Everyone knows that “Fozziesov” is going to revolutionize the way 0.0 Sov wars are fought. One of the aspects I’m most excited about is how the role of small gangs will develop and in many ways become an essential component of how wars are won. I’ve always loved the idea of small groups disrupting large alliances through the use of quick ships and even quicker tactics, and tried my best to keep away from the “big boys”. If you read my previous article you would know that I attempted to develop a Cov Ops program for training Brave Collective members. Unfortunately the project failed due to petty internal politics. While my time with Brave was short, the experience, politics aside, left an impression on me. Most notable to me were some of the enemies that Brave was fighting. While our stratops were almost always against Black Legion as a whole, complete with Tengus and their formidable Capital armada on stand by as needed, there was also a smaller detachment of BL pilots that harassed the YZ- undock on an almost daily basis. They did not number many, nor were their ships fast. In fact they numbered between two to six and flew mostly Garmurs with a mix of support frigates.
What I thought was interesting was that this small group had everyone in the Brave standing fleet quite riled up. These Garmurs flown by the Windrammers corporation (CEO Mr Majestic) kept a 40 to 70 man Brave standing fleet hugging the undock like a child clinging to his mother’s leg in a shallow but unfamiliar pool. I would observe as scores of tackle frigs would burn their mwds out trying to land a scram on the elusive Garmurs only to be torn apart by barrages of Light Missiles before anyone could even land in proximity to them. Time and time again people would attempt this feat until someone eventually spoke up and with a demoralized voice would say “Just ignore them, there’s nothing we can do. Stop chasing you’re feeding them kills.” Windrammers had such a demoralizing effect on Brave, infighting would occur on Brave comms on more than one occasion.
Any attempts to organize the standing fleet in an attempt to deal with this foe always had its dissenters more interested in looking “cool and edgy” rather than being helpful. In one instance I undocked a Confessor that could reach out and tag the Garmurs beyond their missile range in an attempt to push them off and save a fleet member. As soon as I aggressed the Garmurs descended upon me at closer ranges, attempting to mitigate the Beam laser’s tracking and to ensure they could keep tackle. I turtled up in defense mode and over heated my repper while calling out on comms for people to undock and burn the Garmurs down, as they had strayed dangerously close to the station. At the very least they would be pushed off and I could save my ship. Instead, one of the “edgy cool looking” members decided instead to have a debate on the merits of such an engagement. The expected result came to be this:
Two realizations dawned on me that day. First, I had better luck herding autistic cats that had spontaneously combusted than organizing the standing fleet into anything remotely effective. Secondly, Windrammers was doing what I was hoping to train Brave to be able to do. Unfortunately, at the time anyway, but very fortunately in retrospect, middle management drama occurred and I departed from Brave, joining Windrammers. I had previously been on the receiving end of the Garmur salvos, and now I would be delivering them.
Contrary to popular belief, flying Garmurs isn’t just “orbit and F1”. The vast majority of flying is done manually and the engagement ratio is generally about 6 to 1 in our disfavor. The only tank is an MSE and while Garmur speed can range from mid 4000s into the 6000s cold and point you between 40 to 60 KM depending on the fitting, if one lands a scram on them they’re more than certain to evaporate under any sort of focused fire. DPS is fairly minimal at about 110 reaching to about 60 KM + matching it’s lock range. A single unbonused damp can really cripple a Garmur’s ability to fight. A small squad of Rail Corms when properly fit can reach out to 100+ KM and can easily push them off the field. Despite taking on much larger numbers than our own we needed to pick and choose our engagements and take advantage of any target that strayed too far from the group or seemed to be a bit slower than the rest. A very predatory style of mentality is quickly adopted. No FC is needed, it simply becomes instinct that our gang knew what to do much of the time.
So what does this have to do with Fozziesov? Well due to the mechanics, combat will no longer always be about two big fleets each with one FC and a handful of backups smashing against one another like sumo wrestlers. Instead, the conflict will be divided among several fleets in separate systems trying to capture their respective nodes. We’ve already seen in this article how demoralizing of an effect an organized small gang can have on an alliance.
In the new Sov, such an attack can no longer be avoided by staying docked up. As your indexes go down, your vulnerability from a conventional force goes up. The sov holders will need to answer such intrusion with their own forces or risk the inevitable. The alliances that value corps like Windrammers and puts small gang FCs to work in an organized fashion the quickest, will be the biggest benefactors of the new Sov system. Those that hold onto the old “sumo” ways will see their territory shrink away and their power weaken. Small gang roams will no longer be there to “kill time” between strat ops, but instead will be the precursor major offenses. Wars won’t be won by irregular forces alone, but they’ll certainly pave the way to victory for the conventional fleets that follow.
I personally look forward to new sov that is quickly approaching, along with the fun that will be had. Windrammers shows off just a fraction of the fun had this summer so far:
