Around 1800 eve time on the 18th January 2015 a fight was sparked between members of the Russian Stainwagon and the N3 Coalition alliances.
The fight started with Nulli Secunda and Stainwagon having a throw down as the Russian alliances try to gain space in the Esoteria region of Null Sec space. Nulli Secunda were responding to the fact that the Russian alliances had reinforced two of their R64 towers in A-CJGE. To defend these towers, Nulli Secunda formed up a fleet of Rattlesnakes with Scimitar and tackle support and Chimera carriers on standby. Other N3 alliances also formed in support of the Nulli Secunda fleet, the Darkness/Kadeshi formed up in their Ishtar fleet with assorted support wings of tackle and logistics.
The Russians decided to form up in Machariels, Apocalypse Navy Issues and Tempest Fleet Issue battleships with a small Oneiros support wing. They also brought a small Tengu gang with Scimitar support, mostly consisting of Dream Fleet members. Both groups had brought battleships doctrines in the main, which is going against the current meta of Null Sec PVP and makes them very vulnerable to 3rd party gangs in bombers. However, other parts of their coalitions had brought more conventional setups with Tengus and Ishtar’s etc.
The numbers between the two opposing fleets stood pretty even with both coalitions bringing in around four hundred and twenty pilots each at the start of the fight however more pilots were on stand-by depending on each others escalations.
The two fleets clashed on the contested towers, trading kill for kill and the N3 alliances calling in their support Chimeras along with a group of their super capital fleet to try and swing the fight once and for all into their favour which was a bold move considering they were outnumbered by the Russian fleets. Around this time, 3rd party gangs started coming in. The CFC brought in their normal assault frigate fleet made up of mostly Harpies with a large Sabre interdictor wing to bubble the expected capitals. The CFC also brought in a one hundred man Ishtar gang to help apply DPS. Pandemic Legion also turned up and brought their Slippery Pete Tengu gang while the WAFFLES brought their now expected bomber wing to the fight.
With the Nulli Secunda capitals now bubbled by the CFC fleet Sabre wing things a. In the meantime, the Chimeras that the Nulli fleet had brought in to support their Rattlesnakes started going down one at a time. The Stainwagon fleet decided to get right on top of their opponents and started to slug it out with the Rattlesnakes while the CFC applied their DPS from range, dodging the Pandemic Legion fleet which continued to try and get warp ins on them.
At this point, the backup arrived in the form of a one hundred and eighty man Northern Coalition. Tengu fleet that had been on standby due to rumours of the CFC coming in as a 3rd party. The newly arrived NC. fleet started targeting the Stainwagon Faction Battleships,which go down to the combined fire of both the Nulli Rattlesnakes at close range and the NC. Tengu’s at long range. However, the Russian FC repositions his fleet at range and orders the fleet to reload to tremor which starts smashing into the NC. Tengu’s, killing a handful before they warp off field.
With the Russian alliances battleships now at range and Pandemic Legion Tengu’s harassing the CFC Ishtar’s, the Nulli Rattlesnakes and assorted tackle/kitchen sink switch to the CFC Interdictors which are keeping their super capitals bubbled and start clearing them off one at a time, until only seven of the original fifty-eight Sabres remain. The remaining CFC fleet cut their loses and order the withdrawal, this releases the Nulli Supers and they manage to get out to safety without any casualties.
At this time the WAFFLES bomber wing uncloaks close to the Russian battleship fleet and launch a bombing run which forces the Faction Battleships off the field and, although the Russian fleet takes little damage from the bombs due to a great warp out by their FC, they retreat to their POS in system and call it a night. With the CFC withdrawing from the fight and Stainwagon now safely within their remaining POS, the N3 coalition made sure their supers were safe and sorted out their own POS towers before leaving the field. Pandemic Legion and NC. shared a wave in local and Pandemic Legion, along with their WAFFLES, left system to head home.
While N3 definitely lost this fight on ISK, they did manage to save two allied towers during the fight and also managed to destroy one of the Stainwagon towers. The N3 coalition is calling this an objective driven victory, even though they had to lose almost 104 billion ISK, not to mention they put their super cap fleet in harms way and were lucky they were able to get away with it relatively undamaged. If the CFC super capital fleet had been in the area or the Russians had been able to field their own super capital fleet, then the outcome would have been even worse for N3.
The CFC lost just under 16 billion ISK, with most of the coming from the fact they sacrificed sixty-two Sabres to keep the supers bubbled as well as losing twenty-two Harpies and around twenty Ishtar’s during the fight. The Russians lost around eighty of their faction battleships throughout the fight and that hurt them with a loss of over 50 billion ISK. Pandemic Legion, Waffles and other randoms who also showed up to the fight lost just over a billion ISK combined.
