Warfare & Tactics

Also known as the pincer movement... This is a military tactic that has been employed with success since ancient times.... perhaps the most notable example of which was at the battle of Cannae in 216 BC where Hannibal entrapped and killed IIRC something on the order of 85000 Roman soldiers in one day. This is still considered, after all these years, one of the most stunning military victories of all time.

Obviously such a manoeuvre is difficult to execute in an eve online context because fleets are able to turn an manoeuvre in ways in which the Romans were not..... never the less, a modified version of this tactic is still possible in our little online universe.

In order to execute such a move, one needs to build multiple levels of "walls" in which the enemy is unable to advance but also unable to retreat.

The clearest example can be illustrated by something that I experienced myself several years ago. I was going ratting and jumped through a gate in a battleship.... on the other side, a small force was waiting for me. I held my cloak and let my ship recharge as much as I could and then burned back to the gate and jumped through...under heavy fire. at that point, a small force was waiting for me on that side too.... I waited, went back to the gate and jumped through... each time waiting as long as possible for my ship to recharge before uncloaking.

I went back and forth through that gate several times but each time more weakened than the time before and, of course, the end was inevitable. I blew up. That's a double invelopment on a small scale on eve online terms.... cut off the way ahead and cut off the way back.

This kind of thing can be done on a larger scale as well. In a more recent example, a fleet I was in was in-system and fighting a significant SC force. Unable to hurt them we decided to retreat but the exit gate was blocked on both sides by smaller fleets of conventional ships. On each side the fleet was about 2/3 of our size (of course people in the fleet were saying, "let's fight them" ) but aggressing would have opened the door for the "waiting" side to jump through and then they would have been larger and better armed than we were and we would be unable to retreat.....

This is double invelopment a la EVE online and one of the core skills expected of even the most inexperienced of FC's. In Hannibal's time it was genius. In our time it's a given that you can do this. For budding FC's I hope you can learn something from this.

T-

Few if any FC's in this game actually understand military tactics. Some intuitively do the right thing and some accidentally do the right thing despite their mistakes. I thought it might be interesting to post something about an actual tactic that could get people thinking and talking about it.....

T-

We call that having a backstop.

None of your armchair general crap here plx.

Of course not. That's why I was saying that the tactic needed to be adapted to this context. A classic dual envelopment the way Hannibal excuted it is, of course, impossible in EVE. but some of the elements...the manner of thinking...can still be applied.

T-

nah, its just that every now and again, someone new to eve tries to dazzle to forumites with book learning about weighty issues.

uh, welcome to eve anyway

That's about the extent of the application of this tactic to combat in Eve.. Gates are the ONLY natural choke points in the game

Of course, that doesn't mean your fleet is doomed. Have your scouts/fastest ships set up safe spots in the system in which you're trapped, spend 15 minutes warping between them (and making new ones) to clear aggression timers, log off in space. They'll have a minute to scan down and aggress your ships before they disappear. It's not an ideal solution, but it lets your fleet get away.

Here's where the problem lies:



Outside of camping gates, those "walls" would have to consist of massive amounts of warp disruptor bubbles. There is NOTHING else that would prevent the enemy from retreating the bulk of their forces. And if you're able to project enough force to lay down those bubbles, you've already won.

No, a pincer movement is, to whit, having a K346 exit to nullsec in one dead-end system A (which leads to System B), finding a R-class null-null wormhole in System A, which leads to a system a mere two jumps away (System C).

Cue getting into fight in System B. Retreat your force to system A, jump half through to System C, burn back to System A, and catch your enemy from behind.

I know, it blows the mind of nulltards when people they saw disappear out of a dead-end system jump through a gate behind them.

The only way I could see this working is if you had a roaming gang in your space, you'd make two fleets.

First off you'd have to find a two gate system, have a scout within that system, on the other side of the gate in that system, the roaming gangs exit, you'd have your first primary fleet. You'd need several point and tackling ships for this to work.

You'd have a secondary auxilary fleet a jump behind the roaming fleet, hopefully herding them towards the 2 gate system, and force them to jump through. This is where it'd get tricky.

You'd have your primary fleet waiting through the exit jump, you'd wait for the enemy fleet to warp to gate and jump your second fleet through and align.

when they jumped through the exit gate, your primary fleet would tackle the living heck out of them, when they started tackling and engaging you warp your auxilary fleet to the gate, and catch those that jump through.

This tactic requires three things that are very situational in eve. Superior numbers, needing close to double the enemy fleets numbers to effectively catch them. A two gate bottleneck system. And finally coordination of two separate fleets.

With three random variables, added into the fact you don't know if the enemy fleet will engage you haphazardly, it would be near impossible to pull of a effective pincer attack.

True.

Many quote "Art of War" beacause they thing that makes the cool FCs.

This is what I thought of (in layman's terms) when I read "pincer movement".

So far, this is (IMHO) the best explanation of a pincer movement applied to EVE present in this thread. Kudos.