AAR: Police Academy - BLAP Talwars

[Breeze One]

Never stop trying new things! My first Talwar fleet and first Null Sec roam as FC, and its a bit like being a brand new FC again. Fun times though!

Feedback form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... rm?c=0&w=1

FC: Breeze One
2IC: FrankTT2
Scouts: Decklin, Jax, Anoop
Dictors: Croixant, Adrien Claremont

Great formup as always, with 3 ceptors and 2 dictors as well as around 20 Talwars. We burnt up through Low Sec to join Cloud Ring, and spotted a couple of Battlescruisers moving through us which I attempted to engage, but we werent set up for Low Sec combat, with no Logi for taking gate fights, so after we proved unable to Alpha them before they warped we moved on

Soon after entering Null, we found a nice VNI who our scouts spooked into warping to the sun where we caught up to him. Nice shiny cargo hold!

Vexor Navy Issue +246.56m
Capsule +0.01m

Another VNI was caught ratting a few jumps out. Less shiny here, and the rats finished him before we could all get on the kill sadly. We also took this oportunity to use the rats as practice for engaging multiple targets

Vexor Navy Issue +90.7m

We spotted a couple of ratting carriers at this point which, with a bigger Cruiser fleet and some EWAR support, I might have made a play for. Worth noting for later!

We were burning up towards GME and Horde's ratting pocket, but the welcome party at the gate was too much for us to handle, so I turned us around. As we left, Megoste (for some reason in an Ishtar) got caught by a Combat Ceptor gang and killed. I've noted the kill below but I'm kinda excluding it from the final ISK calculations cos...Megoste brought an Ishtar on a Talwar fleet

Ishtar -321.19m
Capsule -0.01m

The Combat Ceptor fleet who killed Megoste came after us - we attempted to engage but they decided they preferred being slippery and moved on wherever they were going. We caught a couple of stragglers though simply with Alpha strikes before they could warp

Claw +35.98m
Ares +41.46m
Capsule +0.01m

Moving on into 7RM (Horde staging) we caught and killed a ratting Algos in a belt, then set up at a ping off the KLY gate to see the response fleet form

Algos +2.78m
Capsule +0.01m

So, the interesting bit! Horde formed up around 20 Sniper Rail Cormorants and warped almost directly between us and the gate, probably 20km off the gate, and 40km off of us

Seeing a similar number of Destroyers landing inside our optimal range, I decided to take the fight straight away. I had everyone anchored on me, and was bringing us in on a somewhat spiral closer to the fleet to try and make their tracking an issue

Looking at the kills, and the timing of kills, we were trading fairly well initially, however I was picked up as the anchor very early on, and almost immediately blapped off the field. Frank as 2IC did a good job stepping up, but I believe they landed reinforcements shortly after, and basically snowballed us from there. We got our Interdictors out but very few others. Jax did a great job picking up the pieces and getting the few survivors out to Low Sec

Maulus -13.87m
Talwar -10.45m
Malediction -48.94m
Talwar -10.64m
Cormorant +11.16m
Cormorant +2.17m
Capsule +34.04m
Talwar -13.45m
Cormorant +12.78m
Griffin -0.63m
Talwar -14.45m
Talwar -9.19m
Talwar -14.47m
Talwar -12.27m
Malediction -83.34m
Talwar -11.39m
Cormorant +3.09m
Talwar -7m
Talwar -12.99m
Talwar -13.45m
Cormorant +12.27m
Talwar -6.62m
Talwar -10.17m
Talwar -7.07m
Tristan +11.34m
Talwar -11.73m
Talwar -8m
Talwar -9.06m
Talwar -13.04m
Talwar -8.28m
Talwar -10.8m
Maulus -2.53m


Stats
ISK Destroyed: 504,362,825.84
ISK Lost: 363,828,696.21
ISK Delta: 140,534,129.63
Efficiency: 58.093%

Spoiler

Roam members (33) - NOTE: This section is NOT usually included in AARs.
Adrien Claremont
Alf Saissore
Altar Kabal
Ann'Dra Padecain
Anoop Knight
Baldr Abruzz
Bloodflame
Breeze One
Calder Ormand
Coaxster
Danton Hakaari
DeanSherman
Decklin Quark Reiger
Dgdsgy Foobar
Eddie Dante
FrankTT2
Jax Renalard
Megoste
Muzzy Chuck
Oh' Leeador
Padraic Musbrandt
Rebulah Conundrum
SMBEHJ
Seerah Lindrake
Sweet Pain
Tika On
Tom Endares
Trillian Ituin
Union Pivo
Xana McBash
Zana Fehrnah
Zarquu Fussuhfusus
ashahara

[Breeze One]

What went well?

* We moved through Null Sec quickly, found some quick content in the ratting systems, and had a decent amount of fights in a decent length of time - definitely a success from that point of view! Happy with the route overall

* Anchoring was good, and we had no issues with bubbles (beyond me sometimes not calling for them when I should have)

* Great scouts, at no point did we get surprised or blindsided, and some great catches with those VNIs, and then keeping eyes on that gate camp in GME until we decided not to take the fight

* We traded well, ship for ship at the start of the Horde fight, which is what you'd expect from two long range Alpha strike doctrines smashing each other, before it all fell apart a little

* Horde didn't upship us - they basically brought a matching fleet comp initially, then progressively blobbed us from there on. The blobbing I expected, but its good to see that they brought a good fight to start with at least

What we have done better?

* I'm still not 100% confident FC'ing Null Sec. I go on plenty of Null Sec roams and fleets, but calling for bubbles and bubble tactics isn't something that comes naturally or automatically still. I feel I could've done more with the bubbles honestly

* A few people mentioned in the Horde fight struggling to follow broadcasts. Thats a common issue I hear a lot on our fleets so I should really take the time at the start of each fleet to make sure people know how to follow broadcasted targets on the fleet window. I may add that to the Newbro speech text

* One of the conclusions on the post mortem of the fight was that our best chance against the Cormorants was to bounce to a long range ping initially, then try and get a warp in at 0 on them to disrupt their tracking. That would also have been a good way to make sure we were all set up for the fight. I can see why I took the fight when I did (equal numbers, optimal range), but I probably underestimated the Cormorants a little, and warping off to a ping then trying for better warp was probably the better option there. Having said that, the Cormorants out-range us quite a bit, so had I warped us off, we may never have gotten back to a situation where they were within our range (plus they would have landed more reinforcements earlier)

* Having a longer chain of command would have been great - we had FC and 2IC, then various people stepped up. For Talwars where FC/Anchor is often primary, having a 3IC or 4IC pre-defined would be useful

* There was also a discussion post fight on the value of having the FC as anchor. I've seen the debate numerous times, and some people prefer different things. I've thought before that I'd definitely try using a separate anchor, but only if it is with someone who I trust and who I know will be thinking similarly to me on tactics etc. I tend to have those people doing more useful things like scouting in my fleets though

[Trillian Ituin]

* One of the conclusions on the post mortem of the fight was that our best chance against the Cormorants was to bounce to a long range ping initially, then try and get a warp in at 0 on them to disrupt their tracking. That would also have been a good way to make sure we were all set up for the fight. I can see why I took the fight when I did (equal numbers, optimal range), but I probably underestimated the Cormorants a little, and warping off to a ping then trying for better warp was probably the better option there. Having said that, the Cormorants out-range us quite a bit, so had I warped us off, we may never have gotten back to a situation where they were within our range (plus they would have landed more reinforcements earlier)

In hindsight, this is exactly my conclusion too! Turns out there's an occasion for snipe Talwar to brawl.

Another observation is that FC Breeze has top speed about 1700 m/s with MWD on, while a good portion of the fleet has about 1600 m/s. If everybody were to have near maximum navigation skills, then there's no problem to keep up with FC. But in an Uni fleet, that probably never gonna happen. Unless in a chase, which wasn't in this Horde encounter, that 100 m/s speed difference shouldn't make much a difference. So if FC/anchor turns down his top speed deliberately to match the rest of the fleet, it would help to keep the fleet in a tighter formation. One more thing for FC/anchor to track, but it should be worth trying.

Just my two cents.

[Breeze One]

It's a good shout Trillian - would also stop me being so obvious as the anchor. I was controlling my speed earlier in the fleet when we anchored, but in the Horde fight that kinda went out of the window at the time.

[Eddie Dante]

I think we should at least try it sometime with a non-fc anchor. It frees up the FC from the manual piloting & keeps the FC in the fight longer. Shouldnt have to be a big problem for the FC to just tell the anchor on what to do. Plus it means that theres another someone doing something more interesting then just F1'ing
Anchor will always be a somewhat obvious target though, so we'll need people to step up as secondary anchor.

One question btw: why did we warp to 2-300 km off the gate just before the big fight? I'd expected us to warp to 50-70km considering our range. What am i missing?

[Breeze One]

Simply because at that stage there wasn't a response fleet in space. My intention was to sit at 200-300km and watch the situation before committing. When nothing appeared for a while, I cautiously moved us towards the gate so we could at least kill some of the guys who were coming through the gate. The response fleet then landed just after we'd closed range to the gate. Probably should have just warped us down directly from the 300km ping, but was playing it (overly) cautious at the time

[Laser Skaron]

Mmmmm, that sounds like a fight with delicious comm chatter that should have been recorded and listened to (by all fleet members involved in the chain of command).

[Rebulah Conundrum]

Enjoyed the fleet and liked seeing Horde working out what to do about us and then deciding they had to upship on us - got a little messy at the end regarding targets/primaries/broadcasts etc, but at that stage i think we were on borrowed time in any case, and i don't envy being in the position of directing the fight through the reinforcements they landed.

[Zeerse Solaris]

I need to get back on more pvp fleets between work and repairing sec status, just haven't had time.

Seems like fun, Megoste filled the snowflake roll to save a unista having to.

Looking at the AAR, you could see if a line member could anchor to avoid the loss of two roles in one. I will always remember the Garreth/White Orchid combination against PIRAT, it gave Garreth a lot of space to watch the battle, although that was high sec with WO being out of corp so impossible to kill

[Decklin Quark Reiger]

I really enjoyed that

I think next time I bring combat probes for a Talwar roam, I'll consider bringing them on a Helios instead of a ceptor, to speed up the scanning.

How effective was the screenshot of the bubble camp at the ratting entrance, by the way? Would it have been quicker to just verbally describe the situation? To do both?

[Budda Sereda]

The fact that FC's speed is higher than the fleet's speed should not prevent FC to be an anchor. Another anchor can also have high speed.

This problem should be addressed at the beginning of the fleet by making a test anchoring: anchor would learn how much % of his max speed he should put anchoring fleet.

[Breeze One]

Very helpful Decklin. Not so much for the ship positioning, but I hadn't fully appreciated the extent of the "hell-bubble". It was that which made me ultimately turn us around as I realized our chances of getting through the bubbles (and then eventually back the other way) without massive losses was minimal. I think describing that verbally doesn't do it justice