[LSC] Whelp.... we BLAPed the Paladin!

[Shar Thrityh]

I'm going to keep repeating this it seems: heavy tackle is not a real thing.

Care to expand on this?
I always figured you have the fast tackle, that isn't designed to hold out indefinitely. They're there to keep the targets in grid until the heavier tanked, slower tackle arrives on grid. These have the staying power needed to keep the targets ongrid until one side is dead.
Is there a mistake in that way of thinking?

[Azmodeus Valar]

I'm going to keep repeating this it seems: heavy tackle is not a real thing.

Care to expand on this?
I always figured you have the fast tackle, that isn't designed to hold out indefinitely. They're there to keep the targets in grid until the heavier tanked, slower tackle arrives on grid. These have the staying power needed to keep the targets ongrid until one side is dead.
Is there a mistake in that way of thinking?

Mostly, it is a waste of a ship. Your initial tackle should hold long enough for the fleet to land. At that point, dps should easily be able to hold tackle. If they can't hold tackle under dps with logi support, adding a "heavy tackle" won't do anything useful since your dps can't stay on the field anyway.

[Shar Thrityh]

Ok, that sounds very reasonable for armor fleets that have mid slots to spare.
but what happens in shield fleets, where there aren't always scrams/points on the mainline DD? (think of our BLAP Caracals, for example).

[Laser Skaron]

I'm going to keep repeating this it seems: heavy tackle is not a real thing.

Care to expand on this?
I always figured you have the fast tackle, that isn't designed to hold out indefinitely. They're there to keep the targets in grid until the heavier tanked, slower tackle arrives on grid. These have the staying power needed to keep the targets ongrid until one side is dead.
Is there a mistake in that way of thinking?

Mostly, it is a waste of a ship. Your initial tackle should hold long enough for the fleet to land. At that point, dps should easily be able to hold tackle. If they can't hold tackle under dps with logi support, adding a "heavy tackle" won't do anything useful since your dps can't stay on the field anyway.

I guess there may be an argument for not having tackle throughout your main DD line to save mid slots and having fewer dedicated ships that can keep tackle, but that sounds niche and I haven't seen that yet.

The only arguments I've seen for sending "heavy tackle" are things like: we want to appear more engageable and not scare our target, so we send fewer ships initially. That doesn't require any dedicated ship in the doctrine.

[HyperFlareX]

but what happens in shield fleets, where there aren't always scrams/points on the mainline DD? (think of our BLAP Caracals, for example).

Interdictors and/or Lachesis.

[Azmodeus Valar]

I guess there may be an argument for not having tackle throughout your main DD line to save mid slots and having fewer dedicated ships that can keep tackle, but that sounds niche and I haven't seen that yet.

The only arguments I've seen for sending "heavy tackle" are things like: we want to appear more engageable and not scare our target, so we send fewer ships initially. That doesn't require any dedicated ship in the doctrine.

In that case, having a bait ship is typical. Or you can split the fleet and only have part of it visible, and the second wing a few jumps away. It doesn't require a heavy tackle, which is usually a euphemism for "ship that will die and not be helpful during the fight".

Disclaimer: HICS/HACS/Recons are specialty cases, as they have capabilities not present in regular ships.

[Decklin Quark Reiger]

So, I wanted to add my reflections on the fight vs Holy Cookie here. There are a few mistakes I made which hopefully I and others can learn from:

1. I bought into the hype of "Caracals kill small stuff" too​ much. I mean, yes, they do, but there's a huge difference between T1 frigates and a large group of command destroyers, Assault Frigs, and T2 logi. I should have paused to rethink when I saw just what they had waiting for us. I'm going to do some research on typical T2 fits to see what kind of ehp and reps can be achieved with different amounts of boosts, and have some actual numbers in mind when assessing situations, in addition to a gut feel.

2. light missile application is fairly dependent on pilot SPs, so I need to keep that in mind when looking at my own fleet composition and damage estimates.

3. I forgot to call for the fleet to change ammo types. Torg mentioned afterwards that ammo selection is something that could be delegated beforehand - good idea.

4. When we entered the plex, I called for the whole fleet to slide together. Logi immediately got primaried. I should have called for the logi to wait a bit before entering.

5. My own lack of experience with flying logi ( I bent at all) means I don't think of things like that. Are there other roles or aspects of combat that I also don't think about because I don't do them much? (Yes .. timing volleys to alpha a target off the field is one.. more experience with cruisers is another).

6. My target selection in that fight was fairly poor. I started with trying to focus their logi, but they were not budging at all. Coaxter suggested that I needed to focus something with lower resists, but I didn't really see much available. There was an Atron, which we killed, there was a Garmur, but he was outside of missile range for most of our Caracals. The ships that we could kill weren't really much the threat to us. By the time I tried to kill a Merlin, we had lost too much and couldn't even do that.

7. I tried distracting their logi by calling for us to put all our drones (a mix of EC-300s and acolytes) on one of their logi, while we focused fire on a command destroyer. Unfortunately, I think I timed that badly because people ran out of ammo part way through. Max said afterwards that the technique can be effective however, so I'll try something like that again.

[Razer Thukkerkin]

Great fun, Decklin! Wish I had gotten in on that Paladin kill, but I was just a bit late to the party. My current schedule doesn't usually allow me to fly EUTZ much, but I look forward to flying with you in the future when my schedule allows!

[Captain Cean]

I tried distracting their logi by calling for us to put all our drones (a mix of EC-300s and acolytes) on one of their logi,

Our Logi hated you for this


Here our POV uncut and Raw enjoy our german Coms
Video

[Tansarii Kashada]

This AAR is precisely the reason for AAR's. Great read and great learnings. Love the participation by the fleet doing the whelping.

[Alto DeRaqwar]

This is a awesome AAR; if I had been with the Caracals I would have been vaguely confident and hugely shocked at the outcome (mainly due to my previous confidence in the superiority of RLML Jesus vs anything smaller than Cruiser). The informative response from Captain Caen demonstrates that even RLML falls to the great "it depends" when death is on the line.

Also totally jealous about the Paladin kill.

Thanks Captain!