GK5Z-T system, Insmother region. In the early hours of the 17th of December, a Ragnarok Titan belonging to Triumvirate. [TRI] was destroyed in the system by forces belonging to Pandemic Legion [-10.0].
The titan was the unintended casualty of a well laid trap planned by Pandemic Legion. The intended target was a large capital force of dreadnoughts belonging to Triumvirate.. The original plan saw the use of an Aeon supercarrier pilot who was unaffiliated with Pandemic Legion and inserted with his corporation into Dream Citizens [DRC], Dream Fleet [DRF]’s rental alliance in the Insmother region. With Dream Fleet being part of the Red Menace Coalition (RMC) and at war with Triumvirate. and the Drone Regions Federation (DRF) it was believed to be the perfect bait.
The plan was to have a Sleipnir command ship fleet wait in range of the system together with a super capital strike force. Both forces were organized ahead of time and moved into position beforehand as to not alert Triumvirate. to their presence. Once the trap was sprung the Sleipnir fleet would bridge into the system and help secure tackle while the super capital strike force entered and dispatched the hostile capital force.
The linchpin of the plan was to use a dormant spy in Triumvirate.’s own renter alliance, Cohortes Triarii [SRVUS]. With everything in place, this pilot was used to report on a tackled Aeon which was attempting to enter a tower’s shields but was still 10 kilometers off. This information sent waves of electricity throughout Triumvirate., causing confusion and excitement which set in motion the chain of events that ended with the loss of a titan and its supporting dreadnought force.
With the pilot pleading for reinforcements and stating the urgency of the situation as he claimed the Aeon was slowly burning towards the tower’s shields, Triumvirate. hastily formed a Rattlesnake battleship fleet while interdictors burned ahead to supplement the lone tackler. As the ranks of the fleet swelled to nearly a 100 pilots, the first interdictors for Triumvirate. entered the system and helped bubble the Aeon who made only a token effort to return to the safety of the tower’s shields.
While such a strange behavior should have been reported, nothing filtered upwards, leading Triumvirate. to bridge in its forces in an attempt to bump the supercarrier further away as dreadnoughts were dropped in order to destroy it. One of the Triumvirate. pilots also decided to bring his titan in to expedite matters, lighting a cynosural beacon 200 kilometers away. The Ragnarok titan landed on grid and quickly fired its doomsday weapon at the supercarrier which was already under the heavy fire of the dreadnoughts.
This was the moment Pandemic Legion was waiting for. The trap was quickly sprung as a cynosural beacon was lit on the grid, ushering in the Sleipnir fleet. The Triumvirate. fleet commander attempted to rally his forces to engage it but found too late that most of his fleet consisted of interdictors and non doctrine ships who could offer little resistance to the Sleipnir fleet. At the same time, the spy executed his final move and tackled the the titan, dropping interdiction probes on it.
More cynosural beacons were lit, signaling the entrance of the Pandemic Legion super capital force. A few supercarriers jumped to the Aeon who was at low armor, dropping to 6% before the remote repairers caught it. The Triumvirate. capitals were dispatched quickly by titans and supercarriers, while the Sleipnir fleet forced the Triumvirate. sub-capital fleet to retreat.
All that remained was the titan. Having no smartbombs fit, the titan attempted to slowly burn out of the interdiction spheres. A heavy interdictor secured tackle with a focused point, and the Sleipnir fleet swarmed the colossal body, applying energy neutralizers to the behemoth’s hull. Then the titans and supercarriers of Pandemic Legion, having finished clearing all the remaining Triumvirate. capitals, turned their attention to it. The cloud of fighter bombers overwhelmed the Ragnaroks shields, as the assaulting titans fired their capital armaments at the exposed armor and hull. Finally the ship gave in to the relentless barrage, its hull rupturing as multiple explosions rocked it, twisting it to a grotesque shape as chunks of the hull were sent flying all over.
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With the titan destroyed, Pandemic Legion forces safely extracted from the system, bringing an end to the fighting.
The Battle from the Perspective of the Sleipnir Fleet
Battle report for the GK5Z-T system can be found here.
All told the battle lasted 15 minutes with Time Dilation not reported and local hosting approximately 200 pilots at the height of the fighting.
Triumvirate. lost 1 titan, 9 dreadnoughts and 2 carriers for a total of 149.61 billion ISK damage while Pandemic Legion losses were negligible.
Salivan Harddin is a member of Reikoku, Pandemic Legion, and covers battles across New Eden
