How the UNSC could have won the BATTLE FOR EARTH | Halo Battle Breakdown
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- On today's episode of Halo: Battle Breakdown, we examine how the UNSC could have won the Battle of Earth, as featured in Halo 2 and Halo 3.
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EckhartsLadder ot sucks that this channel isn’t any more popular. The content is great, keep it up
Question: Did the Covenant not launch their own fighters? Last I checked we're never told.
Because if they did, then the boarding craft would have had good cover.
Do you consider doing more starwars vs 40k videos ?
because there are a ton of things you could match against each other. And most importantly,
it would be super *interresting*
if you chose the right things to compare to eachother .
1 Recuscant and 2 Munificents vs 1 Resurgent
You forget about what Covies did to MAC Platforms at Reach.
They made jumps in close proximity of platforms. If corse plotted correctly, you could destroy MAC cluster within seconds. This wonders me, why Covies did not jump 2-3 CCS for each cluster. Destroying 1-2 MACs in 2-3 clusters would allow them to reach Earth - it would open path for CAS.
Elite: "Fleetmaster, we have them outnumbered 15:1!"
Fleetmaster: "Then the plot armor makes it an even fight"
I don’t want to ruin the 169th.
Those MAC stations are a complete different class, and can take down multiple Covenant vessels; so yes, it is an even fight!
Nice break down, but I think you got something wrong a little. The unsc’s Didn’t ignore the boarding parties, they figure that the fleet is weirdly small compared to reach, they thought there might be another wave entering else where, in respond they didn’t engage the fleet with all of their resources, but waiting for another wave, which allows the boarding parties to have a chance entering odps. And another point where you might be wrong is, the boarding ship is in the hundreds, yet the ships actually gets to the 3 ODPs is in dozens, means that the unsc is actually focusing on taking the boarding ships down, but Covenant succeeded using horde tactics to get to the platforms. You can see those details in the cutscenes and gameplay.
And Another point is, the UNSC’s lost isn’t due to this breach, they actually fought for weeks on space and ground. It’s multiple enormous wave of truth’s fleet that dwindled down and eventually destroyed the defence of earth. Sources from the novels.
Agreed, we need to make sure he sees it. This is exactly what I thought as I watched, it was classic Soviet style mass rush which got through. Furthermore, one must consider the fact that I dare say the boarding craft would be escorted with Covie fighters, such as space Banshees and Seraphs, which would be able to at least distract and hold off the Long Swords even if they did Engauge.
I wish Ecks would see this comment. It's very informative.
Yes! Thank you! Also going to add my hopes that EckhartsLadder acknowledges this, because the battle for Earth is actually incredibly unique.
Covenant naval doctrine, for the vast majority of the war, IS NOT SUBTLE. In early engagements, human captains quickly notice that covenant capital ships always take up an aggressive posture. This doctrine lines up well after the disposition of the sangheili is further explored, and their naturally aggressive glory hungry tendencies become obvious. However, instead of a large fleet showing up and the sangheili shipmasters charging straight in to danger for the chance at being the martyrs that died taking down the formidable ODPs and setting the rest of the fleet up for a classic(honestly napoleonic) cavalry style breakthrough, they hold position outside of the killzone. 4th quarter of the game, only a couple minutes left on the clock in terms of how long this war has been, and suddenly two very strange things happen. Covenant fleet shows up, but it is 1/50 the size of the fleet that attacked Reach. Instead of charging headlong in to danger and adopting that classic sangheili aggressive posture, they hold position; even allowing a HUMAN shipmaster to take the initiative, and even though it was called off, didn't respond to the initial charge that fleet admiral Harper had intended to spearhead. In Hood's mind, knowing everything he knows and after seeing decades worth of Covenant invasions, that tiny and seemingly almost tentative fleet would've had to be driving him crazy with questions. What would make a sangheili shipmaster bring such a small fleet to assault the human homeworld, and after clearly being challenged by a fleet of "puny pathetic humans," would stay the shipmaster's natural response which would be to start tearing the human ships to pieces?
Remember, it's not until the super carrier breaks orbit and settles over New Mombasa that they discover that it is a prophet whose ultimately in charge. San Shyuum tactics, their willingness to use manuevers that could be considered "sneaky," has never been seen before. In all the major covenant assaults on human worlds, he has never seen how a prophet conducts an invasion.
As for the boarders, the reason they vocalize the line "boarding craft, and LOTS of them" instead of just leaving the quantity vague or only having the number of boarding craft just be represented by the number on a screen in the background, was to emphasize "hey, well there might not be as many capital ships as we were expecting, but the boarding crafts are here in the volume we're used to seeing." There were just too many to shoot all of them down. Now, again, here we see something unique; something new. At Reach, Covenant ships fought their way close enough to the planet that they could deploy ground troops. It was costly, but it was a VERY sangheili approach to the problem. Again, assuming he's dealing with an Elite leading the assault, Hood sees the boarding craft, but he has an ace up his sleeve. While the boarders sent to the Athens and Tmulsa might cause some havok, it will take them time to fight their way through the ODP's considerably beefed up garrisons worth of marines which they would have to go through to get to any vital systems which could take the guns offline. And even if they did manage to take those two platforms down eventually, the only way to get the super carrier past that cluster was to take down all three platforms; and the greatest soldier in human history who just got his armor upgraded and has the support of a fully prepared marine garrison is standing right in front of him on that third platform. But, here comes the thing he has never seen a sangheili strike force do; sneak a bomb onboard a vessel. Not an honorable fight to the death like an Elite commander would do, but just bring something that causes a big enough boom to make fighting irrelevent.
Lord Hood was learning the difference(just like we were on that first play through) between fighting an Elite and fighting a Prophet.
A mass attack that overwhelms the defences of the enemy is called Saturation Attack
The Covenant won for plot reasons. If this was a straight up fight between the two forces, without the context of the Covenant needing to get to Earth for story reasons, then those 15 ships would have easily been defeated, every single time.
Again, that was for plot reasons. We see that one of the carriers flew straight past Cairo station, at a time when the stations main gun was operational and firing. That Carrier in reality should never have been able to get anywhere near the station, let alone get past it. The Orbital Defence Platforms are not stationary, they have the ability to orient themselves, giving them a huge firing arc.
TH-cam Account #2 MAC defence platforms can destroy any Covenant ship in a single shot. Plus, when the targeting is being handled by an artificial intelligence like Cortana, they are almost guaranteed to hit every time.
Saladar272 , yep the only thing that let covenant pass wasa huge amount of plot-armor
A mac round can punch a hole through a ship. Where that shot lands determines if it's dead. You can seal decks and survive if nothing crucial is destroyed.
Considering it was the only ship to make it through, I'd say they rushed the gap they created. You dont know what the Cairo was targeting while that ship made a run for it. I could have been firing on the other 20 ships coming at them.
True, however, you have to remember that the UNSC had dozens of ships in the area. They were ordered to protect the Cairo, Athens, and Malta. Their combined fire, plus the Cairo, should have obliterated any Covenant ship.
Troop transports arent meant for combat.
Clone pilot: Hold my beer
AAR fleet : hold up, coming through.
explain
Mihai Lazar Explain what
I laughed waaaaaay to hard at that. Lol
That comment this the best one yet 😂😂
Attempt 4:
Factions compared:
Imperial Intelligence vs. ONI vs. Section 31 vs. SHIELD
Benjamin Hartman-Seeskin I can see isb wining since its pretty much the empire
Saeid Radder Imperial Intelligence is different from ISB.
Paul Harrison oh never knew that thanks
I’m pretty sure ONI was the only one to have both a super duper super soldier army, and to actively go around trying to commit genocide against an alien race. Sure the imperials were douches but I don’t think the intelligence side ever tried to and got pretty close to wiping out an entire species.
ONI that's my call
That audible meme tho
I feel the same way even with moving the fleets like they did I feel like the U.N.S.C marines onboard the stations would have been more than enough to repel the boarding parties. The U.N.S.C came out on top in ground engagements with covenant ground forces more often than not even without spartan backup.
Well there are two things. The Covenant did start bypassing the ODPs by slipspacing on the other side... And also I think one thing was the number of boarding craft that were launched. The number seemed accelerating very rapidly so I'm guessing hundreds upon hundreds. And the concept art does show space banshees so seraphs and space banshees were launched too.so I think chances are the sheer numbers would mean some would get through
19 ships for the Covenant were displayed in his chart, if each sent 100 or so landing craft then you'd have 1900 landing ships to down. Not an easy task.
Me: *sees Eckhartsladder notification* “Boss I’m going on break!”
Boss: “Wait what?”
Me: *disappears to watch video*
Boss: *investigates, sees Eckhartsladder video* "Budge over I wanna see this."
"No, you're not!"
"Boi, you better budge on over and lemmie see or I'm blocking TH-cam from this building."
Donald Trump: “your fired”
Your fire. 😂😂😂
I think given how many boarding craft we see leave the fleet to attack the stations compared to how many actually make it to the station you might be understimating how effective the Longswords were at defending.
Spartans vs N7 and UNSC Marines vs System Alliance Marines
Spartans.
100% American Buffalo
Spartans MK IIs, 8/10 times.
Systems Alliance Marines, 7/10 times.
Spartans were the ultimate UNSC soldier, basically designed for completing implausible feats. N7s have roughly the same technology as Spartan MK IIs, but the Spartans were shown to easily counter a well trained army with the exact same technology (AKA the Sangheli/Elites). The only way for the N7s to win is with luck or the proper skillset in their team to counter Spartans.
Systems Alliance Marines have roughly the same tactics as UNSC Marines, but also generally have better equipment. If the UNSC marines have something like a rocket launcher, the battle will likely be greatly in their favor. However, small arms only will likely result in a Systems Alliance marine victory most of the time. The best chance for the UNSC is heavier weapons or a lucky win
Spartans But, I see alliance marines beating UNSC marines
As much as I like the N7S I'd have to put my money on the Spartans are biotics allowed that wood make it a little more fair
100% American Buffalo Space Marines
Seems to me that the UNSC may have considered the boarding parties less of a threat than they should have. They may have considered a "ground fight" on an orbital platform a fight the UNSC could win while still keeping the orbital platforms operational. More often than not, the UNSC was extremely successful in protracted ground conflicts with the covenant, largely leading the covenant to retreat to space and glass the planet.
Kind of hard to believe that the UNSC would not have considered the possibility that elite boarding parties would not bring some means of destroying the orbital platforms with them. But then again you have some serious firepower in the form of covenant capital ships as you've stated.
I mean... the covenant have gotten a first hand demo of how lethal these orbital platforms were when attempting to take other human colonies.
I have one big question though... what constitutes a "kill zone" for orbital MACs? Surely not an envelope where a shell loses too much velocity? Is it a certain critical distance where firing solutions are hard to resolve for enemy ships?
Effective Kill range would be at what distance the other ship has enough time to react to the oncoming round and dodge. They still carry the same velocity until they strike a target or are pulled into an objects gravity well.
@@jacobm8242that part, shoot too far and the enemy can just move slightly to the left or right and you’ll miss by hundreds if not thousands of kilometers
"That MAC gun can put a round clean through a Covenant Capital Ship."
"I take it back, the fleet got it's butt kicked."
Reaper (Mass Effect) vs. Autumn-class Cruiser (Halo) (Hey, actually kinda topical this time)
finaldarkfire Are you talking about the Pillar of Autumn (which is a halcyon class btw) or something else?
Also I'm betting on the Reaper.
I'm referring to the Autumn-CLASS cruiser, the one built post-war that has a bunch of reverse-engineered Forerunner tech like the Infinity does (energy shields, a more powerful MAC, a highly accurate slipspace drive, etc.)
My money's on the Autumn. Its MAC is WAY more powerful than anything in the ME universe, and I think its shields could take at least one hit from a Reaper. Couple that with its precise slipspace drive and it can shoot, reposition via slipspace, shoot again and reposition before it can be hit. The Reapers were so overwhelmingly powerful only because of their numbers and the fact that ships and tech in the ME universe wasn't that advanced compared to the Halo universe. Ships were slow and cumbersome and they lacked shield technology. The Normandy of course is an exception, but it was just a really small frigate. A post-war UNSC heavy cruiser would be more than up to the task against a single Reaper, provided it doesn't start in CQB.
finaldarkfire Oh, that one, ok then I change my bet to the Autumn class then.
Tau Empire Vs First Order
Spartan Abrams No way the first order can win
Starkiller Base is the decider, but then IIRC the Tau have blown up a couple of suns in stellar engineering projects. As with the Imperium, the Tau's awful FTL tech would be their weakness in a galactic scale war. They also don't have the Imperium's fuckhueg warships thing that normally lands 40K the win in these comparisons.
I'm pretty confident that the Tau would slaughter in ground engagements, would do well in space battles, and would most likely perform admirably on the larger logistics and strategy level. The Tau are strategic geniuses, something that the SW universe lacks aside from Thrawn.
Who, funnily enough, is also a blue xeno. :P
Pffffffffff
The Tau would glare menacingly at the FO and win.
The most intelligent thing to do, in my opinion, would be to layer nukes and mines fairly heavily just outside of the ODP's range, and dot them throughout their fields of fire. It should be possible to either wait for the boarding parties to fly near them, or herd them in that direction using the UNSC's fighters.
From there, the frigates should be placed in a staggered formation in front of the ODP's to provide additional point defense, while the heavier ships could hang back to reinforce where needed.
So many fictional militaries seem to forget about point defense. During WW2, a battleship had over a thousand crew with half being used for antiaircraft. Once the the CIWS was implemented, point defense reached a pinnacle. Most modern navy ships only have one or two of these guns. Point defense seems to ruin shitty plot points. If the Raddus had a ciws, those tie fighters never would have reached the bridge. I think your video is spot on.
and like, you have a whole god damn planet of people there, just fill the entire god damn station with hundreds of soldiers and a bunch of food, that'd stop the boarding parties
Chief : I need to go outside.
Lord Hood : For what purpose Master Chief?
Chief : To give the Covenant back their bomb!
Lord Hood : Granted
0:25 Here's our (you)
Awesome video. I'm not all that interested and affluent in Halo, but you make it more interesting than any of the books or games do! I get the impression the UNSC not caring about the boarding parties could've been a dig at how one of the most repeated bits of Halo trivia is "Humanity usually loses in space but wins on the ground". Just a thought, though.
Dark Helmet Vs Darth Vader
I have to say that Dark helmet would win this one. Darth Vader would approche DH and he would start laughing at DH incompetence that he would laugh so hard and so long that Vader would actually die of laughter
Dark helmet wins 10/10 times, he has the bigger Schwartz
good battle plan. I'd get the longswords to fall back on the flanks once they've intercepted and routed the boarding craft.
Waiiiit a second... Shouldn't odps's Mac cannon have unlimited range?
HaloReaper 96
They do. But after a certain distance MAC rounds can be easily dodged due to distance
Still have to aim it.
Yes, they do have infinite range, and at the speed they’re fired at, the covenant would have to time to dodge a large number of ODP attacks, so really, they would be trying to survive the human fleet directly attacking them, while being shreked by the three ODPS directly in front of them, and probably be too distracted to notice the dozen or so ODPs further out that would likely wipe out the entire covenant fleet in a single volley.
You missed one key point, truth’s forruner dreadnaught would decimate the Mac cannons as it is virtually unstoppable (we see in halo 3 how it doesn’t even flinch from 3 mac cannons and a long sword bombardment and we also know that the entire race of elites weren’t able to beat the dreadnaught even with forunner tech)
I see your point about boarding craft and seeing how easily a phantom goes down you can probably take out a boarding craft in a few shots from something equivalent to a tank pew pewer.
It would actually possible for the covenant to win the battle of Earth:
The covenant could just overwhelm the earth defence fleet with countless boarding craft and fighters.
But considering the importance of Earth, the UNSC would also recall as many of its ships as possible.
IF THE HALO RINGS WE RE WITH US!!!
Darth Cendius we would all die LITERALLY!
I feel like you're right in the method of defense but different methods would have to be used later on if the defense was successful and the fleet elected not to make a foolhardy charge into MAC range, or at least were smart enough to disengage early enough to save the majority of their fleet. That said, MACs don't really have a max range as much as a max effective range. Having reloads on standby could mean skirmishing forces could spread out and fire MAC rounds to make the covenant ships cluster only to fire the heavier rounds at the now clumped up force, causing casualties for ships who would have to now avoid their own ships and weather the continued fire around the edges from smaller rounds that are also quite damaging. This would force the fleet back further and probably cause a few casualties after the boarders were intercepted.
The real battle would be when more reinforcing fleets started adding to the seige afterwards in this case.
See the thing I think here was the fact that fleet admiral Harper was not in position when the covenant arrived. He was massed ready to take the fleet directly to the covenant it was hood who said to form a perimeter around the MACs. So it’s possible by the tome Harper deployed three fleet to protect them that it was to late and a small number of the boarding craft made it in. We again don’t see a large force arrive in Cairo in game as there main goal isn’t mass troop deployment but setting up a bomb to destroy the MAC platform. I think the main reason we can point to for the ultimate defeat is Fleet Admiral Harper. Also with Truths arrival and the forerunner dread that would have been problematic as well. But we know on it’s arrival Hood was still in Cairo meaning the platforms where still dishing it out to the covenant fleet. I’m probably getting to involved in it lol. Personally I think Hood should have had command of the fleet and platforms directly. He shouldn’t had waited till the conflict started to give orders to Harper. Just my thoughts anyway. Love the videos
It's entierly possible that the UNSC couldn't afford to let the covenant fleet going around the solar system without reacting.
I am not familiar enough with Halo universe to be completely sure, but I imagine there is many humans instalation and asset around in the whole system, and that earth is the only one protected by a significant space station network. Maybe the idea of all the installation around mars, venus, jupiter, etc... being obliterated by the covenant fleet caused the UNSC to attack the intruder.
Beyond the potential material losses, staying on a defensive position might have had a huge psychological impact on the earth population and maybe even in the UNSC chain of command: taking what appear to be passive stance while the ennemy is at the gate, especially if you believe you have a fighting chance, would have cause moral to drop among the civilians and military alike; causing unrest, desertion and general miscontent, even if the strategy is in the end effective.
Finally, The High command might have feard that covenant were knowinly attacking mankinds homeworld, and that the regrets fleet was only the 1st wave. they then decided to take their chance against this fleet, and try to destroy before the main force arrive. This is a mistake, but considering they had no idea how much time they had to respond to this potential threat, they decided to go on a frontal assault, seeing this as their only chance.
All in all, the decision UNSC took during this battle to attack the opposing fleet was a costly mistake, but it might as well have been the only course of action they could have take.
A. Leblanc out.
the covenant used slipspace,a tecnology similar to teletransportation,thats why humanity didnt knew a fleet of covenant were coming.
EckhartsLadder, your strategy was exact same strategy i done one time when I played Star Wars empire at war on the Force of Corruption expansion. I played the Pirate faction on Galactic map mode and held Bothowi. Since their ships kinda looked liked uncs ships (even tho their not). Mine was keep my large ships and corvettes close to my lvl 5 station with some artillery ships in the back, mean while fighter squadrons will dog fight other fighters and kill what ever bombers they come across. And of course my bombers do runs on the enemy ships. Since my station has a MAC like canon, I used it to take out enemy artillery ships and damage/destroy capital ships. Didn’t matter either rebel or empire, they never got through.
Venator vs 2 Accllamators
Tell me if i'm wrong but the covenant have performed in system pin point slip space jumps into enemy formations before, human tech at the time of 2552 couldn't but they certianly could
Typical enemy plot armor.
I honestly love everything these breakdowns.
Could the Death Star survive Doom's Hell?
Doom Slayer nope nope nope and nope
I suppose the only caveat I would throw in is that the boarding craft were almost certainly not alone, The would have been escorted by seraphs and space banshees which may well have kept the longswords occupied long enough to allow the tics past. Covie fighters also present a real threat to any UNSC capital ship due to their lack of shielding so its possible the home fleet was just overwhelmed with small targets and it only takes a fraction of the craft to slip through to overwhelm the stations. That being said there was an element of plot armor for the covenant.They were just as surprised to see humans as we were to see them at earth and still managed to somehow react quickly enough to overwhelm the odps
Supreme commander Eck back at it with the unbeatable strategy!
the UNSC was well aware of the boarding aircraft and was not blind to the number and distance of them as we see a screen displaying how much aircraft were launched, the UNSC tried to engage them but unfortunately were having their hands tied by the cruisers, rendering their anti air to solely focus on defending the ship rather than stopping the waves of aircraft from passing them, rendering their point defense turrets pre occupied, so they got through and boarded the ODPs
The Covenant adapted and learned from their losses suffered at Reach. Rather than going toe to toe with a larger force of platforms they sent a fast strike against them to take the most effective anti ship weapon the UNSC had out of the fight. Keeping close orbit around the platforms would have helped, but even then you can't fire directly on your own platform as soon as it's boarded or you risk damaging it or killing your own troops. Covenant troops are also fanatics and don't care if they're killed in battle, so even with a tighter defensive perimeter you still run the risk of 10% of a force making it through. Main reason the platform with Chief on it survived was because he killed the boarders.
You should do a fractions versus video between the Chimera from resistance and the Locusts from Gears of War
As usual, you are 100% right. I have been thinking these thoughts for years. The only way I could see this succeeding with your tactics is if they blitzed one group of cannons.
They just needed a good opening mission that was reminiscent of the first mission from CE, a fight through a ship/object in space where you lose in the end and have to go down to the HALO/planet below
I think the covenant could have taken out the stations with a massed capital ship attack, but the losses would have been so high that after that, they would not immidiately be able to capitalize on this due to the continued presence of the UNSC fleet and the high losses they would take in the process. However, it would tie up the majority of the UNSC fleet filling the gap, which the covenant may be able to exploit at other points in the defense grid.
110th Attempt:
Yuuzhan Vong vs Reapers
* Dude these vids are so legit
Id say Reapers, just for their tech and extreme firepower.
Okay, but Halo 2 and 3 would have been super boring, then.
lol yea i guess you're right
One thing you're forgetting is that Lord Hood assumed there was something else going on. The Covenant attacked iwth a surprisingly small fleet against Earth. IF they sent the fleet of that size to Reach he assumed there was some other crazy plan that hey had to take Earth. He overestimated his enemy as Cortana stated in game, The Covenant didn't expect literally any humans at Earth.
That and the fact that the ships don't even have a 10th of the range of the Mac guns which makes defending them impossible as the Covenant greatly out range UNSC ships is space. For example, fleet Admiral Harper was given orders to engage the moment the covenant got in range.
The USNC's tactic was wipe out this smaller group quickly before more showed up.
Bungie wrote it like a Hollywood movie. The people make smart decisions, then make a catastrophic decision that makes you think it was written by an idiot, just so they could move the plot along easily.
Tenno(Warframes) vs Spartans.
Imo due to magic space powers (the void) tenno win, however this is only in one on one fights.
As for militarily all we've seen from tenno thus far is hit and run tactics with highly skilled tacticians boosted by their special abilities.
There are frames however that can act as force multipliers (essentially the really good crowd control frames, nidus, mag, ember, hydroid, saryn, trinity (for maintaining squad health and energy levels), and Octavia.) I do believe that thanks to these even though the tenno are low in number they would be able to hold up against the larger numbers of enemies that they would face from an organized military force such as the UNSC Spartans.
In fact they demonstrate this by going directly up against the grineer, and arw able to do things such as taking out key figures within the grineer: the elder queen, vor, vey hek, leech krill, etc. Sabotage key operations for the grineer in their clonong labs. Take out ships (sabotage missions) and sabotage weapons arrays on capital ships (Kuva Fortress assault) with virtual impunity.
The combination of powerful force multiplying platforms and free movement against professional military forces leads me to believe that even though the Spartans would hold better organization, better numbers, and better ship to ship weapons, the sheer magnitude in power difference of the average warframe vs average Spartan and the freedom of operations tenno are capable of they would be able to hold off a system from an UNSC incursions.
Tenno vs Guardians (Destiny 1-2)
i was thinking one thing overlook in the Battle of Reach the Covenant sacrifice ships to close the distance to launch craft if I recall
Please do a galactic versus battle between
2M Saber class hover tank(Star Wars),
UNSC Scorpion tank(Halo),
Mammoth MK III(C&C)
The Baneblade would literally Crush the other contenders under its tracks, not kidding. Seriously though you are pitting a Super-heavy tank vs Small-Medium Class Tanks, how is that fair? A T-34-85 (Saber) A Stuart (Scorpion) A Tiger I (Mammoth) VS A MAUS (Baneblade)
TerenceTheGreat
As I said, I asked for this battle before, and ALWAYS the first comment was
PUT IN THE BANEBLADE!
But I think I'll remove the Baneblade again. I don't even know more about WH40k than it's name.
I think you are totally right about the tactics and that the Covenant had plot armor so the game would progress the way it did and so would the story.
I think that the UNSC missed a couple of obvious opportunitys to defend Earth. But as an arm chair quarter back, it really easy to see faults in any plan. Its hard to know what to do in that situation. Hitting the boarding craft with fighters seems pretty obvious though.
The problem is with what you've stated in other videos; Covenants ships/fleets have a lot of Seraph fighters and type 27 banshees (space banshees). They probably escorted those boarding parties most of the way. Frigates could hit them, but the Longswords would need to defend the frigates from Seraph/Banshee attacks but Longswords are generally outclassed by the Seraphs (unless they had Sabres because those can be fitted for orbital defense and outclass the Seraphs in-kind). So the overwhelming force of the Covenant fighters would likely outright delete the Longsword presence. The sheer number would be staggering.
If they succeeded to oust the boarding parties, the fighters would win and begin slamming the Mac-Platforms little by little until the same hole is created. So your strategy would just slow them down a bit, since Covenant's overwhelming force of fighters, along with said-fighters being better. If there's a chance they have Sabres, then your strategy works way better.
As Covenant, I would have ignored the ODPs and gone straight for Earth with small ships to suprise the UNSC and if they conned on to what I was doing, I would simply adapt and attack the ODPs perhaps with additional transports if available. The Covenant's plan was truly just lucky from what I understand, even several thousand unprotected transports making it to destroy a single ODP realistically against any sized defence fleet is utterly unreasonable.
Only one criticism: committing all Longsword fighters immediately would mean that, once they're out of fuel, you would have a period of time when all Longswords are down for refueling & rearming, nor would there have been reserves to reinforce and stop potential breakthroughs.
Or maybe I just misunderstood what you said, and they're only being mobilized into ready & standby positions. Im just following your earlier logic about concentrated MAC barrages having dead time between shots & applying it to fighter tactics.
i think the reason for the defensive line would be that there are Covenant ship that can take out the ODP from outside their kill zone (althought that class of ship wasn't present at the first battle). Also, in ground combat (boarding action) the UNSC and the Covenant are on pretty even terms so i think Hood was confident enough that the Marines would be able to repel the Covenant boarding parties
omg XD almost chocked on my food when watching that ending. dfreaking hilarious hahahaha
I see the offensive as the more justified move. Their forces are very few and they have the advantage in slipspace tech; if we wait too long, they might amass reinforcements outside our kill-field, and much earlier than our reinforcements are able to arrive. If there's any chance we can win with the pieces in play, we can't afford to let them build up a larger force. I do admit it was a poor move to leave the stations under-defended from boarding craft, no doubt, but my point is that the defensive focus would look like the losing play at the time.
If you're still doing verses battles, you should do an Element Zero user vs Jedi (non master or notable force user)
From the standpoint of someone who has been a fan of Halo since he was eight, and played Halo 3 when it first came out and all of the games when I could get my hands on them, I've always found the Battle of Earth to be the most stupid plot device in the history of the series, right up there in my opinion with Halo Reach's cloaked Super Carrier bullshit. The Battle of Earth however also, if you remove the plot, represents something of the first real example of what real space combat is.
Even on the offensive, if you take on a world that has had centuries to fortify itself into a quite literal orbital fortress, you need to bring the forces necessary to at the least manage to cut a hole, and then you have to keep that hole open. The hope could be closed by other ODP's, the issue with doing so is simply time. Because ODP's still have thrusters mind you, they have to since they're space stations and need to be able to move out of the path of something harmful. They could over time move a platform to cover a hole, or several, and have the fleet squeeze on any gaps that form to try and funnel the covenant either away from the hole or into a Killzone. They'd take tremendous losses, but they'd still be able to do it and fuck the Covenant as they did.
Assuming they did make it to ground with any sizeable forces, they'd still have to face a significantly powerful land presence, and the Covenant wasn't the best at land warfare either. They'd get bodied in this case.
I know im like 2 years late on this video but I just wanna say it anyways 😂 if you think about the dozens possibly hundreds of boarding craft that were sent out, only a couple actually make contact per station meaning that the unsc fleet was defending just a couple managed to get by. The unsc fleet didn't actually engage until the covenant had destroyed the Malta and Athens and were moving toward the planet and while they did take heavy losses the unsc actually won and had destroyed all but Regrets carrier by the end of the first wave. It wasn't till Truths fleet arrived that the unsc lost the battle of Earth
Yay another video from eck
True & yes a defensive approach would work better then offensive overall if earth had more variety of ships then some frigets & lazer multishot ships I would have 2 sets of fleets 1 always at the defense the other offence to take the convenant on both sides of their fleet & the main other fleet destroys all ships incoming unarmed or not & have the convenant make the moves next to try not being crunch
Perhaps they were moving to engage because they were afraid of the same type of ship that appeared at the Battle of Reach that had the ability to snipe UNSC targets from outside the ODP range. That said, they still should have left enough ships to fully defend the Super MACs
I would say over time as the covenant is able to continue snuffing out human worlds eventually only Earth would be left and with the covenants size it would eventually be able to break Earth's defences with pure wait but if they would want to or what would happen with the rings or the flood are other things entirely
Plasma based weaponry plus shielding is what i think gave the covenant an boost to invade plus sheer numbers and carry capacity and unsc eagle can hold 10 men at most an phatom can hold 24 so think about the size of those mother ships and how many assets they had
I think the covies would have overwhelmed the UNSC eventually, and maybe been able to wait out the MACs (by for example skimming the effective range so the cannons have to either fire or let them get close, but the ship still has time to dodge), but it would likely have taken months, if not years, to win by attrition, giving the UNSC plenty of time.
Captain Keys was able to take out multiple covenant ship with a single destroyer and no onboard AI. The UNSC had to out smart the covenant to win battles, do to covenant ship superiority. The average battle outcome was that of 3 UNSC ships to 1 covenant ship. This is also the battle of earth, which was pretty much humanity’s last stand. Turn your brain on admiral!
That did bug the hell out of me. "We need Earth to be compromised!" Okay, but how? "*inserts totally impractical way to do so*" But wouldn't- "Plot Armour!" I feel the Battle of Earth would've been so much more intense and interesting if the Covenant ACTUALLY had to work for it. Here they literally seemed to be just going for a Sunday cruise through the country.
I agree, l dont think the UNSC thought long enough for their defensive strategy + they greatly underestimated their opponents☠ great video keep them coming👍👍
Question, would you be able to go way back on some of your videos & add anything new?? Because of all the changes in cannon & ect??
Thank you for your time☯️
I think the reason they mostly ignored the boarding craft is that the UNSC's strength aganced the Covenant is usually ground based combat, they believed the Covenant just wanted to capture as disable the platforms and the amount of militarized human refugees at that point aboard and in service could easily fend them off. So they wanted to not risk their limited longswords and wait until actual bomber and fighters turned their head.
Or that the covenant were just probing to see how well defended the platforms were in standard Covenant cannon fodder fashion not knowing this was Earth.
I'm not saying this is a fact, this is just an idea.
P.S. Knowing how much of a threat the pods were afterwords makes it easy to decide what should have been done, hindsight is 20/20 and all that.
1 brute ship was essentially the equivalent of a human one. As Rtas Vadum manages to destroy a massive brute fleet which outnumbered him 3:1 and considering humans fought against elite captains and admirals for the majority of the war.
The ODPs are shown to basically one shot any Covenant ship, however Truth might have gotten in with the Forerunner Keyship since it tanks MAC shots. Although I don't remember if it takes an ODP shot or not in canon
Not often you see plot armour so strong for the 'bad guys'.
Its entirely possible that the fleet was attacking the boarding craft but there were simply too many and they were already engaged. Moreover once the Malta and Athens were destroyed and the chief was "returning" the bomb you see several capitol ships making a run for earths surface. However the only ship the actually makes it there is Regret's carrier. To me it makes more sense that Regret used several cruisers as meat shields and distractions to keep home fleet busy while massive numbers of boarding crafts destroyed the ODP's from within. Also the covvies have plot armor so they don't need tactics or realty to be on their side.
The odps must have crazy thrusters to maintain stability in space after firing a round like that and not go flying backwards. And even if a covie ship survives a hit like that, that things getting launched away from the battle.
There is not a single covenant ship that can survive a Super MAC round. If three super carriers (the largest and strongest covenant ship by far except High charity and ship repair bays) lined up in a row, the single super Mac round could destroy two and completely cripple the third, and it’s said that the force behind the shell can vaporise a ship, even if it has full shields and has already destroyed the projectile
This is spot on.
Eckhart you are totally right, the only real reason the UNSC lost The Battle of Earth is the writers wanted them to. It makes no sense that the UNSC was unable to adequately defend themselves against the boarding craft and yet they failed anyway for seemingly no reason.
What about Banshees and Seraphs? There should have been plenty on the ships to overpower the longswords
I think this is purely for storytelling reasons. In addtition to what you already said, even if the Covenant destroyed 2 super MAC stations, there would have still been 298 left. Even if just a quarter or so of them were in a position to orient themselves towards the covenant fleet, they would have been toast. Also, for some reason the covenant carrier just went past the perfectly operational Cairo without the station doing anything about it.
I'm sure the Covenant also realised their boarding craft were vulnerable. We didn't see every aspect of this battle because we only saw it from the Chief's perspective - but it's logical to believe that the Covenant sent large formations of Seraphs and other starfighters to escort their boarding craft to the ODP stations. After all, we do see Seraphs and Longswords duelling each other in cutscenes.
I'm also sure that UNSC ships and fighters actually did shoot down plenty of boarding craft that we didn't see, too - but given the sheer numbers of boarding craft launched by the Covie Carriers and again, the likely presence of Covie fighter escort, some boarding craft would always have got through. The Covenant are seldom concerned with heavy losses among their forces when committed to victory.
What about in-system slip-space jumps perhaps towards Orbit?
Good question i guess if the full cov fleet showed up they just would have overpowered the unsc forces in time. But I like your plan of using all the fighters, and placing the frigates in defensive formations.
I believe they were afraid of another Reach, a massive fleet comes after the expedition and overwhelms the defense grid, they probably wanted to neutralise the fleet which first arrived to give the ODPs a fighting chance would a fleet the size of the one that glassed Reach come to Earth.
So basically the plan is to sit back behind the artillery and yell "come at me bro". Perfect
What about the seraphs? There where plenty of those battling against the longswords. I believe they must have swarmed the group of the three Odp's we see ingame and rammed through them. Which is why only Regret's ship makes it to the surface. I dont know if they did this but it reminds me a bit to the movie of Ender's Game, when they destroy the alien planet, they mass their fleet surrounding a single ship to make the shot they needed to win the day.
Also I think the UNSC had too many targets to shoot at. Because the Covenant were swarming the defense platforms they simply didn’t care how many lesser ships blew up in the process and hoped that atleast one would slip through. Also at the time it was still mostly Elites who were in command of the Covenant Navy.
based on your vid, the war should've lasted a lot longer, with each side throwing torpedoes at each other while shooting it down, and the fight probably would start as spread out around the planet, then converged on one spot for a push, but they're not suicidal, yet. since covenant ships do out pace and out maneuver unsc ships... unsc having the smaller need to move since their radius is smaller or more focused
it'd be a waiting game as much as a racing game
You gota love that ending
when the unsc is finally a real thing, they need to hire this man
If anything, the Covenant were more surprised with finding humans there, then the UNSC were by the attack.
I wonder if they ever could attach one of those platform guns onto a ship. It's already floating in space with armour and stearing, with engines it could at least move around more easily, thus the loss of two stations would not have ruined the whole system.
For one, the UNSC infinity pretty much had three of those guns on it (scaled down but still about the same firepower because of forerunner tech), and because the covenant were so surprised, they shouldn’t have had any shields up or weapons prepared.
Like just for the doggo at the end (still a great video tho)
We know that the Covenant has stealth technology and on their ships. Perhaps the boarding craft used that technology to get in close
I know it’s a conceptual weapon system but, Has anyone discussed the idea that those Super MAC canons shouldn’t have limited range to begin with? I mean, unless the Covenant fleet was hiding behind the gravity well of something wouldn’t the shells be too fast to avoid? It seems that the warheads are a major threat if they held back.
Do U think if the tactics explained in this video could have won the day if the Covenant had all their forces that attacked earth from the start ? That would be an awesome battle with hundreds of ships getting taken down but maybe the covenant would have enough to charge ahead and escort their borders to the platforms etc. I feel like the UNSC would still win but taking heavy casualties just because of the size and quality of their fleet
The UNSC just panicked, after the Fall of Reach there would be morale and psychological repercussions and I think the UNSC just want to take out the Covenant warships as quickly as possible before they had another repeat of Reach, which resulted in sloppy panicked decisions.
Admiral Lord hood knew what to do but the Ship Commanders didn't, he ordered them to form a perimeter around the Orbital Stations while the Ship Commanders wanted to go the offensive.
He actually makes a good point
A few major points I believe you did not give enough credit.
They are in space, around a gravity well. They can't just sit there waiting, they have to orbit the planet or spend a stupendous amount of energy on station keeping. The only exceptions to this would be the Lagrange points, most relevant being the Moon/Earth Lagrange points, as the Earth/Sun Lagrange points are too distant to be of practical tactical use, except for the Covenant to use as parking for support ships.
And even the Moon Lagrange points help the covenant more than the help the UNSC. Simply put, gravity wells are like valleys in traditional warfare. Your movements are restricted, both in direction and speed. The attackers coming from farther out of the gravity well get similar benefits to being on high ground. There is a lot of nuance to this play of gravity, and attack/defend priorities, but that's the gist of it.
Another point is that the ODPs, while numerous, had to be spread out to defend against attacks from any direction along all three axis surrounding the planet, making the vast majority irrelevant to any fight almost by definition.
A third point you missed is the Covenant's precision jump capabilities, which allow their ships to bypass any "no-mans-land" and place themselves in prime strategic locations. They may be dead in the water for a few seconds after a jump, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can't launch fighters and boarding vessels, as well as start causing havoc in the lines when the power comes back online.