Tactics and Tacticians

Entry: eight hundred ten
 
Lately, there's been a pretty set pattern of tactics used on both sides in the Delve conflict. To be fair, it's less of a conflict and more of the South being steamrolled, but we'll go more in depth in that with the tactics and attitudes of leaders.
 
As seen in my last deployment in Delve, an enemy alliance anchored bubbles on our station undock and picked us off from range with Tempests. Since the advent of the Tornado, Naga, Oracle, and Naga, this has been taken to a whole new level. The new battlecruisers are faster and cheaper, making them much harder to kill. Combined with that has been the sheer number of bubbles being anchored on the 319- station undock. It started off with just one tech two large, then several tech two larges, and as of yesterday I saw what must have been fifteen to twenty anchored bubbles of varying sizes on and around the station.
 
As much as I hate it, you can't argue against a winning strategy. Southern forces have been dying in droves, in part to these bubbles, but more in large part due to being camped into the station the majority of the time and being unable to defend Delve because of it. Unable to leave the station, Querious began falling as of yesterday.
 
When the South does manage to put up a fight under the odd fleet run by Maka, the fight from two versus to one to four versus one. Again, another winning strategy, just by sheer attrition. Our skills and expensive fits do allow us to do some serious damage, and the killboards even show these fights swinging in our favor, but we simply cannot win a fight like that.
 
Suffice to say that the South is at a such a disadvantage that the North has been carelessly camping the 319- with supers and titans from time to time, even managing to Doomsday the occasional Southern idiot in a capital on the undock.
 
In an attempt to strike any sort of blow back at the North, there have been the occasional roams out of 319-, and lots of bombers camping in 319-, waiting for the right opportunities to strike. They have, however, been few and far between. Many pilots are losing bombers due to impatience.
 
As for necessary funds to fight the north, the costs are exorbitant. The two main doctrines both heavily utilize tech three cruisers, and even though it is out of necessity because of the way the war is being fought, many pilots cannot replace these ships when they lose them. To further this, costs to buy even basic Hurricanes and Drakes have skyrocketed. One hundred million for a tech two fit whelpcane is a bit much. Fifty-five for a bombing-specific bomber is also a bit much, though much more manageable. Three hundred for a Scimitar is absurd. this presents the third front to the war: finances. As long as this continues, the South is destined to lose any coalition level conflict. You can't bilk your allies and expect them to still be able to fight.
 
So far, all I've done is lay out the facts about how the South is losing. Numbers, costs, and morale. But what's the solution?
 
There is only one possible solution, and while it will still be hard at best, it stands a much higher chance of success than our defensive plan. The concept is that of a base race.
 
There is literally nothing we can do to stop the North from rolling over anything they want in the South. They have too many pilots, plain and simple. However, if they are in the South, how many can they muster in the North? It'd seem pretty clear that they couldn't muster nearly as many members. Pilots also tend to put all their ships into the trade hub stations for each alliance. It then seems simple that the South should move north, disrupt all of the jump-bridge routes, then take the main stations where pilots pile their ships and goods.
 
Chances are high a similar action would be executed against us. Both sides would take heavy losses in numbers, mostly from what gets termed the carebear contingent. The more combat oriented would be just fine living out of towers, wormholes, and NPC null-sec. I think ultimately, either the conflict would halt at a certain critical point before total annihilation, or both sides would lose all of their space.
 
The chances are extremely small in my mind that this would happen though, to be completely honest. The tacticians aren't willing to put everything on the table as they should be, and so the South is stuck with a losing strategy. We're looking more like IRC everyday: unable to hold our space, but no one cares enough to evict us.
 
It'll only be a short time longer before Delve, Period Basis, and Querious are lost. Then we'll see what the new Southern strategy becomes. Hopefully not more of the same.
 
I think this sums it up the best.
 
Computer: terminate recording.