[AAR] LSC Talwar Terror (Nov 11 01:00)

[Yuri Levnik]

Howdy all,
I took out my second Talwar fleet tonight. We had a good turnout and got a pair of really nice kills at the start. We roamed for a bit and picked up a couple of small kills, though I got myself blown up by gate guns on the way. We finished the evening with a whelp to a fleet of Stabbers and Scythes that turned out to be a lot faster than I expected...
Missile-ers

Spoiler

Aeryn Tzun - DD
Alto DeRaqwar - DD
BatFC - DD
Blind Scion - DD
Calder Ormand - 1 Scout
Creosart - DD
Gemma Solett - DD
Gerrath Sabrinn - DD
Glen Burney - Instalocker
Imad Gratia - 2 Scout
Jowemado Egivand - DD
Kaefer117 - Tackle
Kirsid Tannaway - DD
Mike North - DD
Razer Thukkerkin - DD
Simeon Snowlocke - DD
Toma Heleneto - DD
Tsuwen Sun - DD
Will Musana - 2IC
Wokum - DD
Yuri Levnik - FC
Z0X Ambrye - Tackle

Our first kill came on a Firetail that Calder spotted jumping into the fleet. Thanks to her timely call Keifer was able to land tackle and we blapped the Firetail quickly, though not with alpha (I was able to hit with at least two salvos). Turned out to be a blingy fit - nice kill to start the evening!
(01:27:12Z) Vey
Republic Fleet Firetail +131.08m

A few jumps later we had a Gila follow us into VLI. Glen had joined us in an instalocker so I had him jump ahead into Oicx. When the Gila jumped we all followed and kill him on the gate. For the second time in a row, we didn't lose anyone to gate guns though we had a pilot down to ~10% structure. Really great work by everyone on these first two kills - we got some high-value targets on gates without losses. Of course, we could have gotten the same kills in Arty Thrashers or BLAP Caracals since we didn't alpha either target. Still, great kills.
(01:55:44Z) Oicx
Gila +255.93m

Further on down the pipe we engaged a couple of small ships and I got distracted calling orders. I was literally entering warp when the gate guns got me. Womp womp, FC fail. Will took over for me while I reshipped in Ichoriya.
(02:11:16Z) Martoh
Talwar -11.18m

Glen killed a Cyno Bantam while he was poking around.
(02:17:36Z) Innia
Bantam +1.87m

Kirsid and Scion caught a n00b in an Imicus who was AFK on a gate in lowsec, probably on autopilot. Never use autopilot!
(02:31:43Z) Aivonen
Imicus +0.57m

We got down to Akidagi after dodging a Machariel fleet. Calder called a local spike and I had a crazy plan to get into a Medium and camp out there. Unfortunately, it turned out the local spike was Stabbers and Scythes and I wasn't sure of fittings or fleet size. I ordered a rapid move to a small but we lost a Talwar and Condor who got caught on the acceleration gate. Sorry y'all!
(02:40:00Z) Akidagi part 1
Talwar -13.33m
Condor -0.71m
Capsule -0.01m

Fortunately, the deaths of our unfortunate pilots were not in vain as they revealed the guns on the opposing fleet. They had five scythes and most of the rest of the fleet was in autocannon Stabbers with a few blaster Thoraxes. I thought to myself "Ha, they are in short range cruisers and we are in long range destroyers! We can kite them around, blap their tackle and test their logi from a nice safe range! Maybe we'll even get a swipe at that Kitsune!". I was very wrong. We managed to kill a Stabber, and if you look at the fit you'll see it goes about 2.5km/s at all 5 skills. Our Talwars only go about 1.7km/s at max skills and most of us were going quite a bit slower. When we landed in a large plex at 70km from the Stabber fleet and I had us burn away with prop mods on, expecting to stay out of opfor range. Instead they easily caught us with overheaded MWDs and blasted many of us to bits. We did kill a Stabber and almost had another because their logi wing actually burned away from us and then warped onto their wing. As a result, they were without reps for their burn in.
(02:40:00Z) Akidagi part 2
Talwar -10.58m
Talwar -10.75m
Stabber +28.7m
Talwar -9.75m
Talwar -7.53m
Talwar -15.18m
Atron -3.35m
Talwar -12.88m
Talwar -7.76m
Talwar -10.92m
Corax -13.15m
Talwar -15.8m
Capsule -0.01m

We lost most of the fleet in the last engagement with a single kill as consolation. We were still quite ISK positive for the evening though, so not bad for my second (and probably final) Talwar fleet. After the fleet fight we only had a few pilots still in ships so we headed home at a rapid pace by Uni standards.

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 418,139,379.04
ISK Lost: 142,887,490.12
ISK Delta: 275,251,888.92
Efficiency: 74.531%

What went well:

• -We flew very well. Folks kept up and landed where we needed to be. The only obvious exception was when I lost a couple of pilots on the acceleration gate into the small plex. Sorry y'all - I shouldn't have jumped us blind into system, and the other fleet was on top of their game.
  Nothing y'all could have done except die.
  -The only n00b who got killed by gate guns was the FC. Everyone else got off gates in time to avoid losses.
  -Calder did an excellent job scouting, as always. Great intel and always right where I needed her to be.
  -Great backup tackle from Imad and instalocker Glen.
  -We were comfortably ISK positive due to a couple of great kills.
  -We got into a good fight at the end of the fleet. SRP means most of those who lost a ship actually made money on the night (;
  -I had fun!

What could have gone better:

• -I made a costly miscalculation for our fleet vs fleet fight. In order to succeed we would have needed to use our warp drives to stay ahead of the Stabbers as we had zero chance of staying ahead with MWDs. If we had Calder and Imad both land at 100km and burn away like crazy we could have warped to them to maintain range. The Stabbers could catch us but would probably have outdistanced their logi so we could kill the leaders and then warp ahead again. It might have worked. We could have also run away after killing the first Stabber... (edit - this would *not* have worked as we were in a large plex and you cannot warp to fleetmates on grid in plexes. So pretty much a no win situation unless we blapped and ran)
  -My target calling in the fleet vs fleet fight was better than last time but still a little slow. I need more practice.
  -The Talwars were OK but not great. We didn't alpha anything all night - all of our kills required more than one salvo of missiles (though the Firetail was close to pure alpha). Cormorants have better range and instant application, Caracals have better DPS, speed and tank, arty Thrashers have better almost everything except range. I don't think I'll FC Talwars again.
  -I got distracted and blown up by gate guns womp womp.

Overall, a good night out. Thanks for flying y'all!
Yuri

[Blind Scion]

HOOAH!

Great time. Couldn't have asked for a better first fleet experience for myself.

10/10, would gladly fly under FC again.

o7

[Budda Sereda]

-The only n00b who got killed by gate guns was the FC. Everyone else got off gates in time to avoid losses.

+1 :):)

we would have needed to use our warp drives to stay ahead

Low sec mechanics don't allow warping inside of plex: people often bait you into the plex and sit at 50-70-100km from the plex so you can't warp, but instead must to crawl. I feel what is a good option in these circumstances is to land at 100, alpha 1-2-3 ships and warp away as soon as they come too close.

Interesting, why you did not alpha those Stabbers...? You mentioned they had logies, but they warped away. Did they warp out when you primaried them?

As one of options to stay in range you could call fleet to overheat their prop mods... but be very careful with this: only permit overheating for to cycles and only if you don't have heat damage yet.

-My target calling in the fleet vs fleet fight was better than last time but still a little slow. I need more practice.

Yeah, keep coming to Black Raise: nice place to practice.

Otherwise, glad you started flying out of Stacmon. Even if your folks leave in Solitude, nothing prevents to jump clone into Stacmon or Uphallant (Risky Business structure has free clone bay for unistas).

[Budda Sereda]

Interesting, why you did not alpha those Stabbers...?

In fact, you had 13 DD, that's in best case 13k alpha, with lower skills that's around 10k. So to kill a stabber you need... 3 salvos, which is almost 20 seconds... Yeah, that's not 50 Talwars.

General comment from my side, so far, for more than 1.5 years, I saw numerous amount of attempts to execute alpha doctrine, neither of them worked. Neither Tempest/Typhoon BS in war with RedVsBlue, neither Hurricanes, neither my Arty Thrashers... We probably should accept this in E-Uni and be very caution about expecting alpha-doctrine work unless we REALLY have a big number.