Last night our fleet was following a band of 'enemies' down in null sec. As we were in the wrong ships to engage them our FC decided a good idea was to spread our bombers out and gather intel on the enemies movements and operations. You may think the enemy was expecting this from us, knowing about the prevalence of spies and the sometimes competent opposing FCs, and you would be right. So they put up a gate camp with Broadsword bubble and Rapier tackler included and managed to easily kill our first scouting bomber as he jumped through the gate. Now as many of you know already, a bomber is a paper lion. Very capable of hitting hard, have devilishly quick manoeuvrability and is fitted with the best possible cloak. The combination of these three attributes make it possible for a bomber to safely get out of most of these competent gate camps even if a sizable fleet is enforcing said blockade.
A short period later, now having no eyes on the enemy our FC decided he and a "nominee" will jump though into the blockade, at the same time, thereby increase the probability that one of them would survive. It's a sound strategy, however what puzzled me was that the FC was not going to re-position that "nominee" in fleet so that he would receive fleet bonuses. Now anyone with Fleet Skills and combat experience should know that escaping a gate camp is primarily a combination of 'Alignment time' (to the closest edge of the bubble with a clear path), 'Speed' (reaching the bubble edge) and a 'Cloak' (not being visible).
The base fleet skill provides an alignment modifier that can reduce your alignment and speed-up time significantly. Having combat experience should also tell you that at some point you will go through a bubble and that a MWD will then be required to maximize your speed to the edge of the bubble.
Very often fleet members are told to fit, or for other reasons Kill-Mail Whxxe fit, their bombers for DPS only. This means an afterburner, three siege launchers, bomb launcher, target painter, cloak, and one or more ballistic controls and they might also fit some damage modifier rigs. This would produce a true hull striping damage machine. Yet so often I see these fits disappear in dust having been shot only once.
The FC's skills can help to increase both the shield and structure, however more importantly it is my personally believe that this fit is impractical. Yes, it does spew a lot of damage but if it dies that easy, you can not reasonably expect your fleet to be the same size when you arrive at your eventual destination. This to me seems wasteful and irresponsible, more to the point having that one or two extra bombers' DPS on the field far outweigh the extra DPS those modules provide on individual ships, especially considering the role of this ship. Even worse this death relation would scale to larger poorly fit bomber fleets which are even more likely to loose members as the fleet move through enemy territory. Yes a Black-Ops chain would help get the bombers there safely, I have rarely seen this happen.
In my perfect world, through my own coloured lenses, I see a bomber which hands out a reasonable amount of damage, huge for it's size, to be fitted more survivable. This even when its cost is low compared to the enemies you shoot at, because too few bombers does not do enough damage period. So herewith then my idea of a bomber fit to make it more survivable. Also note it is important to have fleet bonuses active as often as you can to make it even more survivable.
Survivable - Bomber
1 x Covert-Ops Cloak II
1 x Bomb Launcher I
3 x Siege Missile Launchers
1 x Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters ( 1MN AB)
1 x Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters (1MN MWD)
1 x Target Painter
1 x Warp Disruptor / Damper / Tracking Disruptor (optional)
1 x Sensor Booster with resolution script
1 x Micro Auxiliary Power Core (Make both AB and MWD fit)
1 or 2 x Nanofiber Internal Structure II (Fit 2 if you possibly can)
1 x Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
1 x Small Engine Thermal Shielding I (Longer burn from the MWD - preferable)
or Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I (better alignment and more speed)
This is much more survivable and still give you lots of DPS from both bombs and missiles. Skills make a huge difference as does fleet bonuses and some booster pills. I believe having more bodies to throw in the face of your enemy make a bigger dent and provide a much more powerful morale breaking effect which can turn the battle in your favour.
So as promised I'll quickly explain the fit from the perspective of escaping a professional bubble camp:
- The first requirement is alignment; The faster you can point your ships nose in the right direction, accelerate and cloak the more survivable you are. The modules that help with this are Nanofiber Internal Structure II and Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I as well as the basic fleet bonus and having the Space Ship Command and applicable Navigation skills at level V.
- The second requirement is speed and distance; The affecting modules are Nanofiber Internal Structure II and (Small Engine Thermal Shielding I OR Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I). The Thermal Shielding will allow the MWD to be on longer which means that when you cloak the MWD cycle will still complete but it will now take longer in the case of the Small Polycarbon you will be slightly faster, both giving you more range. Range is important to get out of the bubble and warp away and heavy interdictor bubbles are huge. As a side note do remember to click MWD and Cloak at the same time right after aligning so your MWD activate before your cloak is active, Or you will not get your critical MWD speed boost to propel you out of the bubble cloaked.
I hope you found this is informative
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