Kestrel versus Miura Bull Incursus

Starwalker had joined the Black Rebel Rifter Club (R1FTA) because of Miura Bull and was disappointed when Miura left for new pastures. When Miura started a new corporation, the Screaming Hayabusa, Starwalker had briefly considered leaving R1FTA but had decided to stay where he was.

After nearly three years in New Eden Starwalker had never clashed with Miura Bull in combat, that changed when he warped into the complex chasing an Incursus - it was piloted by Miura Bull. The usual pleasantries were exchanged - lock, scramble and fire - and the fight was on.

Starwalker was in his experimental Kestrel fit that favoured tank and gave up range control, relying on the range of rockets to hit and an overheated afterburner to stay in scramble range. Whilst the tank was impressive it was still vulnerable to a well flown kiter - Radzak87 had maintained a range of 23km or so and simply worn down the tank, it had taken over 15,000 HP to destroy the Kestrel but the end was inevitable.

The Incursus was hitting extremely hard and the Kestrel's shield buffer tank was going down but in return the Caldari Navy Nova rockets were stripping away chunks of armour. The Kestrel suddenly bit deep into armour and Starwalker decided it was time to play his ace - the medium shield ancillary booster. It started repairing the shield damage but perhaps it had been started too late - the Incursus was now tearing at the Kestrel's structure.

However, the Incursus was also in deep trouble and despite the repair work it was going into structure too. The slugfest continued for another few seconds and then the extra shield repairs for the Kestrel tipped the balance as the Incursus exploded. Good fights were exchanged in local and Starwalker took his loot to station and to repair a badly damaged Kestrel that was spewing flames behind it.

A railgun Incursus was not a high damage frigate but the weakness of the Kestrel firepower is apparent from the graph where the rockets are averaging around 50 DPS, which is not much more than a kiter. The increased DPS from the Incursus corresponds to when Miura pulled range and the subsequent decrease was Starwalker overheating the afterburner to get closer.

Maintaining scramble range may also have been helped by Miura trying to stay in range to get a final volley through Kestrel structure.

The euphoria was short-lived as Starwalker decided that a Deimos, Cynabal and Republic Fleet Firetail must be fighting, he had seen the Firetail warp to the empty medium complex and no other pilots were in the same corporation and they had all arrived at different times. Unfortunately when the Kestrel landed there was just the Cynbal and Deimos... waiting. The Kestrel could not survive this type of cruiser abuse and it too was destroyed.