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CRINGE - Alliance Cap Fleet

ROLE:
CAPPING | SKIRMISHING | COUNTER-AIR

DIFFICULTY:
HARD

DESCRIPTION:
Sometimes, you can't tell whether an idea is mad or genius. Perhaps, it is both. Welcome to Cringe.

To be fair, the idea of using Vauxhalls in cap fleets is not new. Neither is the idea of using two of them. One of the most competitive ANS cap fleets for a while was a pair of Vauxhalls arranged together with a whole lot of naked cappers. This fleet is my take on the same archetype, sacrificing DC on the Vauxhalls for armed cappers and a token air defence effort.

First iterations of this concept used 120mm guns on Vauxhalls. This is enough against light targets but with the proliferation of monitors in Protectorate cap fleets I have taken to upgrading the fleet to 250mm guns. Sometimes you need to dispatch a brick on a point and you need the firepower to do that.

The Vauxhalls are cringed quite heavily. I apologise to all my Vauxhall enthusiasts out there for what I did to your poor girl. They get a jammer for shrouding themselves as they make good their retreat. As the survivability onion goes - "Don't be there" goes before "Don't get killed". In practice, this means their design heavily emphasises evasive play when faced with unfavourable odds. I don't mean dodge dancing 450s here, I mean placing a solid rock between you and the enemy as soon as possible. They also have Parallax radars because locks are important for the low volume of fire 250s.

The Gunvettes are pretty straightforward. They carry the single barrel guns, so their own firepower is limited, but they can at least rely on Vauxhalls for backup. One rebound on the starboard side should help against rockets a bit, but it's not exactly a strong PD net. Your main defence is chaff and positioning.

The pair of air defence Sprinters carry a Mk62 each for firepower and a VLS2 with 15 SDM2s each. Not a lot, in fairness, but what counts is that they're there, as this has a psychological effect on the enemy carrier player to be wary of your corvettes or risk losing a strike.

USAGE IN BATTLE:
Your Vauxhalls enable you to step on caps but should not be used to cap themselves initially, especially if you suspect carrier or missileer players on the enemy team, as they are valuable assets and you likely will not have sufficient APM to counter enemy missile strikes effectively, doubly so given the cheap tools you have at your disposal for the job. Instead, send your cappers onto points under the air defence umbrella of your corvettes and/or cruisers. It should be mentioned somewhere that you definitely should disperse your Vauxhalls, by the way. Don't run them together.

Beware meat tugs. These nasty things will out-last your corvettes in a gun fight and even a Vauxhall might take a little while to fully finish one off thanks to the reinforced components these things usually carry.

Be cautious but aggressive. Most Protectorate cap fleets do not longer invest in any substantial cap guards. You can range deep into enemy territory even with your Vauxhalls if the map allows for it and force the enemy to divert heavy assets to counter you. Once this happens, withdraw and use the opening created for setting up another daring point take.

Your biggest counters, apart from Frontline beef, are carriers and CLNs. Against current CLNs as of time of writing, chaff as soon as you suspect a missile strike might approach your location. Shortstop style ACT/[ACT] R2 containers stage on the first and/or largest target they see, I don't fully grasp it either. Anyways, you will get no warning before Submunitions release. Having chaff positioned in front and aside your ship will softkill these containers reliably, so set thrusters to FLANK and maneuver accordingly.

Again, your Vauxhalls are your enabling factor. They can walk over small assets and pose a credible threat to lone monitors. Still, you have to pick and choose fights you can win, lest you want to get dismantled by 450s or plasma. Liners can cripple you in a single salvo and Ocellos far outlast you. Only engage them if you can go for a kill together with your frontline.

CHANGELOG:
13/06/2025 - Posted to Steam.

Fleet by J4R.