Flight of the Rumble Bees (AAR)

Task:  
Fleet: Conduct anti-piracy roam
Personal: Use tackle frigate to better understand tackle role

Conditions: 

Fleet: Given low security space in small fleet setting with frigate class combat ships
Personal: Utilize an AC equipped Rifter with AB and Scram to conduct short range tackle

Standards: 

Fleet: Engage only pirate or GCC targets, follow FC commands, have fun
Personal: Tackle at least one enemy ship, preferably being the tackle that holds the ship in place for great justice

Personal notes:  Several kills were made during this roam, and a few losses as well.  The losses were expected considering the choice of light ships.  Overall was fun trying out a different fleet mix and I'm looking forward to the next roam.  I'll detail the overall fleet activity first and then my personal performance before getting into the sustains and improves.

  I flew a Rifter for the first time ever because I failed to plan my JC's last night to coincide with the roam today.  My ECM character was in his PVE clone and wouldn't be able to jump until over an hour after the roam started.  In addition I'm out of EAS so I needed to spend 30mil or so to get a good ship to fly tonite.  I might have gone with a griffin but neither of the alts with accessible JC's is trained in EW warfare.

  The Rifter was shield tanked with 200mm AC II's, an AB, scram, DC II and MSE II for tank, a TE to boost falloff, nano II, and resists coming from the rigs.  I know most PVP Rifters are armor tanked but every fit I came up with using armor had a speed less than 1k mps which I felt was too low when using a close range ship.  I put on the scram to offset the use of an AB and I figured our primary targets would be cruiser or BC class.  If I could get in range of the scram I wanted the AB to keep my transversal up.  I knew I'd have trouble tackling frigate sized targets but we had inties for the speedsters.

Fleet Summary:

  Fleet departed within the 10min window of start time and proceeded with minimal scout deployment.  A freight ship was bumped on gate and the haulers escort engaged. One squad of frigates had been forward deployed and moved to engage.  Follow on forces were directed to the fight, however fight ended prior to main fleet landing on grid.  Subsequent communication with pilot of downed ship confirmed we were not going to engage the freight ship so the loss could have been avoided.  Apparently the high value of the cargo made the pilot impatient in his defense efforts.

  Roam continued and a small fleet of BC class hips with logistics support was discovered and after some celestial hopping our fleet settled on a gate.  Enemy fleet warped in as a group and engaged at point blank range.  A basilisk was called as primary however we were unable to do significant damage.  Several ships were lost to Hurricane fire and FC directed fleet to burn away, clear any points and warp off.  Trying out the enemy fleet made sense to find out what the frigate fleet was capable of and the call to warp off was made in a timely manner.  The loss of ships provided good experience and intel for future frigate roams.

  Next the fleet encountered a loan Curse that jumped out of a forward deployed squad and into the main fleet body.  Point was called rather quickly the Recon ship was only armed with drones and nuets.  This was followed by a solo Hurricane which jumped back and forth between gates but our fleet split and achieved tackle.

  A Tengu was almost a victim when it jumped into system on the gate the fleet was orbiting.  No tackle was achieved and the Tengu was able to warp around system and exit, possibly through a WH as the gates were under surveillance.  More on this in the personal section.

  Last target was a Hurricane, Cyclone, Rupture group.  Hurricane was engaged and tackled but before main fleet could land two or three of our ships were dropped by the two BCs.  Once fleet landed the Cyclone pulled range and warped off.  The rupture landed and warped off almost immediately.  Hurricane died with no more blue force casualties.

Personal summary: 

  I missed the first fight as I was not part of the advance squad.  During the fight with the enemy fleet I did ok.  The opposition landed in scram range and I put tackle on the primary target.  I made one mistake by having Barrage loaded instead of Hail.  When I picked up the ship tonite I grabbed the only ammo in station and later rounded out the options, but I never swapped what was in the guns.  I was content to see that when the call was made to burn away I remembered to manually alter my trajectory to add a bit of transversal.  I made three course changes to form a slightly curving path, however I should try to locate the exit point and curve so that I end up facing the warp and not have to shed speed to turn for warp alignment.

  The fight with the Curse I was able to get scram on after point was called, but I'm not sure how much value the additional tackle made.  One thing I could have done better was close with the enemy quicker.  I got lock and then tried to activate modules as the enemy was heading away. At first the Curse was closing range but it changed direction at some point and I didn't notice.  I spent too much time making up for the mistake as I was at approximately 12k when the Curse dropped gate cloak.

  Nothing significant to report from the Cane fight.  I got in tight, landed scram, and did some damage.  The encounter that deserves the most discussion was the almost engagement with the Tengu.  When the gate activated I immediately pushed out to 10k from the gate to orbit.  When the targets gate cloaked dropped I was at 10km and immediately began to close the distance then I ctrl + clicked to lock the target.  As soon as the icon appeared on my HUD I hit my scram but the module didn't activate and the Tengu warped off a second or less later.  I'm not sure if I was still slightly out of the 8.6km range of my scram or not.  One thing this encounter shows is that I should train thermodynamics on all of my guys soon and get used to overheating modules.  Another 1k of range and I probably would have had us a Tengu kill.  Additionally I was lazy and hadn't yet turned logs on for this alt on the main computer.  Log is now active and I'll make sure all my guys have it turned on regardless of which PC I'm flying from.

  Finally in the last fight when I came through the gate I immediately went after the Cyclone who was approximately 18km away even though the FC had called the Cane as primary.  The target started to pull range though and I didn't want to pursue him in a straight line so I turned back to engage the Cane.  This was the type of engagement my Hawk is setup for and I think next time I fly a tackle ship I'll setup with an MWD and disruptor for longer points.  The Rifter was fun and a great ship for my first initiation of tackling in a fleet, but I've always been more comfortable with long range engagements in all of the games I've played so I'll try that role next time.

Sustains and Improves:

S- trying different fleet compositions
S- engaging fleets of larger size for experience and the possibility of things working out
S- trying out new roles for myself and learning what works and doesn't from a non-logi viewpoint

I- plan JC timers to allow use of primary characters for fleets requested
I- adjust skill plan to allow for overheat options sooner rather than later
I- pre-stage ships and ammunition to avoid last minute running around

Final thoughts:
  The main thing I was hoping to do tonite was provide some form of context to help me understand tackling.  I've built several Hawks, Merlin, and a few Inties for tackling work but I've never actually used them in that role.  I was making both long and short range builds because I wasn't sure what would work best for me.  Tonite was my test of short range builds and gives me a few ideas for the next round of fit adjustments.  I had a lot of fun simply from learning something new, but I'll also be honest in that actually putting rounds on a kill was a blast.  I still like the support role, but frigs are fun too.