Lessons from Orion Uni-Imp war

The Orion imp/uni war has just finished, and im just writing down things that might be worth mentioning in preparation for any hostilities against the union. If anyone else has anything to add...please do.

1. Offense is always better than defense

2. Security and operational confidentiality are critical

3. Cheap missiles needed by the borders

4. Teamwork

5. Involve the lower ranked ships

6. "neutrals" in a war zone are legitimate targets

7. "bots please" - traders full of bots are critical for MO busts

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1. In the first artemis fed/imp war we spent the first few weeks ambushing in Nari while the federation ran rampant everywhere else. If all the union scorps are ambushing in Rigel, then Cor Caroli must be undefended. Thats where our lower ranked fighters should go.

2. Most of us will have friends in the union that we know in orion. THese bonds may be stronger than artemis loyalties. If operational secrets are leaked to the enemey, it can lead to lemming style attacks

3. The northern baham nook in orion had enough missile stocks at affordable prices to last the war. Of course we have to make sure we hold the nook...

4. Teamwork. Mooncrushers are lethal, but are easy to kill. They cannot fly around without pasc/ssc support.

5. We need to include everyone in hte war. we need scouts to find retreat points, and escorts to secure supply lines an protect traders...and even a rustclaw can suppy drugs/robots in an op. Everyone must feel wanted and useful in this war

6. "Neutrals" always a heated topic. Neutrality should be respected in most circumstances and QL's (neutral zones and buildings), however, the Pardus area is not a place for neutrality, and any non-imperial in a war zone is a legitimate target.

7. MO busts cannot be made without traders full of robots. A few of our operations were stalled as we waited for shipments of robots to arrive. This is where every attack is vulnerable to counter attack - especially when the scorpions can ambush in open space. We need ample supplys not just of robots, but traders to provide them, and escorts for these traders

Might have been better in a different spot perhaps?...

Either way, being a Union pilot in Orion, from what I could tell, moral blows were the worst, far worse then starbase captures, or nook busts. Even if Union can retreat almost anywhere and cloak fine, everyone prefers to have a safe RP. Spots like the Kitalpha choke are vital for Union defence, and if they cant retreat into the nook, less and less will ambush offline, making it easier to bust.

I was an innocent bystander for that war.

But my main observations are,

Beware the faction NOT fighting.
When in a faction war you must keep a strategic reserve of cash/fighters and bombers. It is no use using them all on one faction then have the other faction attack you. The Union went too hard at the Feds and had a great victory, then they where slaughtered a few months later.

Morale,
Even if morale plummets why let everyone know by complaining in the forums, I saw that in at least the last 2 Orion wars. It just spreads throughout your faction and gives the other faction a huge boost.

from past wars.

Missiles
A lot of SB owners think 100 missiles is a massive number, they are traders and haven't the experience in combat. In "hot" sectors or borders they will be used in less than a day. eg In a Pasc I had approx 14 combats in less than 2 hours (it was an abnormal situation) in theory I would have gone through 28 missiles (some where dogfighting 2 pilots, no time to reload), Imagine what a big ship or a large fleet could chew through in a short time.

The biggest problems I had during the war were:

• Finding volunteers - too many people were negative.
  
• Getting volunteers to turn up when they said they would - ops fell apart.
  
• Getting ambush breakers to break ambushes!!!!! We ended up having mission runners (including me) break ambushes for the PASC's.
  
• Getting people to wait for the order to move before moving.
  

Intel was easy to come by.
When I asked some people if they would join an op, they were very happy and said they'd been waiting for someone to put one together. Why wait for an invitation?

A lack of experience prevented us from winning a lot of easy war points.

playboy vendetta wrote:

2. Most of us will have friends in the union that we know in orion. THese bonds may be stronger than artemis loyalties. If operational secrets are leaked to the enemey, it can lead to lemming style attacks

I don't know... this doesn't sit well with me...
It just seems rather dishonourable to allow another universe to interfere with this one...

I think PV is saying "dont tell your friends about operations, no matter how excited your are about them"

Ah, true true.
I interpreted it as the other way around, which makes less sense now that I think about it