So as some of you may or may not have heard Red versus Blue (RvB) declared war against E-Uni with the intention of destroying the long standing POS. In short, they brought such an overwhelming force the Uni was unable to prevail and with a few days to reflect and having listened to the thoughts of many fellow corp members I think there are a number of things we can learn.
The first and perhaps most telling factor which RvB got right and E-Uni didn't was that of preparation, a number of time frames have been banded around about how long RvB took to plan, organise and implement it, these figures range from several weeks to months however whatever the exact timescale it was clear that RvB had decided upon a course of action to use an armour doctrine fleet and to field an overwhelming number of faction battleships.
Conversely much has been said about E-Uni's lack of communication to its members with the first communique regarding the war only coming two days before the actual war declaration. There was also no direction to the type of ships needed beyond bring lots of ships, whatever you can afford, this can be explained by the Uni's overall lack of fleet doctrine. In defence of the E-Uni as a noob friendly corp where many players have very low skill points and lack of experience makes implementing an effective doctrine that can be flown very difficult and is still actively being discussed by E-Uni at all levels.
The next major issue was that of command, as a newer player I am loathe to comment too much on this area however I did find there were several very experienced Fleet Commanders who had returned to Aldrat to lead the defence however having never flown with them I had no idea what to expect from them in the way of tactics, their input to different parts of the fleet or even personal quirks which can sometimes be helpful. This was compounded by many FC's who were known to newer members being relegated to non command positions and this unfamiliarity may have also caused issues for those following an unknown voice.
Whilst I was not privy to the RvB comms it is clear that they may have also had multiple commanders resulting in semi-effective split fire or that many RvB pilots simply chose to shoot things that were not primary, all in all I don't think RvB got it perfect however the force they fielded allowed for such things to happen and clearly still be very effective.
My final point is that of utilising ones assets to their fullest, from various comments I have seen RvB did not believe they were going to break the Uni's defence and take the POS down so quickly, in fact they are said to have had a second fleet still forming at the time the Battle of the POS was underway, this could either be seen as late comers to the battle, a second wave to hit the POS once the first battle was over or as I suspect a tactical reserve to be commited once the battle was in full swing. Alas I will never know for sure and I doubt anyone senior within RvB will confirm it one way or another.
On the other side was a somewhat shambolic fleet assembly for the Uni, the process taking over two hours with many battleships and battlecruisers not making it into the first fleet, for this there can be no explanation beyond poor organisation. Two addition Uni fleets were also formed, the first of these was to be a fast moving strike force, think cavalry charge (although I suspect a Charge of the Light Brigade would have resulted) where a force of 80+ ships would land on grid to harry the enemy, my assumption was this would be punted onto enemy EWAR or Logistics to help force them off the field or divert their DPS from our main battle line. The other fleet that had formed was a sniper force, one which could have worked well with the fast moving 'cavalry' fleet but again they were largely unused and failed to have the impact many of the snipers themselves had hoped for.
Sadly by the time the 'cavalry' fleet had formed the POS had already been destroyed and the main fleet was called to scatter, suffice to say morale was low at this point and it was clear many pilots simply logged to gather their thoughts or blow off some steam, I don't blame them for doing so by the way.
So there it is, a well prepared and organised attacker caught a somewhat unprepared defender flat footed and prevailed, but as was the case with real life battles and wars where this occurred such as Pearl Harbour or in the Falklands the defender learned from their mistakes, adapted their forces to meet the challenges and went on to prevail, will E-Uni do so, I guess only time will tell.
