Offense:

The last time I flew in an Ishtar fleet we were fighting against Ev0ke and V.e.G.A.’s Tengus in Syndicate. We were able to take the strategic objective thanks to the CFC carrier blob, but they wiped out our Ishtar fleet and we lost the isk war. Their Tengus were able to ignore our logistics and volley through our Ishtars while our side struggled to break through their logistics. The Tengus they were flying were Heavy Missile Tengus with EM missiles loaded, and with fits similar to this one:

Now even though they use the same weapons systems, the offensive power of the “Treblecat” Caracal is no match for that of an HML Tengu. With EM missiles loaded the Caracal has 41% less dps and if the Tengu loads kinetic missiles that increases to 53% less dps. It’s not as bad as it seems though. A big portion of a Tengu’s DPS comes from a rate of fire bonus, this means that if EM missiles are loaded by both the volley is only 17% lower. In our fight the hostiles had 37 Tengus and they were volleying our Ishtars off field. That means 45 Caracals could do the same at exactly the same ranges a fleet of Tengus could.

Defense:

With links the Treblecat has 55.7k ehp against omni damage, and a signature radius of 132. It’s worst shield resist is is thermal, which it has 50.3k ehp against. This means it would take 19 bonused scorch bombs to wipe out the fleet. That’s the same number of bombs required to take down a harpy fleet. If Harpies are bomb resistant enough to be a CFC skirmish doctrine, then there shouldn’t be any issue.

Mobility:

Although 842 m/s won’t outrun anything with a microwarpdirve, the Treblecat is more than fast enough to pull range from armor HACs and similar close range ships. It’s even fast enough stay in range of a Tengu fleet. On top of that it’s cap stable even with my god awful cap skills, so you’ll have more endurance than some MWDing fleets may have.

Cost:

As of writing this, you can buy this off Jita sell orders for 26.72 million isk, not including ammo or drones. Without revealing exact numbers I’ll say that that compares extremely favorably to typical CFC cruiser reimbursement payouts, especially after insurance.