital fleet."
With Pandemic Legion now off the field, Dara Cothrom brought in additional carriers to support their allies, and the reinforced fleet sealed in the attackers' second capital group. Losses were taken on both sides, but the defenders were eventually able to drive off their opponents.
One thing many participants expressed is that, in spite of the losses on all sides, they are still exhiliarated from the battle. It seems the "GF" in the system name is there for a reason.
GalNet References
Interstellar Correspondents News:
Syndicate Alliances Walk Political Tightrope
Contemporary Accounts:
Syndicate (Mk2.) - General discussion of the battle
Total Capital Loss Tally
Mistress Suffering's Battle Report
Triumvirate. Battle Summary
Campaign Records:
Cry Havoc Battle Statistics
Pandemic Legion Battle Statistics
Dara Cothrom Battle Statistics
Penumbra Alliance Battle Statistics
White Noise Battle Statistics
Fremen Sietch (White Noise) Battle Statistics
SOLAR FLEET Battle Statistics
Triumvirate. Battle Statistics
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