D-GTMI system, Providence region. On the 26th of December at 19:00 EVE Standard Time, Providence Bloc forces engaged Pandemic Legion [-10.0] in a long and arduous battle over the system’s station.
The battle was sparked after the system’s infrastructure hub and station were reinforced by Pandemic Horde [REKTD] in order to provoke a fight. With the station timer’s set to expire on the evening of the 26th, both sides formed for a major fight.
Pandemic Horde were first in the system, having mustered a 90 pilot Ferox battlecruiser fleet. The force was quickly chased and camped by Providence Bloc forces who brought no less than 230 pilots split into a Machariel battleship fleet supplied by The Volition Cult [VOLT] and a Cerberus heavy assault cruiser fleet containing the rest of the coalition. Providence Bloc’s covert ops command supplied a stealth bomber wing as well.
The two Providence Bloc fleets effectively trapped Pandemic Horde in the system, forcing its fleet to gather in a safe spot as it lacked the numbers to effectively engaged Providence Bloc’s forces. However, reinforcements came in the form of a Pandemic Legion Proteus strategic cruiser fleet, estimated at 90 pilots, which bridged into the system and quickly warped to the T-RPFU gate where the Machariel fleet was stationed.
Landing on top of the Machariels, the Proteus fleet quickly engaged the battleships, starting the actual fight on the T-RPFU gate.
The Machariels were caught flat footed, several of them destroyed in the opening volleys before the rest were teleported a 100 kilometers away with the help of the command destroyers’ micro jump field drives. However the Proteus fleet did not relent and immediately gave chase, quickly closing the gap between the two fleets while continuing to fire mercilessly into the ranks of the Machariels.
In rapid succession, the battleships were destroyed as the Proteus fleet continued to rain fire on them, joined by the Pandemic Horde Ferox fleet. As the two allied fleets proceeded to hammer The Volition Cult’s fleet, the Providence Bloc’s Cerberus fleet arrived on grid. The heavy assault cruisers started firing flight after flight of missiles in great swarms at the hostile fleets, hammering the Pandemic Legion fleet with little success.
At the same time, Providence Bloc’s bomber wing made its presence known on the field, diving again and again at the Ferox fleet and unleashing its deadly payload. Wave after wave of electron bombs hit the Ferox fleet from multiple directions, decimating the fleet as battlecruisers and support ships were hit by overlapping explosions and simply evaporated.
And yet the fighting continued in earnest, with Providence Bloc losing more and more ships by the minute while Pandemic Horde continued to suffer losses to repeated bomber attacks. However more reinforcements for Providence Bloc arrived in the form of a Stain-Wagon (SW) coalition Cerberus fleet, estimated at 90 pilots. The SW fleet positioned itself on the other side of the battlefield, trapping Pandemic Legion between the two forces and targeting its logistics wing.
Slowly, Pandemic Legion started to bleed ships as the combined pressure of the three fleets started to take its toll. To quickly curb this, a cynosural beacon was lit on grid and several triage Archon carriers were brought in to help stabilize the fleet. With the addition of the Archons to the logistics backbone of the fleet, Pandemic Legion continued to fight, concentrating on the Cerberus fleets while sustaining losses as the missile swarm simply overwhelmed logistics cruisers and support ships.
The Battle Up to This Point from the Perspective of Pandemic Legion’s Proteus Fleet, Courtesy of fin1712 of Hoover Inc.
By this point the Pandemic Horde fleet was nearly spent as continued bombing runs crippled it, inflicting heavy casualties. Regardless, the fleet was determined to fight to the last and after helping to break the Machariel fleet and fight the SW Cerberus fleet, the force warped out of the grid in order to re-position, choosing to land on the Providence Bloc’s logistics wing.
Though catching Providence Bloc’s fleet by surprise, the Pandemic Horde force was unable to inflict a great deal of damage before the hostile fleet reacted and started targeting the Ferox battlecruisers which were already bruised and damaged from the relentless bombing runs. In a few minutes the fleet was torn apart by the Cerberus’ missile volleys, leaving the Proteus fleet to fend for itself against the increasing number of hostiles.
The fierce fighting had attracted a sixth fleet to the system, a The Gorgon Empire [-GE-] mixed shield battleship\battlecruiser fleet estimated at 50 pilots. The force engaged both sides but quickly became the new target for the Providence Bloc’s bomber wing which claimed more victims. At this point Pandemic Legion managed to hold well, suffering a few casualties including a triage carrier early on but more than making up for it. Yet as the battle dragged on, the loss of logistics cruisers and support ships coupled with exhaustion and depletion of ammunition were becoming a real concern.
Thus, having fought for nearly an hour, Pandemic Legion forces made preparations to extract, managing to withdraw most of their fleet though losing another carrier and a few ships in the process.
One of the Last Casualties of the Fight
Holding the field, Providence Bloc and SW looted the wrecks before returning to their respective staging systems, having secured the station and later on the infrastructure hub.
Thus large scale hostilities in the system ended.
Battle report for the D-GTMI system can be found here.
All told the battle lasted an hour with Time Dilation spiking and subsiding, reaching reportedly peaks of 50% at times though generally remaining at 70% and below. The number of pilots in the system fluctuated greatly during the fight as more fleets entered the fray and many pilots forcibly removed from the fight. It is estimated that at the peak of the fighting approximately 560 pilots were present in the system.
Providence Bloc lost 137 ships in the fight, including 20 battleships and 12 heavy assault cruisers for a total of 19.84 billion ISK damage.
SW lost 22 ships including 9 heavy assault cruisers for a total of 3.97 billion ISK damage.
Pandemic Legion and Pandemic Horde lost 82 ships including 2 carriers, 33 battlecruisers and 8 strategic cruisers for a total of 22.35 billion ISK damage.
The Gorgon Empire lost only 12 ships, including 2 battleships and 9 battlecruisers for a total of 1.69 billion ISK damage.
Salivan Harddin is a member of Reikoku, Pandemic Legion, and covers battles across New Eden
