The Battle for Hasmijaala

On Boxing Day I lit a cyno and started jumping my carriers ladened with ships and stuffz to my new home of Hasmijalla. Many jumps later I had moved. It was a lot of work to do on yourself but it had to be done. Once you are in militia you cannot dock in stations that are controlled by the other side. That is why it is so important to defend your home system.

Then the bastard Gallente Militia announced that they were going to take Hasmijaala.

What followed was three weeks of epic spaceship violence as the Gals tried to make Hasmijaala vulnerable and we tried to stop them.

Things really started to kicking off around the 29th December. This period of heavy Frog activity lasted until the 5th of January. Every day they would plex Has up to around ten percent contested, mostly during early EU/AU timezones. I spent too much time zipping around in a fast ship taking pot-shots at Frogs whilst we were outnumbered 5:1 this time. Eventually America would wake and Cal Mil pilots would soon be equal numbers in system. These were the best times. Fleets coming together to smash each other. We'd regularly be running at 100 kills an hour in Has during peak times. The to fleets would engage. One would take loses and go and re-ship. Then it would start again 20 minutes later. The FC's would try and swap their fleet to counter what the other had. eWar and logistics made a massive difference.

As the day got later, then we'd outnumber them and they'd pull out. We'd then plex Has back down to stable. Rinse and repeat for a week!

By the 5th of January it looked liked the Froggies were running out of steam. Activitity dropped off, fights reduced and we didn't see Hasmijaala above 5% for a day or so. This only lasted a few days and then on the 10th there was another push by the Froggies. This was very similar to the last burst with contested level getting up to 10% and over and plenty of fighting to be had. For two days they tried not getting more than into the low teens. January 13th saw activity drop again. Had they ran out of steam in two days? Nope, it was the calm before the storm. January the 14th was fairly active and then on the 15th it exploded. The Gallente made their "Big Final Push". Typically my luck, that was the weekend I had a 40th birthday party where we were all going away Thursday to Saturday. I was taking photo's like this whilst checking the killboards on my mobile!

The Frogs pushed Hasmijaala to nearly 40% contested. Then Templis and allies woke up. Whilst I was laying on a beach getting pissed, there were epic battles raging in Hasmijaala.

Over one three hour period there was over 800 ships destroyed in numerous clashes in the various plex and on gates. Someone has estimated that 100 billion ISK was destroyed in the push for Hasmijaala. 100 billion ISK and the Gallente advanced no further than an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping in the end.

It was attrition warfare. It was brutal. It was nasty. So far in January I've got 190 kills worth 4.4bn ISK and lost 32 ships for 360m ISK. It's been fun! GF Gal Mil, GF!