J114337 system, E-R00025 region. On the 2nd of December at 14:20 EVE Standard Time DURA LEXX [DURA] clashed against Haywire. [HWRE] on a tower in the system, sparking a bloody and costly capital exchange for both sides.
The battle started after DURA LEXX attempted to evict Haywire. for the third time. According to DURA LEXX, it was fortunate enough to have a wormhole connection to Haywire.’s home system and decided to engage it again as previous fights proved enjoyable. However, Haywire. maintains that DURA LEXX has been keeping tabs on the system since the first engagement and spotted a decrease in activity due to recent events such as EVE Down Under and chose to strike at that moment.
Regardless, once DURA LEXX had the first connection to the Haywire. wormhole system it started frantically moving in capitals and assets as well as setting up a tower. Once it had enough forces in, it reinforced 9 towers belonging to Haywire. Haywire. though, was aware of DURA LEXX’s presence in the system, as one of its pilots was killed in the system by Ixtab. [IX], alerting its pilots. This meant that, when DURA LEXX reinforced the towers, one of the Haywire. pilots was around to adjust strontium levels, guaranteeing that most of the towers would exit reinforced mode at Haywire’s, and not DURA LEXX’s peak time.
The Alerting Killmail
Haywire. started preparing for its counter attack, calling allies across wormhole space to aid it and bolster its numbers. Quickly it established control over the wormhole while evacuating assets from vulnerable towers and waiting. When several towers started exiting reinforced mode it decided to attempt and repair them, using 3 triage carriers to do so.
It was the moment DURA LEXX was waiting for. A fleet was quickly organized, estimated at 24 pilots, and dreadnoughts warped on top of the triage carriers while interdictors started setting up a defensive perimeter. Haywire. and their allies responded swiftly as well and organized their own fleet, approximately 50 pilots strong. DURA LEXX dispatched the triage carriers but instead of retreating elected to stay, wishing to fight the Haywire. fleet that was organizing. The Haywire. fleet warped to a perch above the tower and attempted to warp down towards the wreckage of the carriers, exploiting a hole in the defensive bubbling.
As the Haywire. fleet warped in range of the DURA LEXX force, both sides started engaging, dreadnoughts exchanging volleys as sub-capitals rushed to apply heavy neutralizers and electronic warfare into the mix. While DURA LEXX had its capitals bunched together, Haywire. had its capitals spread due to bumping issues, causing several dreadnoughts to be outside of their guns’ optimal range or even re-fit off the carriers.
A murderous exchange occurred as the dreadnoughts spat monstrous volleys at each other, but it was the Haywire. dreadnoughts that quickly and decidedly broke. However, Haywire. kept bringing more dreadnoughts into the mix while focusing its immense firepower on the DURA LEXX carriers. DURA LEXX in turn switched its focus to the many energy neutralizing Bhaalgorn battleships present and started clearing a number of them. By this point, however, Haywire. was able to overwhelm DURA LEXX’s triage Archon carrier. Soon to follow it was the Pheonix dreadnought.
By now the battle had become a back and forth as the dreadnoughts continued to blast each other, trading an Archon here, a Naglfar there. By the end, it was DURA LEXX that was completely and utterly defeated, and its pilots forced to retreat to their tower.
Haywire. managed to win, but it too was exhausted after nearly an hour of heavy fighting, choosing to retreat instead to its staging tower, thus ending the fighting.
Battle report for the J114337 system can be found here.
All told the battle lasted over an hour with no reports of Time Dilation. Due to the engagement occurring in wormhole space the amount of pilots in the system at the time of fighting remains unknown. Based on battle report estimates and interviews it is believed to be in the region of 80 pilots.
DURA LEXX lost 16 ships, including 5 dreadnoughts and 2 carriers for a total of 43.62 billion ISK damage. Haywire. and its allies lost 25 ships, including 5 dreadnoughts and 6 carriers for a total of 61.64 billion ISK damage.
Though not the most expensive or biggest of the battles fought in wormhole space, it is still impressive to see the amount of ISK and damage poured into these fights. Whether it will be the last one fought between the two though, is yet to be seen.
Salivan Harddin is a member of Reikoku, Pandemic Legion, and covers battles across New Eden
