B-7DFU system, Querious region. On the 15th of April at 20:32 EVE Standard Time, Pandemic Legion [-10.0] destroyed no less than 14 Rorqual industrial capital ships in one fell swoop.
The incident occurred after Pandemic Legion scouts noticed the high volume of mining in the system. After keeping tabs on the system, they were able to chart the activity of one mining group belonging to Goonswarm Federation [CONDI]. The miners had been harvesting ore from specific anomalies using a large number of Rorqual ships, supported by a few capital ships.
Seeing a chance to inflict great damage, Pandemic Legion once again seeded interdictors in the system during the brief time windows when the system was empty. These interdictors would remain logged off until called. With the interdictors in place, Pandemic Legion gathered a small ship cache to use for the operation and waited for the hour to strike.
With the miner group active and Goonswarm Federation fleets having departed the area on roams, Pandemic Legion decided to strike. The alliance gathered a hundred volunteers and raced to a staging system in range to hand out ships. A Tempest battleship fleet was quickly formed by the volunteers with a few Bhaalgorn battleships mixed in, additional interdictors and a dreadnought squadron. The fleet was light on logistics, preferring to maximize damage over survival.
With the fleet ready, Pandemic Legion fleet commanders waited for the miners to clear out the belt they were harvesting. With the last asteroid depleted Pandemic Legion interdictors logged back in and warped to the site. Once they landed the interdictors started launching warp disruption probes in order to pin down the capital industrial ships. One of the scouts lit a cynosural beacon allowing the dreadnought squadron to jump through. The dreadnoughts materialized on the grid, joined shortly by the battleship fleet.
With no asteroids left the Rorquals could not use their pulse activated nexus invulnerability cores, making them sitting ducks. The lack of invulnerability allowed Pandemic Legion to attack the ships immediately. Soon Rorquals and the few capital ships guarding them came under the combined firepower of the fleet.
Goonswarm Federation forces quickly noticed the hostile fleet as intelligence channels lit up with reports. A hasty Proteus strategic cruiser fleet was assembled to aid the tackled ships but according to reports were unable to coordinate with the ships on the field. Instead the relief fleet was forced to improvise a solution, wasting precious minutes it did not have.
The Rorqual ships went down in rapid succession. Without their invulnerability mode the ships could do nothing to withstand the fire barrage poured on them. The ships had also lit cynosural beacons for the relief force to bridge through but with lack of coordination all that did was immobilize the ships further, making it easier for the Pandemic Legion interdictors.
Within six minutes it was all over. The Pandemic Legion force destroyed the entire mining fleet leaving no survivors. With the Rorquals dispatched, the dreadnoughts exited their siege cycles and jumped out of the system. The Tempest fleet was left to extricate itself. The fleet made best speed out of the region, pursued by the vengeful strategic cruiser fleet. Goonswarm Federation forces proved tenacious, chasing the fleet for several systems but Pandemic Legion interdictors sacrificed themselves to slow down the pursuers. Goonswarm Federation found itself struggling to catch up to the battleships as each gate was covered by warp disruption probes.
In the end the Tempest fleet made it out, leaving Goonswarm Federation with only a few stragglers and interdictor kills as consolation a consolation. With its objective achieved and no major losses incurred, Pandemic Legion stood down its fleet, ending the fight.
Battle report for the B-7DFU system can be found here.
Goonswarm Federation lost 21 ships in the engagement including 14 industrial capital ships, 2 combat carriers and 1 force auxiliary bringing the total ISK damage to 115 billion ISK.
Salivan Harddin is a member of Hoover Inc., Pandemic Legion, and covers battles across New Eden
