After Action Reports

I love posting after action reports, and I love reading other's.

I was hoping that, after a fleet or a small gang roam, players and participaters could maybe write up a quick AAR and let everyone who wasn't there, know how it went. It also means that the new guys and the applicants could look in and see how much action and kills we get?

I'll start by posting one of mine (as soon as i remember the log in, to QUAFE ULTRA forums =/)

Fleet - 11/Aug/2009

Commander - Elijah Ghost

Intention - Roam and gate-camp smash

The fleet formed as a spurr of the moment thing. M-O-C were discussing a pos set-down around safe space for out own security and as part of the Alliance rules, haveing discussed for a lengthy period of time about what we're doing in SYLPH alliance and what our intentions are with LarkinAlpha, we had come to the final conclusion, we're PVPers and we need to get some killmails.

Started recruiting in Alliance, I hadn't intended to take the fleet out and get us all killed, i wanted a quick roam, strategically get a few easy kills, then back home to the Sansha spawns.

Most people brought frigats / T1 cruisers (this may have been our downfall), but we had an Aboslution (me) and two HACs (Deimos and Zealot)

We heard reports of a small gatecamp, comprised of a meagre Onyx, Phobos, Harbinger and a few Interceptors. Easy pickings

As we made our route through, the local territory was all clear, we past a few blue-friendly corps and fleets that seemed to be out doing the same thing, though they were much better equipped than we were.

Upon reaching the final destination, our forward scout gave us the go ahead that it was all clear. I looked for someone with a buffer, but wasn't willing to wait 5 - 10 minutes for that pilot to show up, so I took point. I jumped in, ready to get killed, but it also meant that if I got killed, then these guys would get killed too. I jumped. I saw one red frig warp in on the gate and jump through. I called for bubble up on the next side and they made light work of him, unfortunatley, the gate-campers knew we were now coming...

The hit a POS, and I left the fleet on the other gate. I was fortunatley able to call them to jump, although I was un aware that there was a Neutral fleet coming our direction. AS they jumped and warped to me, I saw local spike. I paniced (another mistake) I told everyone to reallign for the inbound gate, as soon as those neutrals hit us, I warped the fleet. (SYLPH is NRDS, not red don't shoot, so i wasn't 100% sure wether these guys were gunning for us, or just passing through) As we landed on the gate, I called the fleet to hold. The neutral's landed on us mere seconds later.

Again, I panicked, I ordered the fleet to jump and about turn, best speed for a planet and then make a safe spot, keep moving around. Little did I know there was a bubble up on the next side.

I hit the Jump button.

My client seemed to have lagged, as I watched the rest of my fleet jump in, I hadn't. I was clear on this side, to warp away and protect my ship, but thats not the honourable PVP way.

I hit Jump again.

I was in the heat of battle, a lonely rook sat 5 km from me, but a DPS harbinger sat 11km. I ordered the guys to attack that harbinger, it wasn't taking much damage. I turned about and ordered a full strike on the rook, points and DPS brought it down hard. We re-directed our fire onto the harbinger. I started to take most of the damage from the targets, the Absolution tanked it better than I could have hoped for. it took a solid minute - minute and thirty seconds before I was starting to stress out. Remote reppers were protecting the harbinger, there wasn't anything we could do from there. I called fleet to burn back toward the gate and disengage. I knew I was done for, but these guys might still have a chance.

Seconds later i was into hull, and once my hull was breached, I was down, we only managed one kill that maybe cost them 150 - 200 mill, but suffered dozens of losses that cost us upward of 500million.

Few things I learned from the fight:

Never leave the fleet sitting at a gate.
Always anticipate an attack, neutral or not, they're looking for kills just as much as we are.
Get everyone onto the same Comms, having people mixed through the eve-voice and through Ventrilo, it became confusing
Try and get the FC into a least likely to be Primary ship xD


Lastly, it was a good fleet all told. The guys did what I said, when I said it. There wasn't much bother with having to worry about people doing the wrong thing, as they all seemed fairly experienced in their own ways.

As stated before I made one too many mistakes (or four by my count) which I don't intend to make again in a fleet, and hopefully and future Fleet Commanders will avoid the same.

Thanks for Reading,

/EG - PVP Director - Fleet Commander

PS - Sorry to all who lost ships fighting the wrong cause. I wish you all a swift recovery.

it was a nice fleet m8, and we've learnt from what happened. We will adapt and improve