During the human covenant war the UNSC faced a more numerous and better armed enemy
Humanity struggled against the Covenant's onslaught winning only a few battles
Victories were only ever achieved through incredible strength of will and sound military tactics
Even on the rare occasions when the UNSC had a large numerical advantage the strength of Covenant warships could not be underestimated
at the Second Battle of Harvest, 40 UNSC vessels under the command of legendary Vice Admiral Preston Cole only barely
managed to take down a single Covenant cruiser which destroyed 13 ships in retaliation. As the war progressed
It was generally understood that a ratio of three ships to one was needed for a UNSC victory with all that in mind today
We'll be looking specifically at five aspects of UNSC space warfare. The topics range from the uses of technology
to general military doctrine, to specific tactics. Before I get into the content
however,
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If you need a recommendation for your free audiobook. The first aspect of space combat that I'd like to discuss is the UNSC's
use of MAC rounds, magnetic accelerator cannons
,otherwise known as MACs, were the main anti capital ship weapon used by the UNSC
They accelerated large slugs to extremely fast speeds
Inflicting incredible damage MACs were scaled up or down depending on the size of the ship
they were mounted to. Smaller ships, which could not hope to damage larger covenant vessels on their own would often use Wolfpack tactics
Which saw groups of vessels hit a single target with a coordinated MAC barrage before retreating. The use of magnetic accelerator
Cannons required a lot of thought and for this reason AI were often used to coordinate ships during battle.
MACs could either be fired at full power which would require a significant charging time or at lower power which
Required more projectiles to be fired, but saw a drop in energy output
So here's where the strategy comes in a fully shielded covenant ship could likely survive a single MAC round
The UNSC was thus most successful when multiple vessels
Coordinated their efforts with one set taking down the shield and the other
destroying the enemy itself. Often,
MACs would also be used to deplete a shield while secondary weapons like Archer missiles or Shiva bombs would inflict hull damage
I've gone over this before in my description of Halo weapons, which I'll link in the upper right-hand corner
Sometimes over-coordinated Mac barrages would result in dead time where no UNSC ships could fire while waiting for their Mac's to cycle
Obviously this left the ships extra vulnerable to attack. During the Fall of Reach
Orbital refit stations were used to absorb covenant munitions as the UNSC weapons were charged
This was one way to help protect against that dead zone a final thing to mention here is UNSC orbital weapons platforms
ODPs(Orbital Defence Platforms) were fitted with
extremely powerful MACs which could destroy
even the most powerful covenant
Cruisers in a single shot the presence of these assets would seriously alter UNSC battle strategy as MACs themselves are often sufficient
To turn away attacks so long as they are protected, especially from smaller craft
but
2552 earth was guarded by over
300 weapons platforms and the covenants main attack strategy was to pierce a hole in the defense array and then send ships through any covenant
Commander has to be very aware of the kill zone of a UNSC Defense Grid lest they suffer destruction through a single shot
Notably, ODPs also used ground-based generators representing a clear vulnerability
Especially if covert forces are in play. The next topic of discussion is star fighters
Unlike Star Wars where star fighters are often the be-all end-all of space
Engagement capital ships due to they're much more powerful weapons are typically the stars of halo naval battles. That being said small ships
of course have their use they often escort larger ships or protect transports securing boarding actions or
Retreats the most common UNSC fighter was the longsword and its various permutations
Typically long swords would not be used against fully shielded covenant vessels, but the fighters were armed with Shiva nuclear weapons
Which could destroy a crippled or unshielded ship one interesting but hard to pull off technique is the firing of a nuclear missile
Behind covenant shields, the shields would essentially hold the blast in causing catastrophic damage to the shielded ship as mentioned
This is tough to pull off
however
Covenant ships do lower portions of their shields to fire certain weapons providing a small area of vulnerability
This indirectly brings us to our next topic the use of AI
One area where the UNSC had advantage over their covenant enemies was the sophistication and prominence of human AI
I'm going to keep the discussion here pretty short
But basically there are three forms of AI to which are more prominent
Smart AI and dumb AI smart AI are created by mapping the neural pathways of real human brains
Well dumb AI are created by traditional programming techniques
Don't the name fool you however dumb AI are still incredible assets and can outperform even the best traditional machines or humans in their areas
Of expertise the main difference. Is that smart AI have an unlimited ability to grow and learn.
Though because of rampancy also have a limited life cycle both smart and dumb AI could be used during warfare dumb AI
Specifically could be created to manage a specific or several specific aspects of the ship
while smart AI could probably perform all tasks needed at least if they had some experience doing so from
Coordinating multiple forces to firing weapons to guiding courses to piloting a ship itself as an example during the attack on earth
Cortana took control of the weapons system of the orbital weapons platform Cairo station
AI could even be used to pilot star fighters or to take control of launch
Munitions the next point I'd like to discuss is the use of boarding action and the destruction of large
Targets both the UNSC and the Covenant use boarding as a means to attack and capture enemy
capital ships and indeed a large portion of UNSC boarding strategy involves repelling invaders
However, the UNSC has also found success taking down large targets through Spartan or Marine strike teams Spartans
Especially were a very effective tool for boarding
They were extremely deadly in close combat could take down practically any enemy in front of them
while avoiding being
Overwhelmed and could also survive vacuum within their Armour notably Spartan strike teams were responsible for the destruction of the Unyielding Hierophant
And its accompanying fleet the massive covenant super carrier the Long Night of Solace, a Covenant assault carrier at the Battle of Earth The Mantle's
Approach and surely countless other ships boarding teams could be kinserted through special drop ships
single person vehicles or just by extra vehicular activity
Regardless the goal was the same to bring the UNSC strength at ground-based warfare to space. The last point
I'd like to discuss is the changes in UNSC space warfarek
After the end of the Human-Covenant war. Post-war the UNSC begun a remilitarization
program. Not only building new ships
but focusing on reverse engineering covenant and
Forerunner technology this allowed for the first time ever for the UNSC to add shielding to their capital ships
The UNSC also saw massive increases in both slipspace speed and accuracy for the first time
UNSC ships could reliably perform
Micro in-system jumps which of course opened up many new tactical avenues with the creation of the UNSC infinity
As well as several new Cruiser and frigate types the UNSC surpassed the covenant as the dominant of the two spacefaring
civilizations and that has been a basic overview of
UNSC space tactics there's a whole lot I could have talked about here
I didn't even mention the UNSC's use of nuclear weapons or some of the famous individual maneuvers like the Keyes loop
But I've linked a halo playlist if you want more I highly recommend you check it out. Especially my video on capital ship weapons
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Something of your own choosing also, thank you to you guys for checking out this video
Make sure you let me know in the comments what you'd like to see next. Until next time. May the force be with you