In Other News… Razor Welps a Fleet

A few months ago, I wrote a summary about the CCP event that saw the empires combining forces to strike down a pair of pirate research facilities.  It ended up being a complete disaster for the Empire forces.  Razor and a number of other null-sec alliances combined to camp the entrance gate and pretty much obliterated the piecemeal collection of pilots who meandered into the system without much organization or coordination.  It was a classic example of organization overcoming disorder worthy of Sun Tzu.

On Friday night, CCP was running one of their carrier kill events, offering a number of PLEX to the pilots who inflicted the most damage.  Naturally, myself and a number of Repercussus pilots wanted to participate, so about ten of us made our own way to Tama.

Suffice to say, we all died within about, oh, 5 minutes of entering system.  We came in a range of ship types with no real structure or purpose, had no set engagement plan, and pretty much made a nice pile of wrecks with nothing to show for ourselves.

Turnabout is fair play.

The difference between this event and November?  Organization.  If the pirate assault in November proved the value of organization and a tight discipline, Friday’s event only reinforced it.  PL came with a firm doctrine, and ended up smearing pretty much everyone who showed up.  They even ended up saving the carriers, who managed to escape without a single loss.  Well done to PL.

What excuse can I give for our performance?  I could point to a turnover of our military directors and a limbo period while they wrap their hands around the workings of the alliance.  I could point to a general fatigue from about a year’s straight deployment.  But none of that is really true.  The simple fact is that we went into the fight without any real structure or plan.  Did we want to engage at range or brawl to the death?  We didn’t have scouts or cloaky alts to provide warp-ins.  We didn’t even enter system together.

For God’s sake… we were in ships ranging from frigates to smart-bombing battleships.

Sure, we got some kills after we reshipped and decided to harass people warping off from the main engagement (particularly the sun), but that doesn’t excuse the hilariously embarrassing failure of our first foray into the system.  And this effort was tacked on to our typical Friday night roam, but still…

At least we still had fun?