riverini’s note: Not really a battle report but more of a war story. The idea of this post is not to report on a given engagement but rather give us a glimpse of what’s goes on in providence / Catch. Hero and CVA has been blazing the regions, Pandemic Legion has also been doing its part. One thing I really liked from this story is the tactical commentary on the FC decision, I really hope you guys enjoy it.
Last Sunday the final timer for the S25C I-HUB came out of reinforcement and abruptly died. This left the TCU in the system vulnerable for anyone to attack.
The CVA/Provi forces, having lost the system back in late August, had been constantly reinforcing the system day after day in a bid to take it back as a part of their Catch offensive strategy.
They counted themselves lucky and set themselves up in a mixed Zealot/Augoror Navy Issue fleet on the BR- gate with mixed logistics support. HERO, on the other hand, rage pinged for Cerberuses and Caracal support, with TEST forming up armor Ishtars as well.
The first objective for the countering HERO fleet was to retake the system. This “wing” was made up of brawling Caracals. The purpose of the Caracals fleet is to move into close range against the Zealots and hold them down while the Cerbs pulled range off of the gate. The Cerbs should open fire whilst procuring a proper range from the Provi Zealots.
This initial engagement ended poorly for HERO, with few of the Provi AHACs dying, and resulted in a massive amount of suicide Caracals dying on the gate. The Hero Cerbs regrouped in the solar system’s Safe POS. Meanwhile, another fleet was formed by the now deceased Caracal pilots. This time they went with a Heavy Missile Launcher (HML) fit for their Caracals in order to re-engage the Provi forces. Despite initial success with the HML alpha at removing the AHAC fleets from field, the fight degenerated into a DPS race with both sides trying to take down the opposing sov unit. With Providence dropping dreads on the Territorial Claim Unit in a bid to finish it off. The HERO forces also dropped their own on the Sovereign Blockade Unit in order to destroy it. In the end, with only a few minutes left on the SBU, the TCU exploded and the system’s sovereignty flipped to “Unclaimed” status. The HERO forces made the decision to withdraw from the system after liberating their capitals from an attempted trap by Providence forces. They lost only one dreadnought out of a group of close to twenty-five capitals.
The next day, both the HERO and Provi forces were prepared to fight. Providence formed up their standard (and now aging) doctrine of sentry battleships. These battleships were backed by bomber squads and Goku bombers, setting themselves up on a TCU death star POS with close to three TCUs online. In total, Provi forces came in with close to four hundred pilots present.
On the enemy camp, HERO split into two fleets; the main group, consisting of primarily Eagles under “Blue Ice” as their main FC. This fleet was supported by a TEST Alliance armor Ishtar fleet that both made their way north from GE- via a bridge into ERVK, where they proceeded to move into BR-N97 and then S25C-K. The initial engagement on the death star proved to be less than optimal, with their FC “Blue Ice” calling for an emergency departure from the grid as it had split quite suddenly. This forced the HERO fleet off of the POS.
After that, the HERO forces got down to work on trying to contest the CVA/Provi fleet. Under duress from the POS, and with Providence battleships and battlecruisers hugging the POS forcefield, the HEROic Eagles worked to try and alpha through the sentry ships. Their FC focused on the low resist/EHP ships initially, with some targets darting into the POS on the verge of death. Whereas TEST entered system and also setup on the POS. Unlike during the BR-N97 station fights, the Goku bombers and the bomber squads themselves took massive casualties and were repeatedly forced off field after being bubbled and cut down.
The battle was back and forth for a period of time, until Pandemic Legion entered system and landed on grid. For a change of pace for once, the Legion, their pilots decked out in their unbreakable blob of Proteus. The Pandemic Legion’s Tech 3 fleet, backed up with Oneiros logistics ships, engaged the Provi forces on the POS, forcing them back into the forcefield while HERO fleets engaged and shot the TCUs.
Halfway through the first TCU, the Pandemic Legion departed, and CVA/Providence forces attempted to mobilize their fleet out of the POS. For this, they warped off and then warped back in to engage, however, Pandemic Legion (who had been waiting next door in BR-N97) re-entered system and warped back onto the grid, engaging the Providence fleets yet again. The CVA/Provi, again, retreated back into the forcefield of the POS, loitering while HERO shot down one TCU and began working on a second one while Pandemic Legion left again. This time for real.
After a period of a few minutes, waiting for PL to leave for good this time, CVA/Provi forces began to call on reinforcements.They brought in new pilots in battleships and battlecruisers. And prepared for another fight. During the form up, a few individuals struggled outside the POS bubble due incorrect passwords and quickly died with extreme prejudice. After this brief confusion, the CVA/Provi sentry fleet warped out of the POS, bouncing back a mere sixty or so kilometers from the HERO fleet. Quite within their Thorium charge optimal range. Both the Eagle fleet and the Ishtar fleet moved in to engage as the CVA/Provi fleet looked to make a final stand. This resulted in the loss of dozens of battlecruisers and battleships in a span of a few minutes, as well as multiple Fleet Commander assets.
The HERO fleet, newly victorious, re-engaged the TCUs on the POS. Downing another one and starting to work on a third while CVA/Provi covertly reshipped into Tengus and Feroxes, moving back for another round of fighting. This round would be harder for the HERO forces, who were lower in number by this point compared to earlier and who hadn’t gotten much of a chance to resupply their fleet as of yet. Unable to break the Tengus’ tank, “Blue Ice” switched the target call on softer primaries like Scythes and Feroxes that would break more easily under the alpha of the remaining Eagles. After a brief round of fighting, the Tengus warped off field. HERO finished the TCU whilst anchoring four of their own to begin the countdown.
As HERO attempted to head home, they discovered a gate camp assembled by the Tengu fleet under corebloodbrothers command sitting on the BR-N97 gate. The Tengus began to engage them at range with Spike loaded, picking off targets that were not paying attention to their damage notifications and biding their time. After a tense, cat and mouse game of testing each other’s reps and picking off the weaker ships, a Pandemic Legion fleet jumped back in. This forced the Provi fleet to try and run back home while the HERO fleet pursued. The CVA/Provi forces managed to escape with most of their Tengus intact despite withering fire from the HERO Eagle fleet. With a final tally being somewhere around sixty-three billion isk destroyed for all sides involved, but primarily slanted towards the Providence forces.
Despite all of this, the system of S25C-K was claimed by Evictus. alliance later on Sunday. After many efforts to try and retake the system, making this a victory for the CVA/Provi, but a pyrrhic one at that.
[ Battle Summary for S26C-K and BR-N97 ]
Mangra did an amazing job releasing this anotated version of the climax of the fight, its 17 mins but well worth your time:
