I think the reason why we see the battles happening soo closely in the books and games is that the UNSC is always the one defending their planets and important holdings, thus the UNSC ships can't afford to be in long-range when the enemy could just break in and glass the planet and leave instantly. You also have to remember that the covenant, in the tech comparison, is generally superior to the humans(With a few exceptions like AI), the humans needing at least 3-5 ships outnumbering one covenant ship to achieve victory with minimal loss of life. thus I conclude that the UNSC simply doesn't have the range or technological edge to be the one who takes the fight to enemy territory. The humans are simply too inferior with their ships to possibly use long-range as a viable tactic other than harassing a fleeing enemy fleet; UNSC ships would the equivalent of Old WW1 battleships compared to the Covenant who are the modern US Aircraft Carriers, the difference in quality is staggering.
On top of that, even in open space, the Covenant could use their slip space tech to hit ships light years away, so close engagement was really the humans' only choice
Halo has a very neat, but also strange, way it portrays it's naval warfare. It's not standard in the way that it is standard to modern naval combat, but it still shows unique tactics in long-distance 3-dimensional warfare. Admiral Cole's tactics come to mind for that. Suggestion: take a look at how humans conduct naval warfare in Warhammer 40k, specifically the books. 40k is very strangely logical and anachronistic with it's space combat. On the one hand, their ship designs are extremely over-the-top and weapon mountings look like they belong on an 18th-century ship. On the other hand, however, they engage at distances thousands to hundreds-of-thousands of kilometers away, well beyond visual range. There is a significantly wider variety of unique weapons 40k ships draws upon, changing up tactics and forcing both sides to consider things that were not considered in modern naval warfare. They use everything from macro cannons and torpedoes to lasers and plasma.
@@carlos930610 And boarding can work - if you can teleport some of your forces directly inside enemy vessel. WH40K is more logical than it seems at first glance. Far better than StarWars for example.
there is a reason for why the 40k ships are so inefficiently made and designed. It purely comes down to the fanatic zealotry and dogma of the imperium, remember they are not a open minded innovative society but a very oppresive fanatic backwards barbaric civilization.
You made good points for a universe without FTL travel, sublight space combat would definitely be an extreme standoff contest. But the Halo universe does have FTL, and that changes everything. The Covenant use their superior slipspace accuracy to devastating effect. Their tactic is almost always to jump into the outer reaches of a system they suspect of having a human presence, detect the locations of human forces and then jump in again at close ranges where they have an overwhelming weapons advantage. I'm sure the UNSC would love to engage in long range battles where they could "snipe" Covenant ships with their MACs, but they don't have that option.
I think the main issue the UNSC were facing was that their ships were designed for putting down small insurrections and seldom saw ship to ship combat (if you could even call it that) prior to meeting the Covenant. By the time they met the Covenant, the UNSC was completely unprepared with competent naval officers being far and few between or being placed into positions they were ill suited for. It didn't help that Covenant fleets would jump almost directly on top of any battle formation the UNSC could put together before they even had a chance to react (take Reach for example) which also negated the range advantage the UNSC had on paper. The only thing the UNSC could do was buy time for wartime production and research to kick in and hopefully catch up which was what led to the spartans having shields on their armor during the last few years of the war (Mk. V was the first to have shields iirc) along with a few select ships, although shielding units were not usually available during the war. They were up against a horde of ships that were both faster, tougher and far deadlier with seasoned warriors and shipmasters in command of fleets and armies. Battles were typically evenly matched in ground and atmospheric engagements since UNSC ground forces had plenty of experience here, however naval engagements were completely one sided in the Covenant's favor with few exceptions. The fact that the war was dragged out for 20 years is all thanks to their ability to control information on their end, for example the Cole Protocol was essentially a denial of assets which would see navigational data along with shipboard AI being erased or outright destroyed in the event that capture or destruction of the ship was inevitable to prevent crucial intelligence from falling into enemy hands. It also prevented any direct jumps to large UNSC colonies or populations in order to safeguard important locations such as Earth and Reach. This is what allowed for the war to drag on long enough for the Covenant to begin doubting their leadership, some of those doubts started as early as Contact Harvest or earlier which gave the Covenant more than one target to chase after which likely left their attention divided. Eventually enough was enough and the Covenant fell into a civil war which ended up making them weaker than the UNSC, especially once their prophets were slain. Regret would regret meeting the Master Chief on Delta Halo, Mercy was not given mercy from Truth when the flood invaded High Charity and the Prophet of Truth was impaled by the Arbiter using an energy sword during the Battle of Installation 00 once his lies and betrayal of the Covenant had caught up to him. All of their deaths were kind of ironic. Personally I think the UNSC played a bad hand as best they could, they were thrown into what was essentially a WWI situation which was the largest war since the firing of the Halo array. Both sides were completely worn out by the time it came to a close and neither side would ever truly recover to their prewar numbers and strength.
This is all correct. Except for the part where the covebabt was allegedly weaker tgan the UNSC. Miranda litterally said in halo 3 that truths fleet smashed the orbital defence grid and proceeded to bombard the entire planet. It were the elites that did most of the work when it came to defeating the brutes. And after the war the elites could have easily kept going. Rtas litterally said he would have glassed the entire planet to defeat the flood. What exactly was Lord hood going to do? Attack a carrier with a handful frigates?
@@miniaturejayhawk8702 I said the Covenant eventually became weaker, especially since they were splintered after the prophets were slain and High Charity fell. If we talk based on ships and manpower alone then the Covenant come out on top hands down, but with few exceptions their leadership and political structure was heavily flawed which became their downfall in the end. Just my opinion though
Well said... I think the war of attrition basically brought both sides to the table much like ww1 did ,The German Army was not defeated but forced to concede by pressure back home . The Unsc was worn out and the Covenant splintered and leader less as such with no prophets and factions fighting among them selves . An end to hostilities was really the best solution for both sides .
@@darkbooger yeah, and some Sangheili clan leaders started killinc each other for resources, Sangheili states going into war everywhere, civil war, what was the Covenant before became a bunch of separated clans worried more about their neighbors instead of humanity, the UEG instead was still united for the most part.
@@alexisbaz8746 An Entire generation of humans grew up knowing nothing but defeat, fear and pain. We cannot fathom it, it wasn't an evil dictator ruining a country, it was a genocie on the entire human race at hands of an enemy they couldn't reason with. That vastly outgunned and outnumbered them. An entire generation who grew up to their 20's knowing nothing but work endlessly to manufacture stuff for the war efforts, as every day new colonies would go silent. it was by far the most dread and hopeless situation for humanity until the Covenant Civil War began. By the time the Covenant attacked earth, there were no reinforcements coming to aid it. It was going to be humanity's last stand , leaving only a handful of colonies to wait for the inevitable attacks.
It seems that most battles in Halo take place at ranges of 100,000 kilometers or further. Most of these engagements are due to both weapons limitations and the fact that the covenant is on the offensive and thus close the gap faster than the UNSC can run away. UNSC ships also need to fire their MACs at a specific range and time. So overall I find Halo space combat to be pretty realistic for the situation that is portrayed. I recommend a possible revisit of this video in the future in order to correct any mistakes or if new info comes out. I look forward to future lore videos!😁
UNSC loves to use Shiva missile nukes to take down shields and poke them full of holes with 3 to 10 MACs and use maneuvering blasts to even attempt to dodge Covenant plasma
@@alexisbaz8746 12km is spitting distance for ships as large as the ones in halo the particularly large vessels will look almost like they're flying side by side and that a slight direction change will cause them to scrape eachothers paint of at that pathetically short a range.
I would think a distance of multiple AUs is too far to be a practical combat range with the main weapons in Halo. Excluding lasers, the fastest UNSC weapons (pre-2553) stop accelerating some point at or before 4% the speed of light. At that speed it would take around 210 minutes or around *3.5 hours* for a MAC round to travel 1 AU, with such time the Covenant sensors would almost certainly detect the MAC round. So in order to even have an acceptable chance rate of hitting the range would likely have to be within a few hundred thousand km. Plus, most battles are started by the Covenant attacking "point blank" UNSC planets & stations, so the UNSC can't often use the distance advantage because they can't pick the battles. Still, I agree it should be more than a few dozen-hundred km like we sometimes see.
4/10 or 0.04 the speed of light for super mac platform or mps Infinity macs 1% of the speed of light idk maybe i know infinity Macs are stronger than mps because in halo 4 mps wasn't effective against the Didact ship infinity on the other hand damage the ship 4% of the speed of the light is wrong because they miss read its 4/10 is the speed of the light a lot of people make this mistake 10% of 4% is 0.04% the speed of light its a lot speed The unsc does not get to setback and shoot The Covenant can do same it Was not help the unsc needed to destroy the covenant ships to do that they need to be a lot closer
@@jokerray2011 ; The UNSC Infinity's MACs fire at 25% the speed of light. There is no area of the lore that states 1%. And no, it is not 0.04% the speed of light. It is 4%. 4/10ths the speed of light is 0.4C or 40%; .4/10ths is 4/100ths which is 0.04C or 4%. Plus, your math is wrong anyways as 10% of 4% is .4% not 0.04%. Regardless of these numbers, they all mean that distances in the AU range is too far to be realistically used in effective combat against moving spacecraft.
While watching this video I'm reminded of one of my favourite quotes from sifi, that I think accurately sums us how to use projectile weapons in space. For context, this is a Gunnery Officer railing away at some recruits on how to properly treat Battleship munitions. "I dare to think that you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty! When you fire this hunk of metal, it keeps going 'till it hits something! That could be a ship, or the planet behind that ship! It might go off into deep space and hit someone else in ten thousand years! If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining someone's day somewhere and some time! That is why you check your damn targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "eyeball it!" This is a weapon of mass destruction! You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip!"
I really, really, REALLY recommend people to watch The Expanse to get an idea how orbital mechanics and ship combat could work in space. No shields, no slipspace. Light delay and gravity take their toll and the show/books are just fantastic scifi completely recommend 10/10
The expanse is a very accurate portrayal of actual space combat maneuvering and tactics .. Great show and I agree with you 100 percent well worth a watch
@@Blue-Gold_Crusader i knoooow, if it were 10 episodes it would've been the best season by far but we're lucky to get a very good and natural conclusion to the show. We're not the biggest fanbase and it was expensive to make so, glad we got a good ending and if the powers that be are in in our favor, we'll eventually get a season 7 down the road
I think you should read the books. the books make it very clear that combat was done at long range in most cases for the UNSC. since they knew the covenant would not dodge a MAC round they could fire and have some confidence the Covenant would not dodge with their higher mobility. That said yes once the ships closed they tended to use more missiles and other point defense weapons. read the early Halo novels.
IRL, missiles (or torpedoes if we follow naval lingo) are far more viable for long range encounters in space warfare than rail or Gauss gun tech. Yes, initial velocity is much greater for a projectile accelerated to speeds far beyond speed of sound using magnets, but a torpedo can not only track targets over time, but also keep accelerating with impunity until they arrive at their target. When the only resistance factor to worry about is inertia, they can reach max speeds far greater than that of a typical kinetic weapon whilst in space.
@@guywholikesgoodmusic The issue with your argument was that the covenant was more than capable of destroying missiles fired at them via their point defense weapons. That's why entire battlegroups would unload a barrage all at once. Some would make it through but they wouldn't have the power to overwhelm or deplete the shield. The MACs however were impossible to shoot down, especially if a target was within their "kill zone". Within a certain range, there was nothing you could do to avoid a MAC. If it aimed at you and fired, it was making contact. The MAC barrage would pop the shields, cripple, or outright destroy multiple ships. Then the missile barrage that followed could finish off (or severely damage) shieldless ships, or be enough to overload the now weakened shields. The MAC just outright has the bigger punch, and depending on the type of MAC and targets, they were capable of punching clean through a fully shielded ship, gutting the ship behind it, while also damaging a 3rd ship.
@@goldenhedgehog9 Ok, so the literal only reason why MAC rounds are more effective than long-range torpedoes, scientifically, is because of the Covenant's habit of using slipspace technology to jump right to a planet's orbit. At that range, they are absolutely the better choice. However, when the UNSC attacks the Covenant, it should be done at long range where there's less risk using torpedoes. Think about it: if the torpedoes are being taken out by PDCs or shields, it's probably because of the explosive warhead being used against itself and triggering early. You take the explosive out of the equation, and you've essentially got a guided bullet that travels a not-insignificant fraction of the speed of light. Several million miles per hour, if given enough time to accelerate. You use this terrifyingly destructive ordnance against the Covenant fleet, and it does everything the MAC does from much further away. The Covenant primarily uses energy weapons, so even if they could target and hit it, they've still got to deal with a several ton molten heap of slag traveling thousands of times faster than the eye can track. In fact, a cannon that uses massive amounts of energy in space to power a rail/Gauss weapon would super-heat incredibly quickly, with little ways to cool off. Radiation is the only way to lose heat in space, and it's incredibly inefficient. Torpedoes could solve this issue by being launched before heat can convect through metal hulls. Ships that utilize stealth technology could launch these missiles from undetected positions. I understand that in a very close range battles, anything under a couple thousand miles, MAC weapons make sense. But space is big, and advancements in war have always been pioneered by new weapons with a longer effective range than their opponents. It's why we went from throwing rocks to bows and arrows, guns and bullets, to artillery to cruise missiles and ICBMs. There's little reason for these really close range battles at all, even from the Covenant's perspective using energy weapons. Space is huge and should be utilized as such.
@@guywholikesgoodmusic Under different circumstances I would agree, but the point is by your own admission moot given how combat actually occurred. Outside of a single digit number of occasions, such as the battle to retake Harvest, the UNSC was never on the attack in space. They were defensive fleets, stationed around their planets. The covenant also was capable of pin point in-system jumps, and if the UNSC could pick up covenant ships on sensors, the covenant could pick up the UNSC ships (with the exception of prowlers, which aren't combat ships). If they knew where the UNSC ships were, it's pretty much a guarantee that the covenant would be jumping in their face momentarily, so by the time any long range missiles fire and get to their destination, they'd have been fired at nothing. The most common "attack formation" (if you could even call it that) used by humanity during the war was destroyer wolfpacks, but those were only used post fleet battles because the UNSC barrage tactics relied on throwing as much mass as possible to destroy as many ships as possible. There was zero upside to pulling a ship that could punch well above it's weight thanks to it's dual MACs out of fleet, and if the UNSC was resorting to wolfpacks, it usually meant the planetary defense fleet was in shambles and they were just trying to hound ships at the edge of formations to buy time for reinforcements or exacuations.
i think i have seen that the UNSC ships have a 100k mile engagement range the reason why battles happens so close is that the covenant can make inter system hyper jumps where they weapons are more effective and because of course it looks cooler
I disagree, there are plenty more where they came from and you only need one of them to get through the enemy defences to take them down. It’s the ships you must protect and if you have a asset as large and power as the Infinity you must protect it at all costs.
@@backupplan6058 the infinity didnt exist before halo 4. And until halo infinte it was basically invincible and could single-handedly take out covenant fleets. It was basically a forerunner ship with some human stuff strapped on it.
I think missile combat in space, as far as fuel is concerned, can actually be improved and the consequences mitigated to a great extent. While yes, there will always be a certain degree of limited range, there are definitely workarounds to improve the situation. - A single missile acting as the "carrier" for several smaller warheads can improve range as the primary missile size is increased without increasing the warheads size or number. - Maneuvering jet thrusters along the lengths of a main warhead can provide greater flexibility in redirection along a flight path to reduce the odds of missing a target, effectively turning any missile into a kamikaze-drone. - Utilizing the seemingly ubiquitous technology in Halo of micro-nuclear fuel cells for propulsion, directing small-scale nuclear reaction energy out the back to propel the missile forward, allowing for more fuel to be stored depending on the fuel used. - Using Dumb AI to control a carrier missile with a multi-warhead payload to target/warhead deployment coordinates, allowing for fuel reserving by selecting the best route rather than an "A to B" linear path that can be easily outmaneuvered by the Covenant. That said, applying plasma technology to the multiple warhead payloads of UNSC weapon systems such as the ARCHER missile pod would save the UNSC on have to toss nuke after nuke just to drown out the Covenant ship's shields, let alone tearing through the outer hull for damage.
Nukes in space contrary to how it is often portrayed don't tear through anything. They are mostly a thermal and EMP weapon dumping radiation onto the enemy ship.
As a supporter of the US military, student of history and a fan of Halo, I have been thoroughly enjoying your series as each episode has come out! Great work Cabezon, please keep up the good work!
As you said, speed of light is the big limiter in space combat. The biggest reason that humanity had to close the distance in space combat was the limitations of their main weapon, the MAC. A frigate could only fire a round from their MAC at about .03C. Now that is not much, about 9KM/s, which also meant their EFFECTIVE range was maybe, MAYBE 100km if the Covy's didn't detect the shot in time to dodge. Then begins the slow process of recharging their MAC which could take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes depending on variables. Now the larger ships could fire their MAC at much higher velocity but still ran into the limitations of effective range limitations. So what the UNSC did was accelerate their ships to whatever their max was to gain that little bit extra of starting velocity and usually waited till the Covy's were inside their assured kill basket, basically knife fighting range in space terms before they fired, then prayed that return fire missed. UNSC was also at a disadvantage in most fights because as the defenders, there was really nowhere to run to. They HAD to stop or delay the Covy's for as long as possible to give the planet or facility time to evac. This on top of the Covy's shields, better maneuverability and acceleration, communications, gravitics....... the list goes on. The humans were so completely outclassed it was insane. Even being the better strategists and tacticians humans just could not compete long term. The fact they last 27 years was incredible. One thing I think humans could have done that would have been a game changer would have been making their MAC rounds guided and self propelled. Cost of rounds would have gone up but having a guided MAC round would have been insane and cut the cost of lives and ships dramatically. We are already seeing this capability with the new 5 in guns going on our destroyers. A round is programmed and fired and the round has it's own propulsion and guidance system which can then track and kill it's target well over the horizon.
Where has there ever been a scenario in the games/books where a MAC took 15 minutes to recharge? From what I've gathered, it's more like 2-5 minutes, depending on how much energy is sent to the gun to recharge (MACs don't have to be fully charged to fire a projectile).
@@CaseyCollier Not accounting for battle damage, power being used for other systems or any number of other variables that can happen in combat. I was providing a range because someone would inevitably come up with a problem with whatever number I stated... Oh hey, here you are
@@Abrxas01 Fair enough. I've just never heard of a MAC taking 15 minutes to recharge. I suppose it could happen, but it'd be very unlikely, given the charge times we've generally seen in the games and books.
2:46 ouuu, never thought I'd see a "The Operations Room" video on a Halo video. That's cool to see. The video in question is "A One Day War with Iran - Operation Praying Mantis, 1988 - Animated" and the timestamp is roughly 11:30 in that video for this particular clip.
In terms of low visibility and stealth technology against radar, I personally think it is a moot point in space warfare, especially where battle ranges are pushing tens of thousands of kilometers. Let me explain: Our current naval radar technology (AEGIS, AESA) is based on flat panel phased array systems. The newest AEGIS radar systems can effectively spot aircraft at ~400-500 kilometers, albeit through an atmosphere. Remove the atmosphere and you might at best triple that range, but for sake of advancements in technology we will say 2000km for your average AEGIS in space. 2000 kilometers in space is more or less the equivalent of visual range in surface warfare today. Perhaps with a larger ship an AEGIS radar will spot it at 3000-5000 kilometers, but the same applies - that's really close. Realistic standoff range in space is beyond 10000 kilometers, so using radar to detect targets which are approaching will not be effective. Instead, it will come down to infrared optics or thermal scopes which can easily spot high-energy fusion engines in the cold emptiness of space. Additionally, turning on your radar in space is like shining a flashlight in a dark room - it's a giant "kick me" sticky note. Unless you want to precisely target something within 5000km, active radar spotting won't be very effective. Okay that's probably very confusing but my point is because of massive range and the fact that our current radar technology is more or less topping out, radar stealth won't be very important, and neither will radar - hence brick-shaped not-stealthy ships. It will absolutely still be used but just not for standoff engagements and spotting - that task lies with thermal optics. Also unguided kinetic weapons only make sense within close quarters (ie. what we see in the Halo games). Missiles will pretty much forever remain the primary arsenal because of independent guidance and constant acceleration.
Good takes all around, the only difficulty I could imagine using infrared sensors is the lack of distance information. Since it's passive location it would only give you bearing right? My knowledge in this stuff is limited but it is cool to talk about.
@@TheBigCabezon An addendum to my previous: *ranging* radar (ie. single-point or narrow-beam radar) would be used for ranging data. Thermals would still be used for spotting. There's also the option of using parallax on a thermal optic or knowing the distance between two thermal scopes on your ship and determining an angle to get range. A ranging laser could also be used instead.
@@monarch3335 Thermals would probably be the primary way to detect other craft. If you know where to look, you can detect anything that has mere fractions of fractions of degrees off of the void background. Given that radiating heat is the only means of getting rid of heat in space and a ships engines are far hotter than space, that would mean stealth is next to impossible.
Kinda late response, but very good point in context with modern day. For ranges, you can pretty much see forever up until C (speed of light) becomes unreliable. Other than that, replace aegis with a simple dumb AI and it becomes much more effective. Props
One of the reasons to keep it close is to keep them in MAC range, since as you said, MAC's needed firing solutions to make the rounds count, and another thing, if you nullify their slipspace advantage by getting considerably close, you are keeping them at sight rather than let them jump from ship to ship. Another interesting thing is that, UNSC discovered that plasma torpedoes that the Covenant used as long range weaponry could rip layer after layer of Titanium-A armor, so their tactics usually consisted on outnumbering the Covenant, using the MAC's to shred their shields and finish them off via another MAC round or a complete barrage of missiles, that's why Frigates were so used, their purpose was to bring down the shields while being less of a target than Cruisers. Covenant ships are great at long range, specially if your weapons take longer to arrive then they have more time to recharge their shields.
Covenant are faster and durable enough to force close range encounters. If you look at expanded lore, the UNSC tries to engage at max distance and use cover. However, they're slower and often on the defense. If your only effective weapons are massive orbital space stations, you can only retreat so far. Also, the Covenant are slip space jumping very close to the planet, they can even jump in the atmosphere. For Covenant with their shields, it makes sense to get in close. You can crush them immediately, or give the enemy a chance to slowly focus fire your ships.
Valid, the next thing the UNSC could leverage is signature management. Can't be shot if you can't be found. Emissions control (radio), thermal, light, all valid concerns for the present world and we have set protocols we step down through to make ourselves harder and harder to find.
@@proper7439 Which is bollocks in reality, because how the hell do you even make plasma homing? It's ionized gas, not some sort of slug or smart projectile.
@@Josua070 it's an ancient alien species with technology thousands of years beyond ours trying to wipe us out based on the delusion that some ancient alien race with giant death rings want them to. Bungie wasn't exactly going for realism
If I remember correctly, covenant ships had way superior slip space drives which allowed for more accurate and frequent jumps. This allowed for quick blitz tactics. Kinda like comparing muskets to an M4 in terms of maneuverability. Plus many UNSC ships were designed for human wars, not human v alien tec, until in the later stages of the war. Different tactics for different wars
There are two large problems with the tactic of "Stay far away and use stealth/deception" 1. The UNSC is on the defensive the vast majority of the time: Battles between UNSC and Covenant naval assets usually take place over UNSC colonies, so the UNSC doesn't get the chance to decide when they engage, its up to the Covenant to decide when the battle happens. Also, if the UNSC ships scattered and tried to hide the moment Covenant were detected, the chances are very high that the Covenant would just glass the planet and move on, not bothering to search for a group of enemies now cut off from resources and backup. 2. the Covenant FTL technology absolutely eclipses what the UNSC possesses: To use their FTL a UNSC ship must first reach a point where its safe for them to activate their FTL without dragging other objects in with it, and unaffected by outside forces, and then their arrival is fairly inaccurate and takes some time to recover from. Its also essentially unusable for intra-system jumps, meaning its only good for moving from one star system to another. Covenant FTL on the other hand can be used at any time (It was once even used to escape from falling INTO a gas giant successfully), arriving within a few atoms of where they want to nearly instantaneously (if the jump is made within system) and with a recovery time of a couple dozen seconds. When you combine these facts with the how much better their sensor technology must be, if a Covenant vessel detects a long range attack it can simply teleport behind the attacker, ram its salvo of plasma up its unmentionables and be on its way again. And if we go for the stealth attack, well a missile barrage would be detected too easily and could just be avoided with a micro-FTL jump to outside the missile's range, and now the Covenant know where the attacker is, and again, teleport behind, plasma barrage. The only stealth attacks that have a chance of working are if one of the stronger UNSC vessels caught one of the weaker Covenant vessels with a MAC round, any other situation probably wouldn't even crack the shields, and in that case again the attacker has revealed position, commence "Nothin' personal kid". This is why I believe the 1 to 3 ratio required for a kill on a Covvie ship for the UNCS: their tech is just so damn far above your own and hard to counter that you need good tactics AND numbers to even have a chance To bring it back to the example you had in the video: It'd be like Iran's navy trying to fight the American Navy, but the American ships could also just teleport the moment they detected an Iranian ship/missile and the American ships also have a shield that if you can't breach it, you can't deal any meaningful or lasting damage
Agreed the Covenant's energy shields are the most prominent foil to any long range strategy. Destroying a Covenant ship, usually requires repeated hits in rapid succession... Unless you're talking about something like a huge orbital MAC!
This explanation hits the nail on the head. Shooting at a Covenant CCS cruiser a light minute away from a Super MAC at 0.04c sounds great, but realistically, that just wouldn't happen. It would be like if we had the ability to teleport a battleship right next to an aircraft carrier today. If we could do that, then the battleship would suddenly become very relevant in naval warfare, even though the carrier has far greater range. Range is irrelevant when faster-than-light pinpoint extradimensional movement is possible, like it is in Halo. Who cares if you can accurately shoot a target 1 mile away with your rifle when the enemy will appear out of nowhere within punching distance wielding a sword. Yeah, the gun has more range than the sword, but at close range, the sword will just tear you up while your rifle probably never got a shot off. Now, go back and read that sentence again, but replace "sword" with "plasma torpedo," and replace "rifle" with "MAC."
Also, Covenant also employed Point Defense Systems in the form of small, very accurate energy lances along the hull. Jilan Al-cygni from Contact Harvest remarks how very accurate they are, and a missle firing from the distances used in space is VERY noticeable. SHIVA nukes would have to be hidden in a flurry of missles for a chance of impacting the shielding of a Covenant ship.
One thing I was always eager to point out to others and have not had the chance so will steal it now, is the fact that conservation of motion means MAC does not have a factorable maximum effective range, but Cortana mentions a kill range in Halo 2. The reason is as you mentioned for other weapons, a strategically considerable range, that is, the Covenant were far enough to maneuver away from MAC by the time MAC rounds reach their location.
Couple factors. 1) The HC war was almost entirely a defensive fight in Naval terms. Covenant tended to come out of Slipspace right on the planets doorstep. Without an offensive target to strike, that lets the OPFOR dictate the location and terms of engagement in most cases. 2) Limited ammunition capacity. There are only so many MAC rounds and missiles a ship can carry so ripple firing at long distance is going to exhaust stores quickly without much effect. When talking about planetary systems it's a long way to the resupply point.
MAC rounds were just iron slugs though so it would not take any sort of advanced manufacturing to make them. and it's canon that hit and run tactics with destroyers using salvo's of MAC rounds was one of the most effective tactics.
@@EvelynNdenial MAC rounds are ferric-tungsten, the majority percentage of the rounds make up being tungsten, not iron. Destroyer wolfpack tactics were successful, but if they were being applied then the main defensive fleet was already in shambles post fleet engagement. There was no tactical or strategic advantage for pulling destroyers from the main fleet pre-battle when they could punch well above their weight thanks to their dual MACs. If destroyers are now engaging it hit and runs, they are just trying to buy time either for reinforcements to arrive or to give evacuations more time to complete. It was far from an offensive tactic and more just a distraction.
Mac rounds would only work at beyond-sensor ranges for targets in constant orbits because it will take hours or even days around large planets and high-orbital-radius planets for MAC shots to hit their targets. In practice I think MAC cannons would only be effective at ranges in the order of hundreds of miles since according to Halo wiki, a ship-based MAC shoots slugs at 30 km/s. Maybe several thousand miles. I don't think ship-based MACs could really take advantage of slingshotting. But orbital MACs according to Halo Wiki fire slugs at 12, 000 km/s. I'm gonna call it 12 Mega meters. Orbital platforms might be able to bombard other planets at these speeds! I don't know how orbits vary in practice (whether it can be accurate enough), I only know the ideal case.
I have a bit of a point in that the UNSC definitely had some sort of FTL capabilities. In Halo 2 Cortana detected the Covenant fleet (whispers near Io), less than 30 seconds later the fleet was at Earth. Then ofc slipspace itself is FTL travel.
The issue is the covenant can accurately fire plasma projectiles at UNSC ships at range where they're nearly undetectable. The only reason the UNSC had any success whatsoever was because of their adaptability and creativity. Covenant fleet masters and captains of ships weren't very creative, 9 times out of 10 they could show up with no strategy and win with almost no casualties
I have a couple of points from my personal point of view regarding HALO space combat represented in the games and why it is potrayed so close by especially when space combat is visualised: - 1: the cinematic effect: same as Star Wars, some of the combat scenarios are represented closer in scale to what they would actually be like, so instead of being at 0.5km as the cinematic portrays the combat the battle could actually happen at 500 km or more and in the case of long-range weaponry, we could also talk about thousands of kilometers away or more, but the scenes would not be as visceral and action-packed like a "sail-ship" type combat where the ships would align in close proximity to fire all their weapons, even the Covenant energy weapons could have hundreds or thousands of km range since in void the energy dissipation is minimal, compared to a planetary atmosphere (where the beam energy is lost trough heating the air that is passing trough for example) - 2 : ammo conservation: space is pretty vast, even if slip-stream technology is available and it may take a lot of time before you can re-arm your ships so making your shots count and getting as close as possible to a 100% hit rate would be a high priority in combat strategy - 3: countering jamming and target interference: it's easier to counter and jam targeting systems at long range and if we add up to this some space radiation, solar flares etc plus some jamming tactics by the enemy flotilla, then your targeting systems will have a very hard time to track your enemy properly, but closing in to the enemy vessels it would allow you to lock on target with less effort and more precision and even pass trough to the jamming efforts (same as how a SAM missile could still follow your general direction if it's close by and hit you, even if you launch flares) - 4: full Covenant technological superiority: at first, UNSC didn't even have shield tech on their ships, while Covenant ships could tank up a lot of enemy shots with ease without fearing the shield will be lost - combine this with their lethal weapons, numeric superiority and aggressive tactics, the UNSC ships usually stood no chance against the Covenant army while the Covenant itself didn't bother to even consider losing a couple of ships as an issue since they had plenty to overwhelm the enemy before mounting too many losses; I saw people mentioning this already in the comments before, but this element factors in so much that I believe it needs to be re-addressed - 5: Covenant preferred aggressive tactics: this works well in hand with point 4, but it deserves a separate mention since Halo games always portrays Elites and Brutes attacking human soldiers close and personal, some of them even preferring to use plasma swords and giant melee hammers, even the Hunters will engage you with their sturdy shields if they get close enough Sorry for my rant - but I hope this creates a better image of Halo and it's portrayed universe.
The MAC cannons usually require an AI to fire accurately but Manetic cannons like the MAC or Gauss type weapons are perfect in space, there is nothing to cause friction to slow down the very fast solid projectile which can in theory travel almost forever in space until it's effected by the gravity field of a planet or some other object. About the ranges the posistion of the camera does not display the scale of these ships they are huge so the spaces between them could be HUGE, also the UNSC probably goes into what you call 'short' range' because their missiles do not carry enough fuel to go any further...
It is a very interesting problem (space combat) and most games and movies just don’t pay attention to the different type of challenges. And yes- the video is very good in pointing out long range engagements. Probably too long range engagement is not practical. Even future energy weapons cannot be focused and strong enough (lest alone the issue of target acquisition and tracking). Also- missiles fired too far are also impractical. Probably drones piloted by AI are from my perspective the likeliest weapon. It can find a ship (even after hours and days of searching)- it can then attack the enemy ships with directed energy weapons, missiles and kinetic weapons - and then either way give the enemy ship the final blow with a suicide attack or can be picked up by the mother ship (probably it will be out of fuel after the attack.
The thing is MAC guns so in theory have nearly infinite range since its essentially a giant slingshot. 1st law of motion would make those mac round travel insane distances.
Sure, their range is theoretically infinite, but most space battles would be hundreds of thousands of miles apart, if not millions. So, that would be like shooting a gun at someone who's ten yards away, but the bullet only travels a foot every minute and it's really easy to see. That's about how useful MAC guns would be beyond a couple thousand miles.
One minor critcism: You can very much project a laser across the solar system, it's just not very easy and you won't be accurate enough due to inherent system innacuracy and light delay. THat's why only guided weapons wil be effective at large ranges. Regarding range in general, I'd say the issue is slipspace travel. Being capable of micro jumps, the covenant will pretty much appear on top of you, peaking in astronomical distances. That will probably happen before you detect their original arrival in system, due to light delay. Also they are usually going after planets, meaning the UNSC can't play hide and seek as they need to engage in order to keep the covenant from assaulting their planets (by whatever means). Hiding is mostly also a non-option in space. Afaik we can detect the waste heat of a human body in the orbit of saturn in our day and age. So without obstruction, masquerade or active cloaking there's no option of staying undetected in space. This also applies to the missile thing at the start btw. Missiles could very much have a lock on their own sensor from the moment they're launched.
Like many others have pointed out and you've readily acknowledged, this video would be great in any other Sci fi setting, the problem with it addressing Halo space combat being that it ignores how most space battles play out which is at very short defensive ranges where the Covenant has jumped in system right on top of whatever defences are present, Otherwise though great series, really enjoying this grounded look at Halos military aspects
as long as they don’t do Ship to ship battles like aherm star wars, but they UNSC actually uses missiles! 😮UnHeArd.. and kinetic weapons like MaC guns.
something to note MAC cannons fire at some percentage the speed of light. at that speed the angle a round would be deflected from a planets gravity would be minuscule.
Done optically? Have you read the novels on space combat in Halo? They're not done optically or that close of a range - only for certain situations and so on.
@@TheBigCabezon Then the video is kinda pointless if one's ignoring over half the evidence of how space combat is done in the lore (BVR in thousands upon thousands of km) when visual scenes are more specific circumstances to say they're the norm. Close combat battles are done either because of specific circumstance like Regret's carriers bumrushing the Home fleet or simply artistic license rather than accuracy.
honestly, from what little i have read in halo, the Covenant kind of match or perhaps even outclass the UNSC even from range, their plasma torpedoes constantly melt UNSC vessels and their Kewu-pattern battleship can pick off entire carriers easily, though they were only seen once only once. The UNSC's best hope is at range, but it's not like it'd be easy for them, plus, covvie plasma weapons can outrange even ODPs, so it'd be a tough fight regardless.
Talking about the halo longsword is laughable when describing it as a fighter. It is the size of a B-2 stealth bomber, can operate in space and atmosphere, and is armed to the teeth with heavy autocannon, missiles, and nukes. The longsword is a very good and not unrealistic (on paper) scifi space fighter.
One thing about disnce the covenant can do in system jumps so yes the UNSC can strike first then the covenant can slip jump right to the UNSC location in an instant
I feel like stealth class ships that laid mines were heavily underutilized. I can't remember which book this was - but a prowler was able to lay a whole bunch of mines and knocked out a ton of the Covenants shields when they entered normal space.
There shouldn't be any problem targeting something at the other side of the solar system apart from the quality and size of a laser emitter Look up light sail propulsion for some interesting reading
The lost fleet series really go into the detail about space combat and controlling fleet formations when dealing with ships moving at fractions of the speed of light
nah there was some instances where the covvies still got the unsc when we tried those tactics, but also they'd ambush the unsc frequently because they had forerunner tech for things like predictions and would predict where we'd come out and just be waiting, because their traverse times for slipspace was higher than ours
So one interesting thing about Lasers, is that just like MAC's their range is theoretically infinite (in space) with the main difference being that lasers are basically concentrated beams of light, tus moving at the speed of light. Meaning that if the Covenant detect a UNSC ship as long as their laser projectors can be moved into position fast enough, they can essentially hit the detected ship mere seconds after detection.
I think a big factor in determining distances in the battles are, as you said, the Covenant's ability to perform in-system jumps and get up close and personal where the UNSC doesn't want them. Several of the battles that take place out in deep space or even in the midst of a Slipstream transmission are done at the hundreds of thousands of kilometers, and the AI's have to take over the firing control systems to even have shots land in the first place. The thing here is that if the Covenant can show up AT your planet, you never have the opportunity to engage at that comfortable distance. That's why the UNSC ramped up construction of their orbital defense platforms, because they realized that many of their battles were going to take place at the thousands or even hundreds of kilometers at most, because just like the UNSC wants to play to their strengths, they are also fighting an enemy which knows how to play to its own strengths in return.
While I agree with your point, you have to remember that the covenant have VERY precise slipspace jump capabilities, they can jump right next to a target 1 or 2 km away to directly engage it up close. As shown in the fall of Reach short movie, covenant ship would just get detected by a unsc ship, then it disappears, and a few seconds later it reappears next to the unsc ship. Sure the unsc should be to use those long range tactics, and they have, I think there is a famous destroyer captain who managed to destroy a squad of covenant ship like this, but most of the time I would expect the covenant to manage to get closer one way or another.
So, from what I know in lore, the UNSC Naval Doctrine is based around the MAC guns every ship has it, and their battle formations reflect this. In a lot of battles, they were able to use the Doctrine, but with Covenant ships being faster and stronger they just barrel forward in formation to get within 100k or less to fire plasma torpedoes and the such. With such tactics being used against them they lose.
It feels like some of the points you proposed for why they would want to be at range are actually points why they would want to be up close. MAC rounds are dumb and can’t course adjust, so the chance of hitting decreases dramatically at longer ranges where travel time leaves plenty of time for evasive manoeuvres. You also comment the other two offensive weapons they use are missiles and fighters. Both of these would want to be used at shorter ranges as they will have limited fuel and so may not be able to operate at extended ranges.
I think its been mentioned but the Covenant had way more precise jump technology and would either stay out of range like in Halo 2 or jump close enough to human ships so that range becomes irrelevant. I think human ships would have an advantage at long range but just didn't have the technology to have the initiative.
It's because the UNSC is always in the defensive and covenant ships has advance slipspace drive than can out manuver or even appear at pointblank range plus they also have energy shields so they can brute force their way in if they wanted to
What would make sense are tactics like that of in the sci fi series the expanse. Ships engaging with torpedoes and anti air fire from thousands of kilometers away. Only problem is we know the that the MAC cannons are the only UNSC weapon that can actually take out covenant ships, nukes are ineffective in space in halo. And MAC cannons are short range weapons where you need visual of the enemy, and be close enough the covenant so that they can't dodge the MAC round.
Another cool video and analyze, but... 1. Covenant has way better slipspace drives than UNSC. Covenant ships can do precise inside system jumps. About UNSC hypothesis for long-range combat, Covenant could just slipspace jump to close the gap fast if they feel they are getting constantly out-ranged. 2. More important factor: MAC rounds (Only UNSC working weaponry to pierce Covenant shields) are not stealth material. Pretty sure covenant radars which detect ships and random debris can also detect MAC rounds. Under 100k km space combat like its in Halo lore. Under 100k Super MAC round (0.04c) can travel 100k in 8seconds, ship based MAC's are mostly at least 10 times slower (Very few exceptions, like UNSC super carriers and later Infinity), can still close the distance fast enough to overcome Covenant reactional dodge. For firing at longer distances than Covenant weapon range, ship based MAC's do not have enough speed to close the gap fast enough to overcome Covenant ships maneuvering capabilities. AI can predict the ships movement, but this prediction is nullified the moment Covenant radars pick up a MAC round coming at them (as MAC's are moving nowhere close to 1c, like radar detection). Then its just react and dodge accordingly as Covenant has multiple minutes to dodge if its a ship based MAC. There is a reason why UNSC fires MAC's at full fleet sized alpha strike volleys at the time (then there is a delay where all ships are recharging). Its way harder to dodge when 100 MAC slugs are coming at you at once.
Covenant always just pinpoint slipspace jump on top of the UNSC ships. People like to say the best part of the Covenant tech is the shields or the weapons but their ability to accurately and quickly travel is their major advantage and they use it to brutal effect.
Love Halo Combat. I wouldn’t take anything away.. but absolutely add more missiles and drones. Every huge ship should also have a primary laser. Even if all the laser accomplishes is heating up the enemy ship… worth it
UNSC ships are almost like tanks instead of warships, for example: tanks usually have a main cannon and maybe a pintle mounted machine gun (240, maybe an M2, etc) and that's it. Same stuff with UNSC ships: they have the MAC, a few archer missiles & nukes, and then just point-defense CIWS for engaging fighter craft. Compared to a modern destroyer or the battleships of WW2, they're freakin lacking! The old ships had about 3-4 turrets (2 front, 1-2 aft), each turret having 2-3 separate cannons. So if they fired all their main guns at a single target, you're looking at 6 rounds minimum, 12 at the high end. That's a lot of firepower and it was needed back during WW2. It's needed to fight the covenant. If they're not gonna make a supersized ship with 12 separate, full power MAC guns on it, they can at least make destroyers with a slightly less powerful MAC, but have more of them. Picture a ship about double the Pillar of Autumn's size, but with at least 4 MAC guns from a frigate (like the FUD, IAC, Savannah, Grafton, etc) - and mounted on a turred for easier aiming. I know, I know, the guns are huge but the post-war UNSC could absolutely do it. Hell, maybe take the MAC technology, assist it with Covenant gravity tech, and have a much more powerful cannon for a much smaller package.
The light speed lag is actually even worse than what you describe. Assuming an engagement range of a couple AU (which is insane), you're talking about a lag-time of 8-16 minutes. So when you sight an enemy contact, you are seeing where they were 8-16 minutes ago. To plot a firing solution you need to predict where they moved to in the time since the light left them and reached you, and then predict from that prediction where they will be when your round reaches them. I think realistically, engagement ranges would be at distances measured in light-seconds, not AUs.
The Covenant would probably just slipspace jump into knife fighting range once they found where that MAC round came from. UNSC only gets a couple of shots.
Hard answer before watching the video: I say no matter what media you're seeing it in, there is a high likelihood that any space combat you see is being done wrong. For the simple fact that no one has ever done space combat. We have a good understanding of the physics, and what is possible, but by the time it becomes a reality we may have new technologies which completely change the way things could possibly happen. Just like Air Power completely revolutionized war, space combat will be a completely new frontier, and will go through some very quick evolutions as new data is fed into models and run through simulations, and people try out new things. It will be exciting to see.
I think it's because fighting at that great distance you can see the attack coming long before it reaches you thus can move out the way or intercept it, they can also slipstream away. Up close and personal harder to dodge or intercept. You can probably test it by using a baseball at say 10ft to a 100ft, 200ft see if you can move out the way in time or throw something to knock it off course.
Since space doesn't have the factor of needing to worry about range of kinetic weapons. I'd imagine a lot of UNSC ships would take place large distances away. With skilled artillery men meant to predict, aim, and fire long distances.
One thing the UNSC could do with their technology and utilizing what they like to use is take their MACs and use them to fire a sabot round... a sabot round that contains a missile. A missile with MIRV/smaller missiles inside of it. Why? One of the disadvantages of missiles in space is their deltaV limitations and their speed. If you want a fast missile, it's not going to have much range. If you want a longer range missile, it's not going to be as fast and it's not going to be very maneuverable. If you use a MAC to get the saboted missile in the general vicinity of the enemy ship, however, the missile is arriving at the target very, very fast (much faster than it would if you launched it, since coilgun technology in the Halo universe is outrageously powerful and measured in percentages of C) and *_will arrive at the target with its full fuel load._* This way you could have missiles with larger warheads. You don't need as much fuel to get the missile to the target, after all. They only need to have a short burn to intercept the target and course correct if you were decently accurate to begin with. MIRVs/Cluster missiles would also mean less chances of them being intercepted by Covenant CIWS and more hit probability and more chances to overwhelm their shields and get a damaging hit on the hull itself.
If human can make FTL why not just weaponized it. for halo just launch something and slingshot around, when you want to use it just fly a slipspace ship near the weapon and enter with your slipspace. when you come out of the slipspace you will have a Meteor shower like Torpedoes or etc. going rampage on enemy solar system.
IIRC; in the lore of the books and games, most FTL travel Humans had was imprecise by a degree of multiple AUs, they wouldn't be able to target a ship or planet with slipspace even if they tried. It is not until post-war that UNSC slipspace drives get more precise and with the exception of the UNSC Infinity that is still likely in terms of 100s of thousands, if not millions of kilometers. Only Forerunner slipspace drives (like what the UNSC Infinity has) are advance enough for something that precise.
The Culture which served as a major insperation for the forunners fought like that. They park a ship a solar system away and use FTL to dump micro black holes anti matter, combat robots and other nasty shit into the inside of enemy vessels or fleet formations. That said human slip space isn't precise takes a lot of power and to the best of my knowledge need the drive on the object that's being moved making disposable FRL torpedoes way to cost intensive and unless you slapping on a nova bomb not worth it
Alien(s) actually had a interesting take on Spatial Warfare, and likened warfare in space (especially interstellar space) to like a sub hunting a sub. Comparatively the UNSC is undergoing "trial by fire" as an infant when compared to the Covenant. Since Humanity only had to fight humanity, the UNSC was only prepared to handle human threats- Not covenant. Still, when it comes to detection natural phenomenon will distort or "jam" signals, then there's time from projection to refraction. As an example, it takes a signal to go from earth to Voyager is just over 19 hours at 20 kilowatts. (that's if it not bounced off an atmosphere, or absorbed by an atmosphere or other body, or even redirected by refraction). Visual ranges while augmented by Camera lenses would be almost twice the distance here on earth, but we're not looking for large objects like the sun or a distant star. We're looking for things that are the size of a small pin, and colored to blend in (somewhat) with their surroundings. So while someone could see Jupiter with ease, seeing a Covenant or UNSC ship would a lot harder. So effectively you're running blind at beyond visual ranges. In this instances fighters and even fast light escorts would be invaluable in extending detection and acquisition ranges. They're still going to be limited by the same factors so, ships being able to share data will be critical. I would assume that Space naval battles would essentially be done in wolf pack style with a minimum of two ships hunting together, spaced far enough apart that their sensors overlap but don't confuse the others. (In all honesty Communication and exploration in space by a large number of ships would make for a very noisy place) However one ship hunting one even in system is likely to have either looking for a needle in a haystack. Honestly, it would seem that neither the Covenant nor the UNSC were really prepared for fleet on fleet actions. Most of the weapons are geared towards ground based offenses and in support of those offensives. So to use an axiom from Battletech "Wars don't start on the ground, they end there.". Ships in this respect, for HALO, seem to be geared towards ferrying troops from point A to Point B and returning. Thus, dealing with offensive ships seems to be more or less and after thought; and at least on the part of the UNSC, the outer wall of a planets defense. The Covenant theory seems to be Lightning quick strikes to disable key defenses ( by jumping into system) and overwhelming planet side defenses (or what ever is left of them). I figure Naval combat in space even by FTL drives would very tedious in terms of maneuver and time. You're going to need excellent intel, and at least a qualitative knowledge of your "enemy" and their tactics- something neither the UNSC nor the Covenant really had despite the technological edge displayed by the covenant. In the end, finding a Ring by accident did more to sustain humanities fight against the Covenant and increase it's capabilities, than any other element including the spartan program. Finally time and space is going to be an issue 19 days in Warp is still 19 days. Logistics of either Navy is going to be a persistent and nearly insurmountable obstacle (Hence why the covenant had places like "High Charity" and "Unyielding Hierophant") You're gonna need places like this to leap frog from. (which makes it more likely that you will encounter an expeditionary force rather than a dedicated main fleet, division, or squadron.
2:00 i think the only reason "standoff" is viable on the seas is because you can use standoff in combination with the horizon to hide your munitions.... in space getting closer might actually be better for the survival of your munitions
Some fundamental misunderstandings of the lore and the absolute dire situation humanity is in in the Bungie games. Part of the reason the UNSC gets relatively close is that their most powerful naval weapons are their MAC cannons (gigantic coilguns), which are their only reliable way to take down Covenant shielding. While these giant slugs are being launched at extremely high speeds, they're still relatively slow when we're talking the scale of space; ie: they have some significant travel time. Covenant ships simply move out of the way and the rounds miss. With shipboard AI, they can predict their positions and aim them a little better, but it's still hard against a maneuvering target. Humanity does have ranged guided munitions (missiles, nukes, etc), but they're almost useless against energy shields. Not only that (and someone already pointed this out), humanity is on the defensive in almost every single engagement of the war. As in, the covenant attacks them first, and the UNSC is trying to hold what they've got, not back off to longer range and leave their planet defenseless. This also ties into the significant travel time for MAC rounds. Also, the Covenant can jump into "knife fight" range easily due to their far more advanced Forerunner slipspace drives, able to position them far more precisely. This is compared to human ships that need to jump to the approximate location they want, then maneuver with sublight engines.
Modern naval combat has next to nothing in common with combat in space. The concept of stealth in space for one is almost absurd given how difficult it would be to mask a thermal signature like that in a vacuum, not to mention all of the other factors that could give a ship away. Line of sight is almost always established unless you're fighting around planetary bodies. There's simply not a lot of things in space to obstruct vision. On top of that, space combat would be incredibly fast paced, with individual engagements taking anywhere between two minutes to two seconds. You're correct about engagement ranges being longer than shown in the games, but the novels paint a much more realistic picture. It's still close quarters at ten to thirty thousand kilometers, but it acknowledges the fast pace of combat and maneuvering while also implementing orbital mechanics. There are many problems here, but Halo having Star Wars syndrome and overplaying point blank brawling isn't one of them. If anything it's closer to modern dogfighting. You also say lasers are short range weapons with them losing focus at close range, but that's very far off the mark. Lasers absolutely can be focused across a system. There's no atmosphere in space for it to disperse, and it will maintain cohesion up to 2 lightyears. What limits lasers in space combat is heat management and light lag. Lasers typically run very hot and need lots of radiators and heat sinks to keep running, and beyond 300,000 km you're dealing with just over a one second delay between you firing and the laser hitting the target. Depending on the power of the laser, the latter can make it entirely worthless at that range. Advanced targeting systems could however help with this significantly, and they're still more than effective at 100,000 km. You don't need to be within visual range. Unguided ballistic weapons are worthless. They do a lot of damage, but they move too slowly to reliably hit a moving target (and to be clear, there is no such thing as a stationary target in void combat), even at near light speed (which itself is probably more trouble than its worth given the other options available). All of that said, the long range and high damage potential weapons of space combat aren't lasers or dumb fire projectiles, they're guided missiles. Which can easily be effective out to 500,000 km if launched with significant relative velocity because of their ability to accelerate and track. They also have a much higher damage potential than either of the other options, with not only kinetic force allowing them o visit the hell that killed the dinosaurs on enemy vessels with brute kinetic force, but also much easier mounting of warheads when compared to rail guns or chemically propelled options. Meaning anything from nukes to antimatter, to some sort of material designed to burn in the absence of oxygen, etc., etc., etc. You could even mount early detonating shrapnel warheads to increase the chance of hitting a critical system with a giant shotgun blast. The options are endless. Halo's space combat isn't all that unrealistic on the face of it. It's just that the weapons used are incredibly poor choices and the tactics that evolve out of those poor choices leave a lot to be desired. But again, bad decisions in weapon design is par for the course in Halo's universe.
If you really really want to dive in why unsc is weak when against covenant is because the tech wasn't strong enough and most of the time covenant just warp in on the their face making preparations limited or unprepared. Unsc tactics is using the advantage of mac cannon to bombard the covenant ships shields and override them then missiles brings the job done,but on one circumstances, covenant must at a favourable position or range for unsc to do all these tactics,just like the other says,they are under preparation, cannot detect warp in signals(for long range,but short range can cause in reach,the sat gets signal detect because the covenant fleet is straight jumping onto the face of reach), limited ships to combat,and wasn't having the good tech to fight against covenant.
Well since the covenant have insanely good slip space technology they could use that for their advantage. Imagine there is a technic which opens a small "slip space" and fire a laser through that. they can almost always melee with good precision and overcome the speed of light problem
Size is largely a function of present doctrine and technologies. UNSC layered response doctrine called for versatile ships. Size helps with that; nearly all classes carry auxiliary craft, have long and short range capability and can support limited ground forces and equipment. Standoff range; they are at 1-10,000s km. Realistic for the weapons in use, mainly kinetic and plasma. Pulse lasers, plasma beams; UNSC commonwealth engaged a CRS cruiser at roughly 3000km in TFoR. Pulse lasers were burning through its armor in single shots. Covenant had range advantage but were almost never pressed to capitalize on it. Solar system comparison isn't applicable; billions of km is a lot different from 10-100,000km. Reason for most close range engagements was that the UNSC was defending and the covenant attacking. Couldn't just create distance with a planet being evacuated behind them. "Who can find who first..." ftl made it irrelevant and slipspace probes weren't ubiquitous enough to be used as full sensor nets. How can one counter a ship detected coming at ftl other than preparing to engage it, with surprise, at its predicted exit point? Covenant ships have greater range than UNSC ones. Range was a limited option without ODP SMACs. Speed of light; covenant ships often ftl'd inside combat range or out system then slow boated it to engage. AI wasn't as much of a difference as you believe. Also depends on weapon effectiveness which was a BIG issue against energy shields. It wastes ammo given the MAC charge times. Range and manoeuvre; defensive footing limited it. Missiles; exactly what happened with archers. Near half were always shot down. Decoys and chaff: it's space. Chaff can't show a similar heat signature to a fusion reactor. Planet shadow; compromises defensive response time; what if a covenant ship appears from the other side? The expanse; near 100% efficient fusion drive plus disregard for thermodynamics. They shut down epstein drives to maintain stealth. Heat is not as easy to hide as you believe in the near sub zero environment of space. MAC slingshot; at speeds fired, won't have much of an effect near a 1g planet. It's currently used as a fuel saver. Linear velocity remains the same throughout in a non-accelerating MAC slug. Advantage; in space warfare, industry is the biggest factor, followed by intel and OCPs. Won't matter what one has or how effective it is if it can't be easily replaced, isn't effective and isn't mobile(avoid kientic drops; asteroids). It's why the UNSC focused on frigates and destroyers in the war over larger ships; wanted more MACs as both a cruiser and a frigate still died to 1 plasma lance/torpedo/energy projector. Halo UNSC is basically space US for simplicity.
what they need is 4 dimensional submarines. lots of small slipspace capable vessels that can either sling torpedoes to the normal space or blink in and out after lobbing ordnance.
Close range combat where two or more starships are fighting against each other up-close and personal is rather dangerous in space. At ranges that close, the ships risk everything because there is no wind resistance, no air friction, no pressure, etc. This means that any explosion is significantly more powerful and has greater range. A simple frag grenade on Earth has a range of a couple hundred meters (including shrapnel), while in space, that same grenade would have a range of a couple thousand kilometers, maybe more. This means that firing any projectile at the opponent will yield dangerous results to the aggressor if they engage to closely. They would instead predict and fire over thousand of kilometers to avoid any unnecessary damage to the hull. This would eliminate the use of glass windows as well since they they are both a structural weakness and they will serve no purpose finding any target.
You are very correct Mr video maker, although I'd like to piont out that the covenant appear to be using plasma weapons not lasers the difference being is that one is a whole lot more effective. If you and a covenant super carrier are taking pot shots at each other at 3au by the time that plasma gets to you it's going to be really diffuse so diffuse; in fact, that it's probably undetectable. Lasers on the other hand, if you can hold a big enough beam on a ship for about 3 seconds, you can cook every living thing inside that ship. Still this would be nigh impossible because light delay it this distance would be 25 seconds give or take Can you tell I like theoretical space combat way too much
if you try and engage covenant at long ranges then they will simply use precise slipspace manoeuvres to get into their plasma weapon range and then you'll be fucked, the UNSC knew this so they had to play into the covenants close range advantage and develop their own tactics and technology and ship designs to give themselves the best chance of a victory
the greatest weapon in space combat is gonna be... gravel! place a few tonnes of if on an intercept course, then sit back and wait for the destruction! pros: its cheap, widely available, hard to detect, and will function forever with no maintenance. cons: you need to locate the enemy first, and without them noticing... otherwise they will change course to dodge the attack
@@5RndsFFE good point but seeing how quickly reach fell and how important earths location was, I would have assumed that the UNSC would have put more orbital defences around other planets in our sol system, the fact the we can calculate slingshot around celestial bodys in 2022 with out certificated A.I as seen in halo. It could have been done and knowing that the covenant like to stay out of mac range (what ever the f£€k that means), plus imagine if the UNSC mac rounds separated (like a shothun) just before impacting doing more damage.
@Fire For Effect I to remember the lives spent at the fall of reach it was a heavy burden the the UNSC, I to remember the Armada and the size of it, all of those slip space signatures. We have seen that a standard class frigate of the UNSC is more then capable of firing a Mac cannon and using its power core on a few dormant stations outside of one or two of the moons of Jupiter on it's dark side could have caught the Covenant off guard using the sun as the as the point of reference. Cortana was able the target all defense platforms at the Covenant at once, and that seem easy enough as she targeted before the order was given, a A.I of her calibre or lower could sling a few shots around the Sun, coordinating with Cortana to target the Covenant as a 1st strike option, giving her the ability to catch them of guard firing out of normal range for the UNSC. As for maintenance it's just a ship A.I no need for Super MAC's just say a cluster shot MAC of say 5 on 45 platforms with a shell that separates say a mile or two before hitting its target travelling hell 5% faster then normal could turn the tide and that is on one moon, with them in a dormant state untill activated not taking up cost. So the whispers of the Covenant fleet are detected, dormant stations are activated, Covenant fleets jumps in, A.I and Cortana coordinate firing solutions, shots away, fleet is ordered to defend the the stations, we know that the Covenant took a few moments before launching boarding craft, form that we can assume the Covenant would begin its advance, the stations could have gotten of a few more shots off. The shot would not be seen as the are small travelling very fast, coming from the sun. Then when the second fleet arrive using the same jump point could be targeted the same way. I might be wrong but it could be done
Very realistic in my POV. If tommorow aliens pop up we would fight them with torpedo's, cannons, bullets, shells, rockets. We dont have anything else. Covenant uses primarily plasma based weapons and those need travel time aswel to be close. So warfare would be up and close like in real modern battlefield. U can have artillery's but if enemy comes up close u basically screwed. Shooting to mars with FTL takes up 7 minutes and to the moon 7 seconds. Enough time for ship computers to adjust and maneuver out of the way. Data smaller in energy always moves faster then a devastating energy beam. It has to do with something of expanding space when it moves FTL. Sensors would always register shots because they can go up and down faster. So best strategy in space combat would be to make tanky ships and get up close unleashing deadly barrages of fire. If u try to snipe your enemy then u get a scene like in halo 2 where they outplay the mac cannons by dropping inside the athmosphere. That my take on it.
I always thought UNSC Mac Cannons are facing the wrong way for Naval Combat the way the Mac Cannon's work, especially with how the Covenant ships like to close in for Plasma Fire on UNSC Ships. If UNSC Ships were to reverse there Mac Cannons, so when ships are Fleeing aka there most capable maneuvering at speed, they could fire at chasing ships with there most powerful weapon as they kite the enemy into kill boxes at speed and keeping out of range of Covenant plasma torpedos. Second, imaging turning a ship to aim as the ships is heading towards, vs away. It would be easier to do snap turns, avoiding enemy fire, while returning fire heading away vs heading towards. Again Saving UNSC ships and personal. Alternatively, a single ship with duel side mounted Mac Cannons, which can CIRCLE a battlefield as other ships kite, or close in, would give a huge variety of engagement line of sight and surrounds on Covenant ships while still being able to properly play a game of keep away. The problem is UNSC would start winning heavy handed, and the series would lose a lot of its steam and motivation for plot :P
Nice theory and explanation mate... The slingshot computations with advance AI I think would work well ... what type of weapon they would use against shielded Covenant vessels i dont know maybe an EMP Type ordinance to blind their sensors so the dark saterlites that were hidden in plain sight) they would be using an advance light bending cloaking device I think the US army have been testing this camoflage for real at the moment "could either launch a tactical nuke or maybe even An energy weapon retrofitted from covenant vessals captured or destroyed in previous encounters. I think back engineered tech will serve us well in the war our kinetic weaponry works well once we crack their shields n sensors.
@@captainplexiglass6475 Well spock managed to calculate a slingshot around the Sun in a "Voyage Home "and he had some cold Vulcan sass"... maybe it's a requirement to a successful shot "..😉
@@alexisbaz8746 well let's hope we have a halsey like person or maybe an AI that specialises in reverse engineering so no faces are blown off .. but they are crafty bastards those covies we will have to be carefull.
To put simply UNSC ships did not have the tech to go after the covenant at ships 1 on 1 other than a few examples like the Punic class supercarriers, or infinity class supercarriers that can jump and destroy a covenant fleet plus mission kill or destroy a CSO supercarrier with ease. The one place Humans had an edge was with the computers, allowing them to make extream long range shots with MAC's, or from across a system. the Covenant on the other hand was not even close same computational power for there weapons, in theory they should have unlimited range due to their use of plasma weaponry that travel at light speed save for Torpedo's and point defense weapons. but because of there less sophecated targeting systems they had to get up close and personal with their enemies, and with their ablity to make in system precision Slip Space jumps complementing their naval doctrine is what killed The UNSC ships in space combat. allowing them to literally jump the UNSC Fleet (similar to how the Infinity made it's entrance in Halo Spartan Ops) and pick off ships that they deem more threatening like your supercarriers or heavier ships. down right opposite of what UNSC doctrine states of i find you and kill u at long ranges
Ships probably be smaller automated and run on ai same with fighters other than that it would be nearly impossible to determine. With the rules in Halo the best tactic is to get in close and attack the Covenant Shields make long range engagements pointless they need to concentrated fire to break them
the covenant plasma lance has a typical range of around 100,000 km where the closest comparable for humans, the smac, has a range of around 10,000 km. for both the targeting is computerized and automated to an extent. smart ai like cortana are able to get much better ranges but those ai kill humans to be made so they're very illegal. the way covenant lances are generally placed on their ventral side makes maneuvering to fire slow and sometimes difficult tactically. when regret attacked earth, defense fleets started barreling towards regrets. even though they were called back that was enough to keep regret from using the lances on the smacs. in general the damage, range, and ammo count differences force humans to get closer than they would like and be careful that every shot counts. the covenant know how devastating they are at closer ranges but are aware humans can do a good amount of damage and they desperately fight to the end in such a way that impressed and annoyed the covenant. by the time regret attacked earth the covenant had been fighting two wars at once for 30 years. they were getting more and more desperate for their great journey that they knew was at the tips of their fingers. humans were experiencing xenocide and were extremely desperate. i don't think either side were making the best tactical decisions but i think their state of mind could explain that a bit
You can, it's light, but to keep it focused enough to damage another craft would be very difficult. At those ranges, any slight errors will cause the laser energy to gradually disperse. There'll still be light emitted, but not enough to burn through and they'll likely know exactly where you were.
Lasers can be projected across a solar system. The problem becomes that it blooms, making it unsuitable as a long-range weapon in space. At best, it's medium-ranged that can also do close range.
Lasers have a diffraction limit. So no not really. Obviously the photons don't just disappear but it certainly isn't going ot be useful as a weapon at those ranges. In fact the effective range is pretty limited.
@@cyberspectre8675 Not really. Kinetic accelerators are the best. MACs are simply one of those. But for the best? Go for something like a Particle Accelerator Cannon or something like that.
I think the reason why we see the battles happening soo closely in the books and games is that the UNSC is always the one defending their planets and important holdings, thus the UNSC ships can't afford to be in long-range when the enemy could just break in and glass the planet and leave instantly. You also have to remember that the covenant, in the tech comparison, is generally superior to the humans(With a few exceptions like AI), the humans needing at least 3-5 ships outnumbering one covenant ship to achieve victory with minimal loss of life. thus I conclude that the UNSC simply doesn't have the range or technological edge to be the one who takes the fight to enemy territory. The humans are simply too inferior with their ships to possibly use long-range as a viable tactic other than harassing a fleeing enemy fleet; UNSC ships would the equivalent of Old WW1 battleships compared to the Covenant who are the modern US Aircraft Carriers, the difference in quality is staggering.
On top of that, even in open space, the Covenant could use their slip space tech to hit ships light years away, so close engagement was really the humans' only choice
Oh my god. This is such dogshif explanation .
@@MrViki60 Why so?
@@MrViki60 The heck is a "dogshif"?
@@MrViki60 what do you contribute to society?
Halo has a very neat, but also strange, way it portrays it's naval warfare. It's not standard in the way that it is standard to modern naval combat, but it still shows unique tactics in long-distance 3-dimensional warfare. Admiral Cole's tactics come to mind for that.
Suggestion: take a look at how humans conduct naval warfare in Warhammer 40k, specifically the books. 40k is very strangely logical and anachronistic with it's space combat. On the one hand, their ship designs are extremely over-the-top and weapon mountings look like they belong on an 18th-century ship. On the other hand, however, they engage at distances thousands to hundreds-of-thousands of kilometers away, well beyond visual range. There is a significantly wider variety of unique weapons 40k ships draws upon, changing up tactics and forcing both sides to consider things that were not considered in modern naval warfare. They use everything from macro cannons and torpedoes to lasers and plasma.
or board enemy ships and turn them into space hulks (space wolf approved)
Unless your Orks and you just ram the fuck outta every ship
@@carlos930610 And boarding can work - if you can teleport some of your forces directly inside enemy vessel. WH40K is more logical than it seems at first glance. Far better than StarWars for example.
there is a reason for why the 40k ships are so inefficiently made and designed. It purely comes down to the fanatic zealotry and dogma of the imperium, remember they are not a open minded innovative society but a very oppresive fanatic backwards barbaric civilization.
@@spicemarine1884 coz every new invention has a chance of being corrupted
You made good points for a universe without FTL travel, sublight space combat would definitely be an extreme standoff contest. But the Halo universe does have FTL, and that changes everything. The Covenant use their superior slipspace accuracy to devastating effect. Their tactic is almost always to jump into the outer reaches of a system they suspect of having a human presence, detect the locations of human forces and then jump in again at close ranges where they have an overwhelming weapons advantage. I'm sure the UNSC would love to engage in long range battles where they could "snipe" Covenant ships with their MACs, but they don't have that option.
I think the main issue the UNSC were facing was that their ships were designed for putting down small insurrections and seldom saw ship to ship combat (if you could even call it that) prior to meeting the Covenant. By the time they met the Covenant, the UNSC was completely unprepared with competent naval officers being far and few between or being placed into positions they were ill suited for. It didn't help that Covenant fleets would jump almost directly on top of any battle formation the UNSC could put together before they even had a chance to react (take Reach for example) which also negated the range advantage the UNSC had on paper. The only thing the UNSC could do was buy time for wartime production and research to kick in and hopefully catch up which was what led to the spartans having shields on their armor during the last few years of the war (Mk. V was the first to have shields iirc) along with a few select ships, although shielding units were not usually available during the war. They were up against a horde of ships that were both faster, tougher and far deadlier with seasoned warriors and shipmasters in command of fleets and armies. Battles were typically evenly matched in ground and atmospheric engagements since UNSC ground forces had plenty of experience here, however naval engagements were completely one sided in the Covenant's favor with few exceptions.
The fact that the war was dragged out for 20 years is all thanks to their ability to control information on their end, for example the Cole Protocol was essentially a denial of assets which would see navigational data along with shipboard AI being erased or outright destroyed in the event that capture or destruction of the ship was inevitable to prevent crucial intelligence from falling into enemy hands. It also prevented any direct jumps to large UNSC colonies or populations in order to safeguard important locations such as Earth and Reach. This is what allowed for the war to drag on long enough for the Covenant to begin doubting their leadership, some of those doubts started as early as Contact Harvest or earlier which gave the Covenant more than one target to chase after which likely left their attention divided. Eventually enough was enough and the Covenant fell into a civil war which ended up making them weaker than the UNSC, especially once their prophets were slain. Regret would regret meeting the Master Chief on Delta Halo, Mercy was not given mercy from Truth when the flood invaded High Charity and the Prophet of Truth was impaled by the Arbiter using an energy sword during the Battle of Installation 00 once his lies and betrayal of the Covenant had caught up to him. All of their deaths were kind of ironic.
Personally I think the UNSC played a bad hand as best they could, they were thrown into what was essentially a WWI situation which was the largest war since the firing of the Halo array. Both sides were completely worn out by the time it came to a close and neither side would ever truly recover to their prewar numbers and strength.
This is all correct. Except for the part where the covebabt was allegedly weaker tgan the UNSC. Miranda litterally said in halo 3 that truths fleet smashed the orbital defence grid and proceeded to bombard the entire planet. It were the elites that did most of the work when it came to defeating the brutes.
And after the war the elites could have easily kept going. Rtas litterally said he would have glassed the entire planet to defeat the flood. What exactly was Lord hood going to do? Attack a carrier with a handful frigates?
@@miniaturejayhawk8702 I said the Covenant eventually became weaker, especially since they were splintered after the prophets were slain and High Charity fell. If we talk based on ships and manpower alone then the Covenant come out on top hands down, but with few exceptions their leadership and political structure was heavily flawed which became their downfall in the end.
Just my opinion though
Well said... I think the war of attrition basically brought both sides to the table much like ww1 did ,The German Army was not defeated but forced to concede by pressure back home .
The Unsc was worn out and the Covenant splintered and leader less as such with no prophets and factions fighting among them selves . An end to hostilities was really the best solution for both sides .
@@darkbooger yeah, and some Sangheili clan leaders started killinc each other for resources, Sangheili states going into war everywhere, civil war, what was the Covenant before became a bunch of separated clans worried more about their neighbors instead of humanity, the UEG instead was still united for the most part.
@@alexisbaz8746 An Entire generation of humans grew up knowing nothing but defeat, fear and pain. We cannot fathom it, it wasn't an evil dictator ruining a country, it was a genocie on the entire human race at hands of an enemy they couldn't reason with. That vastly outgunned and outnumbered them.
An entire generation who grew up to their 20's knowing nothing but work endlessly to manufacture stuff for the war efforts, as every day new colonies would go silent.
it was by far the most dread and hopeless situation for humanity until the Covenant Civil War began. By the time the Covenant attacked earth, there were no reinforcements coming to aid it.
It was going to be humanity's last stand , leaving only a handful of colonies to wait for the inevitable attacks.
It seems that most battles in Halo take place at ranges of 100,000 kilometers or further. Most of these engagements are due to both weapons limitations and the fact that the covenant is on the offensive and thus close the gap faster than the UNSC can run away.
UNSC ships also need to fire their MACs at a specific range and time.
So overall I find Halo space combat to be pretty realistic for the situation that is portrayed.
I recommend a possible revisit of this video in the future in order to correct any mistakes or if new info comes out.
I look forward to future lore videos!😁
UNSC loves to use Shiva missile nukes to take down shields and poke them full of holes with 3 to 10 MACs and use maneuvering blasts to even attempt to dodge Covenant plasma
The problem is that even when the UNSC attacks, they go for close range engagements, which is absolutely the wrong choice in space warfare.
@@guywholikesgoodmusic they fire at 12k km of distance, the Covenant is the one that gets close.
@@alexisbaz8746
12km is spitting distance for ships as large as the ones in halo the particularly large vessels will look almost like they're flying side by side and that a slight direction change will cause them to scrape eachothers paint of at that pathetically short a range.
@@Kakarot64. um bro i think alexis stated that the unsc ships fire at 12k km = 12,000 km and not 12km 😅
I would think a distance of multiple AUs is too far to be a practical combat range with the main weapons in Halo. Excluding lasers, the fastest UNSC weapons (pre-2553) stop accelerating some point at or before 4% the speed of light. At that speed it would take around 210 minutes or around *3.5 hours* for a MAC round to travel 1 AU, with such time the Covenant sensors would almost certainly detect the MAC round. So in order to even have an acceptable chance rate of hitting the range would likely have to be within a few hundred thousand km.
Plus, most battles are started by the Covenant attacking "point blank" UNSC planets & stations, so the UNSC can't often use the distance advantage because they can't pick the battles. Still, I agree it should be more than a few dozen-hundred km like we sometimes see.
True, and after I published the vid I felt similar too replaying more of Halo 2. At that point, it comes down to hiding which humanity did their best.
4/10 or 0.04 the speed of light for super mac platform or mps
Infinity macs 1% of the speed of light idk maybe i know infinity Macs are stronger than mps because in halo 4 mps wasn't effective against the Didact ship infinity on the other hand damage the ship
4% of the speed of the light is wrong because they miss read its 4/10 is the speed of the light a lot of people make this mistake 10% of 4% is 0.04% the speed of light its a lot speed
The unsc does not get to setback and shoot The Covenant can do same
it Was not help the unsc needed to destroy the covenant ships to do that they need to be a lot closer
@@jokerray2011 ; The UNSC Infinity's MACs fire at 25% the speed of light. There is no area of the lore that states 1%.
And no, it is not 0.04% the speed of light. It is 4%. 4/10ths the speed of light is 0.4C or 40%; .4/10ths is 4/100ths which is 0.04C or 4%.
Plus, your math is wrong anyways as 10% of 4% is .4% not 0.04%.
Regardless of these numbers, they all mean that distances in the AU range is too far to be realistically used in effective combat against moving spacecraft.
While watching this video I'm reminded of one of my favourite quotes from sifi, that I think accurately sums us how to use projectile weapons in space.
For context, this is a Gunnery Officer railing away at some recruits on how to properly treat Battleship munitions.
"I dare to think that you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty! When you fire this hunk of metal, it keeps going 'till it hits something! That could be a ship, or the planet behind that ship! It might go off into deep space and hit someone else in ten thousand years! If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining someone's day somewhere and some time! That is why you check your damn targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "eyeball it!" This is a weapon of mass destruction! You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip!"
Sir Isaac Newton is indeed the deadliest son of a bitch in space
Mass Effect moment. Someone, somewhere, sometime is going to feel the damage
@@leblurg4997 beat me to it.
I think of that scene a lot whenever the topic of space combat comes up, mass effect was something else, love it.
I really, really, REALLY recommend people to watch The Expanse to get an idea how orbital mechanics and ship combat could work in space. No shields, no slipspace. Light delay and gravity take their toll and the show/books are just fantastic scifi completely recommend 10/10
Great book series, great show
The expanse is a very accurate portrayal of actual space combat maneuvering and tactics .. Great show and I agree with you 100 percent well worth a watch
I loved "The Expanse"; I'm a bit soured at how short the most recent season was...
@@Blue-Gold_Crusader i knoooow, if it were 10 episodes it would've been the best season by far but we're lucky to get a very good and natural conclusion to the show. We're not the biggest fanbase and it was expensive to make so, glad we got a good ending and if the powers that be are in in our favor, we'll eventually get a season 7 down the road
I think you should read the books. the books make it very clear that combat was done at long range in most cases for the UNSC. since they knew the covenant would not dodge a MAC round they could fire and have some confidence the Covenant would not dodge with their higher mobility. That said yes once the ships closed they tended to use more missiles and other point defense weapons. read the early Halo novels.
Yeah. Problem is Covenant ships are always faster, they always close the distance.
IRL, missiles (or torpedoes if we follow naval lingo) are far more viable for long range encounters in space warfare than rail or Gauss gun tech.
Yes, initial velocity is much greater for a projectile accelerated to speeds far beyond speed of sound using magnets, but a torpedo can not only track targets over time, but also keep accelerating with impunity until they arrive at their target. When the only resistance factor to worry about is inertia, they can reach max speeds far greater than that of a typical kinetic weapon whilst in space.
@@guywholikesgoodmusic The issue with your argument was that the covenant was more than capable of destroying missiles fired at them via their point defense weapons. That's why entire battlegroups would unload a barrage all at once. Some would make it through but they wouldn't have the power to overwhelm or deplete the shield. The MACs however were impossible to shoot down, especially if a target was within their "kill zone". Within a certain range, there was nothing you could do to avoid a MAC. If it aimed at you and fired, it was making contact. The MAC barrage would pop the shields, cripple, or outright destroy multiple ships. Then the missile barrage that followed could finish off (or severely damage) shieldless ships, or be enough to overload the now weakened shields. The MAC just outright has the bigger punch, and depending on the type of MAC and targets, they were capable of punching clean through a fully shielded ship, gutting the ship behind it, while also damaging a 3rd ship.
@@goldenhedgehog9 Ok, so the literal only reason why MAC rounds are more effective than long-range torpedoes, scientifically, is because of the Covenant's habit of using slipspace technology to jump right to a planet's orbit. At that range, they are absolutely the better choice.
However, when the UNSC attacks the Covenant, it should be done at long range where there's less risk using torpedoes. Think about it: if the torpedoes are being taken out by PDCs or shields, it's probably because of the explosive warhead being used against itself and triggering early. You take the explosive out of the equation, and you've essentially got a guided bullet that travels a not-insignificant fraction of the speed of light. Several million miles per hour, if given enough time to accelerate.
You use this terrifyingly destructive ordnance against the Covenant fleet, and it does everything the MAC does from much further away. The Covenant primarily uses energy weapons, so even if they could target and hit it, they've still got to deal with a several ton molten heap of slag traveling thousands of times faster than the eye can track.
In fact, a cannon that uses massive amounts of energy in space to power a rail/Gauss weapon would super-heat incredibly quickly, with little ways to cool off. Radiation is the only way to lose heat in space, and it's incredibly inefficient. Torpedoes could solve this issue by being launched before heat can convect through metal hulls. Ships that utilize stealth technology could launch these missiles from undetected positions.
I understand that in a very close range battles, anything under a couple thousand miles, MAC weapons make sense. But space is big, and advancements in war have always been pioneered by new weapons with a longer effective range than their opponents. It's why we went from throwing rocks to bows and arrows, guns and bullets, to artillery to cruise missiles and ICBMs. There's little reason for these really close range battles at all, even from the Covenant's perspective using energy weapons. Space is huge and should be utilized as such.
@@guywholikesgoodmusic Under different circumstances I would agree, but the point is by your own admission moot given how combat actually occurred. Outside of a single digit number of occasions, such as the battle to retake Harvest, the UNSC was never on the attack in space. They were defensive fleets, stationed around their planets. The covenant also was capable of pin point in-system jumps, and if the UNSC could pick up covenant ships on sensors, the covenant could pick up the UNSC ships (with the exception of prowlers, which aren't combat ships). If they knew where the UNSC ships were, it's pretty much a guarantee that the covenant would be jumping in their face momentarily, so by the time any long range missiles fire and get to their destination, they'd have been fired at nothing.
The most common "attack formation" (if you could even call it that) used by humanity during the war was destroyer wolfpacks, but those were only used post fleet battles because the UNSC barrage tactics relied on throwing as much mass as possible to destroy as many ships as possible. There was zero upside to pulling a ship that could punch well above it's weight thanks to it's dual MACs out of fleet, and if the UNSC was resorting to wolfpacks, it usually meant the planetary defense fleet was in shambles and they were just trying to hound ships at the edge of formations to buy time for reinforcements or exacuations.
i think i have seen that the UNSC ships have a 100k mile engagement range
the reason why battles happens so close is that the covenant can make inter system hyper jumps where they weapons are more effective and because of course it looks cooler
Always protect your seamen in space battle.
I disagree, there are plenty more where they came from and you only need one of them to get through the enemy defences to take them down. It’s the ships you must protect and if you have a asset as large and power as the Infinity you must protect it at all costs.
@@backupplan6058 the infinity didnt exist before halo 4. And until halo infinte it was basically invincible and could single-handedly take out covenant fleets. It was basically a forerunner ship with some human stuff strapped on it.
@@miniaturejayhawk8702 could I get a whoosh. I hope one day someone introduces you to innuendo.
@@backupplan6058 this is priceless
@@backupplan6058 I should clarify.. protect your seamen marine pods. One can't get thru if none don't get off.
I think missile combat in space, as far as fuel is concerned, can actually be improved and the consequences mitigated to a great extent. While yes, there will always be a certain degree of limited range, there are definitely workarounds to improve the situation.
- A single missile acting as the "carrier" for several smaller warheads can improve range as the primary missile size is increased without increasing the warheads size or number.
- Maneuvering jet thrusters along the lengths of a main warhead can provide greater flexibility in redirection along a flight path to reduce the odds of missing a target, effectively turning any missile into a kamikaze-drone.
- Utilizing the seemingly ubiquitous technology in Halo of micro-nuclear fuel cells for propulsion, directing small-scale nuclear reaction energy out the back to propel the missile forward, allowing for more fuel to be stored depending on the fuel used.
- Using Dumb AI to control a carrier missile with a multi-warhead payload to target/warhead deployment coordinates, allowing for fuel reserving by selecting the best route rather than an "A to B" linear path that can be easily outmaneuvered by the Covenant.
That said, applying plasma technology to the multiple warhead payloads of UNSC weapon systems such as the ARCHER missile pod would save the UNSC on have to toss nuke after nuke just to drown out the Covenant ship's shields, let alone tearing through the outer hull for damage.
Nukes in space contrary to how it is often portrayed don't tear through anything. They are mostly a thermal and EMP weapon dumping radiation onto the enemy ship.
As a supporter of the US military, student of history and a fan of Halo, I have been thoroughly enjoying your series as each episode has come out! Great work Cabezon, please keep up the good work!
Death to the us government
As you said, speed of light is the big limiter in space combat. The biggest reason that humanity had to close the distance in space combat was the limitations of their main weapon, the MAC. A frigate could only fire a round from their MAC at about .03C. Now that is not much, about 9KM/s, which also meant their EFFECTIVE range was maybe, MAYBE 100km if the Covy's didn't detect the shot in time to dodge. Then begins the slow process of recharging their MAC which could take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes depending on variables. Now the larger ships could fire their MAC at much higher velocity but still ran into the limitations of effective range limitations. So what the UNSC did was accelerate their ships to whatever their max was to gain that little bit extra of starting velocity and usually waited till the Covy's were inside their assured kill basket, basically knife fighting range in space terms before they fired, then prayed that return fire missed. UNSC was also at a disadvantage in most fights because as the defenders, there was really nowhere to run to. They HAD to stop or delay the Covy's for as long as possible to give the planet or facility time to evac. This on top of the Covy's shields, better maneuverability and acceleration, communications, gravitics....... the list goes on. The humans were so completely outclassed it was insane. Even being the better strategists and tacticians humans just could not compete long term. The fact they last 27 years was incredible.
One thing I think humans could have done that would have been a game changer would have been making their MAC rounds guided and self propelled. Cost of rounds would have gone up but having a guided MAC round would have been insane and cut the cost of lives and ships dramatically. We are already seeing this capability with the new 5 in guns going on our destroyers. A round is programmed and fired and the round has it's own propulsion and guidance system which can then track and kill it's target well over the horizon.
Where has there ever been a scenario in the games/books where a MAC took 15 minutes to recharge? From what I've gathered, it's more like 2-5 minutes, depending on how much energy is sent to the gun to recharge (MACs don't have to be fully charged to fire a projectile).
@@CaseyCollier Not accounting for battle damage, power being used for other systems or any number of other variables that can happen in combat. I was providing a range because someone would inevitably come up with a problem with whatever number I stated... Oh hey, here you are
@@Abrxas01
Fair enough. I've just never heard of a MAC taking 15 minutes to recharge. I suppose it could happen, but it'd be very unlikely, given the charge times we've generally seen in the games and books.
2:46 ouuu, never thought I'd see a "The Operations Room" video on a Halo video. That's cool to see.
The video in question is "A One Day War with Iran - Operation Praying Mantis, 1988 - Animated" and the timestamp is roughly 11:30 in that video for this particular clip.
In terms of low visibility and stealth technology against radar, I personally think it is a moot point in space warfare, especially where battle ranges are pushing tens of thousands of kilometers. Let me explain:
Our current naval radar technology (AEGIS, AESA) is based on flat panel phased array systems. The newest AEGIS radar systems can effectively spot aircraft at ~400-500 kilometers, albeit through an atmosphere. Remove the atmosphere and you might at best triple that range, but for sake of advancements in technology we will say 2000km for your average AEGIS in space. 2000 kilometers in space is more or less the equivalent of visual range in surface warfare today. Perhaps with a larger ship an AEGIS radar will spot it at 3000-5000 kilometers, but the same applies - that's really close. Realistic standoff range in space is beyond 10000 kilometers, so using radar to detect targets which are approaching will not be effective. Instead, it will come down to infrared optics or thermal scopes which can easily spot high-energy fusion engines in the cold emptiness of space. Additionally, turning on your radar in space is like shining a flashlight in a dark room - it's a giant "kick me" sticky note. Unless you want to precisely target something within 5000km, active radar spotting won't be very effective.
Okay that's probably very confusing but my point is because of massive range and the fact that our current radar technology is more or less topping out, radar stealth won't be very important, and neither will radar - hence brick-shaped not-stealthy ships. It will absolutely still be used but just not for standoff engagements and spotting - that task lies with thermal optics.
Also unguided kinetic weapons only make sense within close quarters (ie. what we see in the Halo games). Missiles will pretty much forever remain the primary arsenal because of independent guidance and constant acceleration.
Good takes all around, the only difficulty I could imagine using infrared sensors is the lack of distance information. Since it's passive location it would only give you bearing right? My knowledge in this stuff is limited but it is cool to talk about.
@@TheBigCabezon An addendum to my previous: *ranging* radar (ie. single-point or narrow-beam radar) would be used for ranging data. Thermals would still be used for spotting. There's also the option of using parallax on a thermal optic or knowing the distance between two thermal scopes on your ship and determining an angle to get range. A ranging laser could also be used instead.
@@monarch3335
Thermals would probably be the primary way to detect other craft. If you know where to look, you can detect anything that has mere fractions of fractions of degrees off of the void background. Given that radiating heat is the only means of getting rid of heat in space and a ships engines are far hotter than space, that would mean stealth is next to impossible.
Kinda late response, but very good point in context with modern day. For ranges, you can pretty much see forever up until C (speed of light) becomes unreliable. Other than that, replace aegis with a simple dumb AI and it becomes much more effective. Props
One of the reasons to keep it close is to keep them in MAC range, since as you said, MAC's needed firing solutions to make the rounds count, and another thing, if you nullify their slipspace advantage by getting considerably close, you are keeping them at sight rather than let them jump from ship to ship. Another interesting thing is that, UNSC discovered that plasma torpedoes that the Covenant used as long range weaponry could rip layer after layer of Titanium-A armor, so their tactics usually consisted on outnumbering the Covenant, using the MAC's to shred their shields and finish them off via another MAC round or a complete barrage of missiles, that's why Frigates were so used, their purpose was to bring down the shields while being less of a target than Cruisers. Covenant ships are great at long range, specially if your weapons take longer to arrive then they have more time to recharge their shields.
Covenant are faster and durable enough to force close range encounters. If you look at expanded lore, the UNSC tries to engage at max distance and use cover. However, they're slower and often on the defense. If your only effective weapons are massive orbital space stations, you can only retreat so far. Also, the Covenant are slip space jumping very close to the planet, they can even jump in the atmosphere. For Covenant with their shields, it makes sense to get in close. You can crush them immediately, or give the enemy a chance to slowly focus fire your ships.
Valid, the next thing the UNSC could leverage is signature management. Can't be shot if you can't be found. Emissions control (radio), thermal, light, all valid concerns for the present world and we have set protocols we step down through to make ourselves harder and harder to find.
It also doesn't help that the covenant can fire redirectable plasma-based projectiles from ranges that are impossible for the UNSC
@@proper7439 Which is bollocks in reality, because how the hell do you even make plasma homing? It's ionized gas, not some sort of slug or smart projectile.
@@Josua070 it's an ancient alien species with technology thousands of years beyond ours trying to wipe us out based on the delusion that some ancient alien race with giant death rings want them to. Bungie wasn't exactly going for realism
@@Josua070 because it's core is magnetized, allowing it plasma torpedo's to "follow" said target.
Definitely a really well made video. You really deserve more views.
i feel like ive seen you somewhere
@@vietnamesenoodle3280 starscape or the wiki yeah
If I remember correctly, covenant ships had way superior slip space drives which allowed for more accurate and frequent jumps. This allowed for quick blitz tactics. Kinda like comparing muskets to an M4 in terms of maneuverability. Plus many UNSC ships were designed for human wars, not human v alien tec, until in the later stages of the war. Different tactics for different wars
Covenant FTL is faster and far more accurate. Inter-system jumps are not impossible for UNSC, just unpredictable.
There are two large problems with the tactic of "Stay far away and use stealth/deception"
1. The UNSC is on the defensive the vast majority of the time:
Battles between UNSC and Covenant naval assets usually take place over UNSC colonies, so the UNSC doesn't get the chance to decide when they engage, its up to the Covenant to decide when the battle happens. Also, if the UNSC ships scattered and tried to hide the moment Covenant were detected, the chances are very high that the Covenant would just glass the planet and move on, not bothering to search for a group of enemies now cut off from resources and backup.
2. the Covenant FTL technology absolutely eclipses what the UNSC possesses:
To use their FTL a UNSC ship must first reach a point where its safe for them to activate their FTL without dragging other objects in with it, and unaffected by outside forces, and then their arrival is fairly inaccurate and takes some time to recover from. Its also essentially unusable for intra-system jumps, meaning its only good for moving from one star system to another.
Covenant FTL on the other hand can be used at any time (It was once even used to escape from falling INTO a gas giant successfully), arriving within a few atoms of where they want to nearly instantaneously (if the jump is made within system) and with a recovery time of a couple dozen seconds. When you combine these facts with the how much better their sensor technology must be, if a Covenant vessel detects a long range attack it can simply teleport behind the attacker, ram its salvo of plasma up its unmentionables and be on its way again. And if we go for the stealth attack, well a missile barrage would be detected too easily and could just be avoided with a micro-FTL jump to outside the missile's range, and now the Covenant know where the attacker is, and again, teleport behind, plasma barrage. The only stealth attacks that have a chance of working are if one of the stronger UNSC vessels caught one of the weaker Covenant vessels with a MAC round, any other situation probably wouldn't even crack the shields, and in that case again the attacker has revealed position, commence "Nothin' personal kid".
This is why I believe the 1 to 3 ratio required for a kill on a Covvie ship for the UNCS: their tech is just so damn far above your own and hard to counter that you need good tactics AND numbers to even have a chance
To bring it back to the example you had in the video: It'd be like Iran's navy trying to fight the American Navy, but the American ships could also just teleport the moment they detected an Iranian ship/missile and the American ships also have a shield that if you can't breach it, you can't deal any meaningful or lasting damage
Agreed the Covenant's energy shields are the most prominent foil to any long range strategy.
Destroying a Covenant ship, usually requires repeated hits in rapid succession... Unless you're talking about something like a huge orbital MAC!
This explanation hits the nail on the head. Shooting at a Covenant CCS cruiser a light minute away from a Super MAC at 0.04c sounds great, but realistically, that just wouldn't happen. It would be like if we had the ability to teleport a battleship right next to an aircraft carrier today. If we could do that, then the battleship would suddenly become very relevant in naval warfare, even though the carrier has far greater range. Range is irrelevant when faster-than-light pinpoint extradimensional movement is possible, like it is in Halo. Who cares if you can accurately shoot a target 1 mile away with your rifle when the enemy will appear out of nowhere within punching distance wielding a sword. Yeah, the gun has more range than the sword, but at close range, the sword will just tear you up while your rifle probably never got a shot off. Now, go back and read that sentence again, but replace "sword" with "plasma torpedo," and replace "rifle" with "MAC."
Also, Covenant also employed Point Defense Systems in the form of small, very accurate energy lances along the hull. Jilan Al-cygni from Contact Harvest remarks how very accurate they are, and a missle firing from the distances used in space is VERY noticeable.
SHIVA nukes would have to be hidden in a flurry of missles for a chance of impacting the shielding of a Covenant ship.
One thing I was always eager to point out to others and have not had the chance so will steal it now, is the fact that conservation of motion means MAC does not have a factorable maximum effective range, but Cortana mentions a kill range in Halo 2. The reason is as you mentioned for other weapons, a strategically considerable range, that is, the Covenant were far enough to maneuver away from MAC by the time MAC rounds reach their location.
Couple factors. 1) The HC war was almost entirely a defensive fight in Naval terms. Covenant tended to come out of Slipspace right on the planets doorstep. Without an offensive target to strike, that lets the OPFOR dictate the location and terms of engagement in most cases. 2) Limited ammunition capacity. There are only so many MAC rounds and missiles a ship can carry so ripple firing at long distance is going to exhaust stores quickly without much effect. When talking about planetary systems it's a long way to the resupply point.
MAC rounds were just iron slugs though so it would not take any sort of advanced manufacturing to make them. and it's canon that hit and run tactics with destroyers using salvo's of MAC rounds was one of the most effective tactics.
@@EvelynNdenial MAC rounds are ferric-tungsten, the majority percentage of the rounds make up being tungsten, not iron. Destroyer wolfpack tactics were successful, but if they were being applied then the main defensive fleet was already in shambles post fleet engagement. There was no tactical or strategic advantage for pulling destroyers from the main fleet pre-battle when they could punch well above their weight thanks to their dual MACs. If destroyers are now engaging it hit and runs, they are just trying to buy time either for reinforcements to arrive or to give evacuations more time to complete. It was far from an offensive tactic and more just a distraction.
Mac rounds would only work at beyond-sensor ranges for targets in constant orbits because it will take hours or even days around large planets and high-orbital-radius planets for MAC shots to hit their targets. In practice I think MAC cannons would only be effective at ranges in the order of hundreds of miles since according to Halo wiki, a ship-based MAC shoots slugs at 30 km/s. Maybe several thousand miles. I don't think ship-based MACs could really take advantage of slingshotting. But orbital MACs according to Halo Wiki fire slugs at 12, 000 km/s. I'm gonna call it 12 Mega meters. Orbital platforms might be able to bombard other planets at these speeds! I don't know how orbits vary in practice (whether it can be accurate enough), I only know the ideal case.
No, MAC rounds do not travel at only 30Km/s my guy. And a SuperMAC would not be used to bombard planets, what kind of logic is that?
I have a bit of a point in that the UNSC definitely had some sort of FTL capabilities. In Halo 2 Cortana detected the Covenant fleet (whispers near Io), less than 30 seconds later the fleet was at Earth. Then ofc slipspace itself is FTL travel.
Covenant FTL is faster and far more accurate. Inter-system jumps are not impossible for UNSC, just unpredictable.
My point is whatever technology was detecting the incoming covenant fleet was using some form of FTL communication
The issue is the covenant can accurately fire plasma projectiles at UNSC ships at range where they're nearly undetectable. The only reason the UNSC had any success whatsoever was because of their adaptability and creativity. Covenant fleet masters and captains of ships weren't very creative, 9 times out of 10 they could show up with no strategy and win with almost no casualties
I have a couple of points from my personal point of view regarding HALO space combat represented in the games and why it is potrayed so close by especially when space combat is visualised:
- 1: the cinematic effect: same as Star Wars, some of the combat scenarios are represented closer in scale to what they would actually be like, so instead of being at 0.5km as the cinematic portrays the combat the battle could actually happen at 500 km or more and in the case of long-range weaponry, we could also talk about thousands of kilometers away or more, but the scenes would not be as visceral and action-packed like a "sail-ship" type combat where the ships would align in close proximity to fire all their weapons, even the Covenant energy weapons could have hundreds or thousands of km range since in void the energy dissipation is minimal, compared to a planetary atmosphere (where the beam energy is lost trough heating the air that is passing trough for example)
- 2 : ammo conservation: space is pretty vast, even if slip-stream technology is available and it may take a lot of time before you can re-arm your ships so making your shots count and getting as close as possible to a 100% hit rate would be a high priority in combat strategy
- 3: countering jamming and target interference: it's easier to counter and jam targeting systems at long range and if we add up to this some space radiation, solar flares etc plus some jamming tactics by the enemy flotilla, then your targeting systems will have a very hard time to track your enemy properly, but closing in to the enemy vessels it would allow you to lock on target with less effort and more precision and even pass trough to the jamming efforts (same as how a SAM missile could still follow your general direction if it's close by and hit you, even if you launch flares)
- 4: full Covenant technological superiority: at first, UNSC didn't even have shield tech on their ships, while Covenant ships could tank up a lot of enemy shots with ease without fearing the shield will be lost - combine this with their lethal weapons, numeric superiority and aggressive tactics, the UNSC ships usually stood no chance against the Covenant army while the Covenant itself didn't bother to even consider losing a couple of ships as an issue since they had plenty to overwhelm the enemy before mounting too many losses; I saw people mentioning this already in the comments before, but this element factors in so much that I believe it needs to be re-addressed
- 5: Covenant preferred aggressive tactics: this works well in hand with point 4, but it deserves a separate mention since Halo games always portrays Elites and Brutes attacking human soldiers close and personal, some of them even preferring to use plasma swords and giant melee hammers, even the Hunters will engage you with their sturdy shields if they get close enough
Sorry for my rant - but I hope this creates a better image of Halo and it's portrayed universe.
The MAC cannons usually require an AI to fire accurately but Manetic cannons like the MAC or Gauss type weapons are perfect in space, there is nothing to cause friction to slow down the very fast solid projectile which can in theory travel almost forever in space until it's effected by the gravity field of a planet or some other object.
About the ranges the posistion of the camera does not display the scale of these ships they are huge so the spaces between them could be HUGE, also the UNSC probably goes into what you call 'short' range' because their missiles do not carry enough fuel to go any further...
It is a very interesting problem (space combat) and most games and movies just don’t pay attention to the different type of challenges.
And yes- the video is very good in pointing out long range engagements. Probably too long range engagement is not practical. Even future energy weapons cannot be focused and strong enough (lest alone the issue of target acquisition and tracking). Also- missiles fired too far are also impractical. Probably drones piloted by AI are from my perspective the likeliest weapon. It can find a ship (even after hours and days of searching)- it can then attack the enemy ships with directed energy weapons, missiles and kinetic weapons - and then either way give the enemy ship the final blow with a suicide attack or can be picked up by the mother ship (probably it will be out of fuel after the attack.
The thing is MAC guns so in theory have nearly infinite range since its essentially a giant slingshot. 1st law of motion would make those mac round travel insane distances.
Sure, their range is theoretically infinite, but most space battles would be hundreds of thousands of miles apart, if not millions. So, that would be like shooting a gun at someone who's ten yards away, but the bullet only travels a foot every minute and it's really easy to see.
That's about how useful MAC guns would be beyond a couple thousand miles.
Using gravity slingshots to deliver a MAC round to a Covenant ship a few planets over would be the sickest trickshot ever.
One minor critcism: You can very much project a laser across the solar system, it's just not very easy and you won't be accurate enough due to inherent system innacuracy and light delay. THat's why only guided weapons wil be effective at large ranges.
Regarding range in general, I'd say the issue is slipspace travel. Being capable of micro jumps, the covenant will pretty much appear on top of you, peaking in astronomical distances. That will probably happen before you detect their original arrival in system, due to light delay. Also they are usually going after planets, meaning the UNSC can't play hide and seek as they need to engage in order to keep the covenant from assaulting their planets (by whatever means).
Hiding is mostly also a non-option in space. Afaik we can detect the waste heat of a human body in the orbit of saturn in our day and age. So without obstruction, masquerade or active cloaking there's no option of staying undetected in space. This also applies to the missile thing at the start btw. Missiles could very much have a lock on their own sensor from the moment they're launched.
Like many others have pointed out and you've readily acknowledged, this video would be great in any other Sci fi setting,
the problem with it addressing Halo space combat being that it ignores how most space battles play out which is at very short defensive ranges where the Covenant has jumped in system right on top of whatever defences are present,
Otherwise though great series, really enjoying this grounded look at Halos military aspects
as long as they don’t do Ship to ship battles like aherm star wars, but they UNSC actually uses missiles! 😮UnHeArd.. and kinetic weapons like MaC guns.
wriñg
something to note MAC cannons fire at some percentage the speed of light. at that speed the angle a round would be deflected from a planets gravity would be minuscule.
Done optically?
Have you read the novels on space combat in Halo? They're not done optically or that close of a range - only for certain situations and so on.
I've read some but not all, mostly the older ones. I'm mainly relying on game and visual media for that assertion.
@@TheBigCabezon Then the video is kinda pointless if one's ignoring over half the evidence of how space combat is done in the lore (BVR in thousands upon thousands of km) when visual scenes are more specific circumstances to say they're the norm.
Close combat battles are done either because of specific circumstance like Regret's carriers bumrushing the Home fleet or simply artistic license rather than accuracy.
honestly, from what little i have read in halo, the Covenant kind of match or perhaps even outclass the UNSC even from range, their plasma torpedoes constantly melt UNSC vessels and their Kewu-pattern battleship can pick off entire carriers easily, though they were only seen once only once. The UNSC's best hope is at range, but it's not like it'd be easy for them, plus, covvie plasma weapons can outrange even ODPs, so it'd be a tough fight regardless.
Talking about the halo longsword is laughable when describing it as a fighter. It is the size of a B-2 stealth bomber, can operate in space and atmosphere, and is armed to the teeth with heavy autocannon, missiles, and nukes. The longsword is a very good and not unrealistic (on paper) scifi space fighter.
One thing about disnce the covenant can do in system jumps so yes the UNSC can strike first then the covenant can slip jump right to the UNSC location in an instant
What's funny is almost in every battle there Was An ONI Prowler hiding in the Shadows watching, gathering intelligence
I feel like stealth class ships that laid mines were heavily underutilized. I can't remember which book this was - but a prowler was able to lay a whole bunch of mines and knocked out a ton of the Covenants shields when they entered normal space.
There shouldn't be any problem targeting something at the other side of the solar system apart from the quality and size of a laser emitter
Look up light sail propulsion for some interesting reading
giid idear
The lost fleet series really go into the detail about space combat and controlling fleet formations when dealing with ships moving at fractions of the speed of light
Love seeing your channel grow, 2k views in a couple days nice!
Thanks man, it's been really cool so far!
nah there was some instances where the covvies still got the unsc when we tried those tactics, but also they'd ambush the unsc frequently because they had forerunner tech for things like predictions and would predict where we'd come out and just be waiting, because their traverse times for slipspace was higher than ours
So one interesting thing about Lasers, is that just like MAC's their range is theoretically infinite (in space) with the main difference being that lasers are basically concentrated beams of light, tus moving at the speed of light.
Meaning that if the Covenant detect a UNSC ship as long as their laser projectors can be moved into position fast enough, they can essentially hit the detected ship mere seconds after detection.
The unsc really does just launch literal space bricks at the covvies at several thousand miles per hour from 3 planets away
I think a big factor in determining distances in the battles are, as you said, the Covenant's ability to perform in-system jumps and get up close and personal where the UNSC doesn't want them. Several of the battles that take place out in deep space or even in the midst of a Slipstream transmission are done at the hundreds of thousands of kilometers, and the AI's have to take over the firing control systems to even have shots land in the first place.
The thing here is that if the Covenant can show up AT your planet, you never have the opportunity to engage at that comfortable distance. That's why the UNSC ramped up construction of their orbital defense platforms, because they realized that many of their battles were going to take place at the thousands or even hundreds of kilometers at most, because just like the UNSC wants to play to their strengths, they are also fighting an enemy which knows how to play to its own strengths in return.
I think that if we were in the halo universe then Cabezon would be brought in to do military lectures for UNSC personnel in training.
While I agree with your point, you have to remember that the covenant have VERY precise slipspace jump capabilities, they can jump right next to a target 1 or 2 km away to directly engage it up close. As shown in the fall of Reach short movie, covenant ship would just get detected by a unsc ship, then it disappears, and a few seconds later it reappears next to the unsc ship. Sure the unsc should be to use those long range tactics, and they have, I think there is a famous destroyer captain who managed to destroy a squad of covenant ship like this, but most of the time I would expect the covenant to manage to get closer one way or another.
So, from what I know in lore, the UNSC Naval Doctrine is based around the MAC guns every ship has it, and their battle formations reflect this. In a lot of battles, they were able to use the Doctrine, but with Covenant ships being faster and stronger they just barrel forward in formation to get within 100k or less to fire plasma torpedoes and the such. With such tactics being used against them they lose.
It feels like some of the points you proposed for why they would want to be at range are actually points why they would want to be up close. MAC rounds are dumb and can’t course adjust, so the chance of hitting decreases dramatically at longer ranges where travel time leaves plenty of time for evasive manoeuvres. You also comment the other two offensive weapons they use are missiles and fighters. Both of these would want to be used at shorter ranges as they will have limited fuel and so may not be able to operate at extended ranges.
I think its been mentioned but the Covenant had way more precise jump technology and would either stay out of range like in Halo 2 or jump close enough to human ships so that range becomes irrelevant. I think human ships would have an advantage at long range but just didn't have the technology to have the initiative.
Watching the Expanse gives me the idea is how they fight.
It's because the UNSC is always in the defensive and covenant ships has advance slipspace drive than can out manuver or even appear at pointblank range plus they also have energy shields so they can brute force their way in if they wanted to
What would make sense are tactics like that of in the sci fi series the expanse. Ships engaging with torpedoes and anti air fire from thousands of kilometers away. Only problem is we know the that the MAC cannons are the only UNSC weapon that can actually take out covenant ships, nukes are ineffective in space in halo. And MAC cannons are short range weapons where you need visual of the enemy, and be close enough the covenant so that they can't dodge the MAC round.
Another cool video and analyze, but...
1. Covenant has way better slipspace drives than UNSC. Covenant ships can do precise inside system jumps. About UNSC hypothesis for long-range combat, Covenant could just slipspace jump to close the gap fast if they feel they are getting constantly out-ranged.
2. More important factor: MAC rounds (Only UNSC working weaponry to pierce Covenant shields) are not stealth material. Pretty sure covenant radars which detect ships and random debris can also detect MAC rounds. Under 100k km space combat like its in Halo lore. Under 100k Super MAC round (0.04c) can travel 100k in 8seconds, ship based MAC's are mostly at least 10 times slower (Very few exceptions, like UNSC super carriers and later Infinity), can still close the distance fast enough to overcome Covenant reactional dodge. For firing at longer distances than Covenant weapon range, ship based MAC's do not have enough speed to close the gap fast enough to overcome Covenant ships maneuvering capabilities. AI can predict the ships movement, but this prediction is nullified the moment Covenant radars pick up a MAC round coming at them (as MAC's are moving nowhere close to 1c, like radar detection). Then its just react and dodge accordingly as Covenant has multiple minutes to dodge if its a ship based MAC.
There is a reason why UNSC fires MAC's at full fleet sized alpha strike volleys at the time (then there is a delay where all ships are recharging). Its way harder to dodge when 100 MAC slugs are coming at you at once.
The UNSC heavily relied on missiles. Other than the main MAC, the cannons on UNSC ships are just for point-defense.
Covenant can do pin point slip space jumps and can therefore dictate the range of engagement.
Covenant always just pinpoint slipspace jump on top of the UNSC ships. People like to say the best part of the Covenant tech is the shields or the weapons but their ability to accurately and quickly travel is their major advantage and they use it to brutal effect.
Love Halo Combat. I wouldn’t take anything away.. but absolutely add more missiles and drones. Every huge ship should also have a primary laser. Even if all the laser accomplishes is heating up the enemy ship… worth it
UNSC ships are almost like tanks instead of warships, for example: tanks usually have a main cannon and maybe a pintle mounted machine gun (240, maybe an M2, etc) and that's it. Same stuff with UNSC ships: they have the MAC, a few archer missiles & nukes, and then just point-defense CIWS for engaging fighter craft.
Compared to a modern destroyer or the battleships of WW2, they're freakin lacking!
The old ships had about 3-4 turrets (2 front, 1-2 aft), each turret having 2-3 separate cannons. So if they fired all their main guns at a single target, you're looking at 6 rounds minimum, 12 at the high end. That's a lot of firepower and it was needed back during WW2. It's needed to fight the covenant.
If they're not gonna make a supersized ship with 12 separate, full power MAC guns on it, they can at least make destroyers with a slightly less powerful MAC, but have more of them. Picture a ship about double the Pillar of Autumn's size, but with at least 4 MAC guns from a frigate (like the FUD, IAC, Savannah, Grafton, etc) - and mounted on a turred for easier aiming. I know, I know, the guns are huge but the post-war UNSC could absolutely do it.
Hell, maybe take the MAC technology, assist it with Covenant gravity tech, and have a much more powerful cannon for a much smaller package.
The light speed lag is actually even worse than what you describe. Assuming an engagement range of a couple AU (which is insane), you're talking about a lag-time of 8-16 minutes. So when you sight an enemy contact, you are seeing where they were 8-16 minutes ago. To plot a firing solution you need to predict where they moved to in the time since the light left them and reached you, and then predict from that prediction where they will be when your round reaches them.
I think realistically, engagement ranges would be at distances measured in light-seconds, not AUs.
The Covenant would probably just slipspace jump into knife fighting range once they found where that MAC round came from. UNSC only gets a couple of shots.
Hard answer before watching the video: I say no matter what media you're seeing it in, there is a high likelihood that any space combat you see is being done wrong. For the simple fact that no one has ever done space combat. We have a good understanding of the physics, and what is possible, but by the time it becomes a reality we may have new technologies which completely change the way things could possibly happen.
Just like Air Power completely revolutionized war, space combat will be a completely new frontier, and will go through some very quick evolutions as new data is fed into models and run through simulations, and people try out new things. It will be exciting to see.
I think it's because fighting at that great distance you can see the attack coming long before it reaches you thus can move out the way or intercept it, they can also slipstream away. Up close and personal harder to dodge or intercept. You can probably test it by using a baseball at say 10ft to a 100ft, 200ft see if you can move out the way in time or throw something to knock it off course.
A skilled ai could probably use a planets orbit to curve a Mac round and you could fire from total cover behind a plant, star or moon
Since space doesn't have the factor of needing to worry about range of kinetic weapons. I'd imagine a lot of UNSC ships would take place large distances away. With skilled artillery men meant to predict, aim, and fire long distances.
And one sneeze from a grunt will make all those calculations miss by millions of kilometres.
One thing the UNSC could do with their technology and utilizing what they like to use is take their MACs and use them to fire a sabot round... a sabot round that contains a missile. A missile with MIRV/smaller missiles inside of it. Why? One of the disadvantages of missiles in space is their deltaV limitations and their speed. If you want a fast missile, it's not going to have much range. If you want a longer range missile, it's not going to be as fast and it's not going to be very maneuverable. If you use a MAC to get the saboted missile in the general vicinity of the enemy ship, however, the missile is arriving at the target very, very fast (much faster than it would if you launched it, since coilgun technology in the Halo universe is outrageously powerful and measured in percentages of C) and *_will arrive at the target with its full fuel load._* This way you could have missiles with larger warheads. You don't need as much fuel to get the missile to the target, after all. They only need to have a short burn to intercept the target and course correct if you were decently accurate to begin with. MIRVs/Cluster missiles would also mean less chances of them being intercepted by Covenant CIWS and more hit probability and more chances to overwhelm their shields and get a damaging hit on the hull itself.
If human can make FTL why not just weaponized it. for halo just launch something and slingshot around, when you want to use it just fly a slipspace ship near the weapon and enter with your slipspace. when you come out of the slipspace you will have a Meteor shower like Torpedoes or etc. going rampage on enemy solar system.
When the enemy sees that they gonna do it too. Thats main reason why modern military look like each other and halo lore follows that same path.
IIRC; in the lore of the books and games, most FTL travel Humans had was imprecise by a degree of multiple AUs, they wouldn't be able to target a ship or planet with slipspace even if they tried. It is not until post-war that UNSC slipspace drives get more precise and with the exception of the UNSC Infinity that is still likely in terms of 100s of thousands, if not millions of kilometers.
Only Forerunner slipspace drives (like what the UNSC Infinity has) are advance enough for something that precise.
The Culture which served as a major insperation for the forunners fought like that. They park a ship a solar system away and use FTL to dump micro black holes anti matter, combat robots and other nasty shit into the inside of enemy vessels or fleet formations. That said human slip space isn't precise takes a lot of power and to the best of my knowledge need the drive on the object that's being moved making disposable FRL torpedoes way to cost intensive and unless you slapping on a nova bomb not worth it
goód ódear
Alien(s) actually had a interesting take on Spatial Warfare, and likened warfare in space (especially interstellar space) to like a sub hunting a sub. Comparatively the UNSC is undergoing "trial by fire" as an infant when compared to the Covenant. Since Humanity only had to fight humanity, the UNSC was only prepared to handle human threats- Not covenant. Still, when it comes to detection natural phenomenon will distort or "jam" signals, then there's time from projection to refraction. As an example, it takes a signal to go from earth to Voyager is just over 19 hours at 20 kilowatts. (that's if it not bounced off an atmosphere, or absorbed by an atmosphere or other body, or even redirected by refraction). Visual ranges while augmented by Camera lenses would be almost twice the distance here on earth, but we're not looking for large objects like the sun or a distant star. We're looking for things that are the size of a small pin, and colored to blend in (somewhat) with their surroundings. So while someone could see Jupiter with ease, seeing a Covenant or UNSC ship would a lot harder. So effectively you're running blind at beyond visual ranges. In this instances fighters and even fast light escorts would be invaluable in extending detection and acquisition ranges. They're still going to be limited by the same factors so, ships being able to share data will be critical. I would assume that Space naval battles would essentially be done in wolf pack style with a minimum of two ships hunting together, spaced far enough apart that their sensors overlap but don't confuse the others. (In all honesty Communication and exploration in space by a large number of ships would make for a very noisy place) However one ship hunting one even in system is likely to have either looking for a needle in a haystack.
Honestly, it would seem that neither the Covenant nor the UNSC were really prepared for fleet on fleet actions. Most of the weapons are geared towards ground based offenses and in support of those offensives. So to use an axiom from Battletech "Wars don't start on the ground, they end there.". Ships in this respect, for HALO, seem to be geared towards ferrying troops from point A to Point B and returning. Thus, dealing with offensive ships seems to be more or less and after thought; and at least on the part of the UNSC, the outer wall of a planets defense. The Covenant theory seems to be Lightning quick strikes to disable key defenses ( by jumping into system) and overwhelming planet side defenses (or what ever is left of them).
I figure Naval combat in space even by FTL drives would very tedious in terms of maneuver and time. You're going to need excellent intel, and at least a qualitative knowledge of your "enemy" and their tactics- something neither the UNSC nor the Covenant really had despite the technological edge displayed by the covenant. In the end, finding a Ring by accident did more to sustain humanities fight against the Covenant and increase it's capabilities, than any other element including the spartan program. Finally time and space is going to be an issue 19 days in Warp is still 19 days. Logistics of either Navy is going to be a persistent and nearly insurmountable obstacle (Hence why the covenant had places like "High Charity" and "Unyielding Hierophant") You're gonna need places like this to leap frog from. (which makes it more likely that you will encounter an expeditionary force rather than a dedicated main fleet, division, or squadron.
2:00 i think the only reason "standoff" is viable on the seas is because you can use standoff in combination with the horizon to hide your munitions.... in space getting closer might actually be better for the survival of your munitions
Congrats on 100 subs
Hard to keep something at distance that can open a slip space right in the middle of your battle formation.
Some fundamental misunderstandings of the lore and the absolute dire situation humanity is in in the Bungie games.
Part of the reason the UNSC gets relatively close is that their most powerful naval weapons are their MAC cannons (gigantic coilguns), which are their only reliable way to take down Covenant shielding. While these giant slugs are being launched at extremely high speeds, they're still relatively slow when we're talking the scale of space; ie: they have some significant travel time. Covenant ships simply move out of the way and the rounds miss. With shipboard AI, they can predict their positions and aim them a little better, but it's still hard against a maneuvering target. Humanity does have ranged guided munitions (missiles, nukes, etc), but they're almost useless against energy shields.
Not only that (and someone already pointed this out), humanity is on the defensive in almost every single engagement of the war. As in, the covenant attacks them first, and the UNSC is trying to hold what they've got, not back off to longer range and leave their planet defenseless. This also ties into the significant travel time for MAC rounds.
Also, the Covenant can jump into "knife fight" range easily due to their far more advanced Forerunner slipspace drives, able to position them far more precisely. This is compared to human ships that need to jump to the approximate location they want, then maneuver with sublight engines.
Modern naval combat has next to nothing in common with combat in space. The concept of stealth in space for one is almost absurd given how difficult it would be to mask a thermal signature like that in a vacuum, not to mention all of the other factors that could give a ship away. Line of sight is almost always established unless you're fighting around planetary bodies. There's simply not a lot of things in space to obstruct vision. On top of that, space combat would be incredibly fast paced, with individual engagements taking anywhere between two minutes to two seconds.
You're correct about engagement ranges being longer than shown in the games, but the novels paint a much more realistic picture. It's still close quarters at ten to thirty thousand kilometers, but it acknowledges the fast pace of combat and maneuvering while also implementing orbital mechanics. There are many problems here, but Halo having Star Wars syndrome and overplaying point blank brawling isn't one of them. If anything it's closer to modern dogfighting.
You also say lasers are short range weapons with them losing focus at close range, but that's very far off the mark. Lasers absolutely can be focused across a system. There's no atmosphere in space for it to disperse, and it will maintain cohesion up to 2 lightyears. What limits lasers in space combat is heat management and light lag. Lasers typically run very hot and need lots of radiators and heat sinks to keep running, and beyond 300,000 km you're dealing with just over a one second delay between you firing and the laser hitting the target. Depending on the power of the laser, the latter can make it entirely worthless at that range. Advanced targeting systems could however help with this significantly, and they're still more than effective at 100,000 km. You don't need to be within visual range.
Unguided ballistic weapons are worthless. They do a lot of damage, but they move too slowly to reliably hit a moving target (and to be clear, there is no such thing as a stationary target in void combat), even at near light speed (which itself is probably more trouble than its worth given the other options available).
All of that said, the long range and high damage potential weapons of space combat aren't lasers or dumb fire projectiles, they're guided missiles. Which can easily be effective out to 500,000 km if launched with significant relative velocity because of their ability to accelerate and track. They also have a much higher damage potential than either of the other options, with not only kinetic force allowing them o visit the hell that killed the dinosaurs on enemy vessels with brute kinetic force, but also much easier mounting of warheads when compared to rail guns or chemically propelled options. Meaning anything from nukes to antimatter, to some sort of material designed to burn in the absence of oxygen, etc., etc., etc. You could even mount early detonating shrapnel warheads to increase the chance of hitting a critical system with a giant shotgun blast. The options are endless.
Halo's space combat isn't all that unrealistic on the face of it. It's just that the weapons used are incredibly poor choices and the tactics that evolve out of those poor choices leave a lot to be desired. But again, bad decisions in weapon design is par for the course in Halo's universe.
If you really really want to dive in why unsc is weak when against covenant is because the tech wasn't strong enough and most of the time covenant just warp in on the their face making preparations limited or unprepared. Unsc tactics is using the advantage of mac cannon to bombard the covenant ships shields and override them then missiles brings the job done,but on one circumstances, covenant must at a favourable position or range for unsc to do all these tactics,just like the other says,they are under preparation, cannot detect warp in signals(for long range,but short range can cause in reach,the sat gets signal detect because the covenant fleet is straight jumping onto the face of reach), limited ships to combat,and wasn't having the good tech to fight against covenant.
Well since the covenant have insanely good slip space technology they could use that for their advantage. Imagine there is a technic which opens a small "slip space" and fire a laser through that. they can almost always melee with good precision and overcome the speed of light problem
Size is largely a function of present doctrine and technologies.
UNSC layered response doctrine called for versatile ships. Size helps with that; nearly all classes carry auxiliary craft, have long and short range capability and can support limited ground forces and equipment.
Standoff range; they are at 1-10,000s km. Realistic for the weapons in use, mainly kinetic and plasma.
Pulse lasers, plasma beams; UNSC commonwealth engaged a CRS cruiser at roughly 3000km in TFoR. Pulse lasers were burning through its armor in single shots. Covenant had range advantage but were almost never pressed to capitalize on it.
Solar system comparison isn't applicable; billions of km is a lot different from 10-100,000km.
Reason for most close range engagements was that the UNSC was defending and the covenant attacking. Couldn't just create distance with a planet being evacuated behind them.
"Who can find who first..." ftl made it irrelevant and slipspace probes weren't ubiquitous enough to be used as full sensor nets. How can one counter a ship detected coming at ftl other than preparing to engage it, with surprise, at its predicted exit point? Covenant ships have greater range than UNSC ones. Range was a limited option without ODP SMACs.
Speed of light; covenant ships often ftl'd inside combat range or out system then slow boated it to engage. AI wasn't as much of a difference as you believe. Also depends on weapon effectiveness which was a BIG issue against energy shields. It wastes ammo given the MAC charge times.
Range and manoeuvre; defensive footing limited it.
Missiles; exactly what happened with archers. Near half were always shot down.
Decoys and chaff: it's space. Chaff can't show a similar heat signature to a fusion reactor.
Planet shadow; compromises defensive response time; what if a covenant ship appears from the other side?
The expanse; near 100% efficient fusion drive plus disregard for thermodynamics. They shut down epstein drives to maintain stealth. Heat is not as easy to hide as you believe in the near sub zero environment of space.
MAC slingshot; at speeds fired, won't have much of an effect near a 1g planet. It's currently used as a fuel saver. Linear velocity remains the same throughout in a non-accelerating MAC slug.
Advantage; in space warfare, industry is the biggest factor, followed by intel and OCPs. Won't matter what one has or how effective it is if it can't be easily replaced, isn't effective and isn't mobile(avoid kientic drops; asteroids). It's why the UNSC focused on frigates and destroyers in the war over larger ships; wanted more MACs as both a cruiser and a frigate still died to 1 plasma lance/torpedo/energy projector.
Halo UNSC is basically space US for simplicity.
what they need is 4 dimensional submarines.
lots of small slipspace capable vessels that can either sling torpedoes to the normal space or blink in and out after lobbing ordnance.
Couple things you got wrong here and there. But overall great vid ! ( The paris class frigate is a Heavy frigate not a light ! )
Close range combat where two or more starships are fighting against each other up-close and personal is rather dangerous in space. At ranges that close, the ships risk everything because there is no wind resistance, no air friction, no pressure, etc. This means that any explosion is significantly more powerful and has greater range. A simple frag grenade on Earth has a range of a couple hundred meters (including shrapnel), while in space, that same grenade would have a range of a couple thousand kilometers, maybe more. This means that firing any projectile at the opponent will yield dangerous results to the aggressor if they engage to closely. They would instead predict and fire over thousand of kilometers to avoid any unnecessary damage to the hull. This would eliminate the use of glass windows as well since they they are both a structural weakness and they will serve no purpose finding any target.
You are very correct Mr video maker, although I'd like to piont out that the covenant appear to be using plasma weapons not lasers the difference being is that one is a whole lot more effective. If you and a covenant super carrier are taking pot shots at each other at 3au by the time that plasma gets to you it's going to be really diffuse so diffuse; in fact, that it's probably undetectable. Lasers on the other hand, if you can hold a big enough beam on a ship for about 3 seconds, you can cook every living thing inside that ship. Still this would be nigh impossible because light delay it this distance would be 25 seconds give or take
Can you tell I like theoretical space combat way too much
if you try and engage covenant at long ranges then they will simply use precise slipspace manoeuvres to get into their plasma weapon range and then you'll be fucked, the UNSC knew this so they had to play into the covenants close range advantage and develop their own tactics and technology and ship designs to give themselves the best chance of a victory
Been binging your vids. How do you only have less than 200 subs? You’re definitely one of the best halo channels out there.
I just started making them! I've been following Halo you tubers for years and finally decided to take the dive and start making my own.
the greatest weapon in space combat is gonna be... gravel! place a few tonnes of if on an intercept course, then sit back and wait for the destruction! pros: its cheap, widely available, hard to detect, and will function forever with no maintenance. cons: you need to locate the enemy first, and without them noticing... otherwise they will change course to dodge the attack
You know I never questioned why Blythe UNSC never used gravity to speed up mac rounds
@@5RndsFFE good point but seeing how quickly reach fell and how important earths location was, I would have assumed that the UNSC would have put more orbital defences around other planets in our sol system, the fact the we can calculate slingshot around celestial bodys in 2022 with out certificated A.I as seen in halo. It could have been done and knowing that the covenant like to stay out of mac range (what ever the f£€k that means), plus imagine if the UNSC mac rounds separated (like a shothun) just before impacting doing more damage.
@Fire For Effect I to remember the lives spent at the fall of reach it was a heavy burden the the UNSC, I to remember the Armada and the size of it, all of those slip space signatures.
We have seen that a standard class frigate of the UNSC is more then capable of firing a Mac cannon and using its power core on a few dormant stations outside of one or two of the moons of Jupiter on it's dark side could have caught the Covenant off guard using the sun as the as the point of reference.
Cortana was able the target all defense platforms at the Covenant at once, and that seem easy enough as she targeted before the order was given, a A.I of her calibre or lower could sling a few shots around the Sun, coordinating with Cortana to target the Covenant as a 1st strike option, giving her the ability to catch them of guard firing out of normal range for the UNSC.
As for maintenance it's just a ship A.I no need for Super MAC's just say a cluster shot MAC of say 5 on 45 platforms with a shell that separates say a mile or two before hitting its target travelling hell 5% faster then normal could turn the tide and that is on one moon, with them in a dormant state untill activated not taking up cost.
So the whispers of the Covenant fleet are detected, dormant stations are activated, Covenant fleets jumps in, A.I and Cortana coordinate firing solutions, shots away, fleet is ordered to defend the the stations, we know that the Covenant took a few moments before launching boarding craft, form that we can assume the Covenant would begin its advance, the stations could have gotten of a few more shots off.
The shot would not be seen as the are small travelling very fast, coming from the sun. Then when the second fleet arrive using the same jump point could be targeted the same way.
I might be wrong but it could be done
Expanse shows this the best
Very realistic in my POV. If tommorow aliens pop up we would fight them with torpedo's, cannons, bullets, shells, rockets. We dont have anything else. Covenant uses primarily plasma based weapons and those need travel time aswel to be close. So warfare would be up and close like in real modern battlefield. U can have artillery's but if enemy comes up close u basically screwed. Shooting to mars with FTL takes up 7 minutes and to the moon 7 seconds. Enough time for ship computers to adjust and maneuver out of the way. Data smaller in energy always moves faster then a devastating energy beam. It has to do with something of expanding space when it moves FTL. Sensors would always register shots because they can go up and down faster. So best strategy in space combat would be to make tanky ships and get up close unleashing deadly barrages of fire. If u try to snipe your enemy then u get a scene like in halo 2 where they outplay the mac cannons by dropping inside the athmosphere. That my take on it.
I always thought UNSC Mac Cannons are facing the wrong way for Naval Combat the way the Mac Cannon's work, especially with how the Covenant ships like to close in for Plasma Fire on UNSC Ships. If UNSC Ships were to reverse there Mac Cannons, so when ships are Fleeing aka there most capable maneuvering at speed, they could fire at chasing ships with there most powerful weapon as they kite the enemy into kill boxes at speed and keeping out of range of Covenant plasma torpedos. Second, imaging turning a ship to aim as the ships is heading towards, vs away. It would be easier to do snap turns, avoiding enemy fire, while returning fire heading away vs heading towards. Again Saving UNSC ships and personal. Alternatively, a single ship with duel side mounted Mac Cannons, which can CIRCLE a battlefield as other ships kite, or close in, would give a huge variety of engagement line of sight and surrounds on Covenant ships while still being able to properly play a game of keep away. The problem is UNSC would start winning heavy handed, and the series would lose a lot of its steam and motivation for plot :P
This was a great video !!! Great job.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Nice theory and explanation mate... The slingshot computations with advance AI I think would work well ... what type of weapon they would use against shielded Covenant vessels i dont know maybe an EMP Type ordinance to blind their sensors so the dark saterlites that were hidden in plain sight) they would be using an advance light bending cloaking device I think the US army have been testing this camoflage for real at the moment "could either launch a tactical nuke or maybe even An energy weapon retrofitted from covenant vessals captured or destroyed in previous encounters. I think back engineered tech will serve us well in the war our kinetic weaponry works well once we crack their shields n sensors.
I don't know if it's hard for ai's to slingshot but apparently they get real sassy if you ask them to do it in a shield world...
@@captainplexiglass6475 Well spock managed to calculate a slingshot around the Sun in a "Voyage Home "and he had some cold Vulcan sass"... maybe it's a requirement to a successful shot "..😉
Problem is reversing Covenant technology is hard because it always like to explode in your face when you try to open it...
@@alexisbaz8746 well let's hope we have a halsey like person or maybe an AI that specialises in reverse engineering so no faces are blown off
.. but they are crafty bastards those covies we will have to be carefull.
To put simply UNSC ships did not have the tech to go after the covenant at ships 1 on 1 other than a few examples like the Punic class supercarriers, or infinity class supercarriers that can jump and destroy a covenant fleet plus mission kill or destroy a CSO supercarrier with ease. The one place Humans had an edge was with the computers, allowing them to make extream long range shots with MAC's, or from across a system. the Covenant on the other hand was not even close same computational power for there weapons, in theory they should have unlimited range due to their use of plasma weaponry that travel at light speed save for Torpedo's and point defense weapons. but because of there less sophecated targeting systems they had to get up close and personal with their enemies, and with their ablity to make in system precision Slip Space jumps complementing their naval doctrine is what killed The UNSC ships in space combat. allowing them to literally jump the UNSC Fleet (similar to how the Infinity made it's entrance in Halo Spartan Ops) and pick off ships that they deem more threatening like your supercarriers or heavier ships. down right opposite of what UNSC doctrine states of i find you and kill u at long ranges
Ships probably be smaller automated and run on ai same with fighters other than that it would be nearly impossible to determine. With the rules in Halo the best tactic is to get in close and attack the Covenant Shields make long range engagements pointless they need to concentrated fire to break them
Goodluck growing your channel. Great video hope to see you grow in the future if that's what you truly want
Definitely more realistic then Star Wars space battles
the covenant plasma lance has a typical range of around 100,000 km where the closest comparable for humans, the smac, has a range of around 10,000 km. for both the targeting is computerized and automated to an extent. smart ai like cortana are able to get much better ranges but those ai kill humans to be made so they're very illegal. the way covenant lances are generally placed on their ventral side makes maneuvering to fire slow and sometimes difficult tactically. when regret attacked earth, defense fleets started barreling towards regrets. even though they were called back that was enough to keep regret from using the lances on the smacs. in general the damage, range, and ammo count differences force humans to get closer than they would like and be careful that every shot counts. the covenant know how devastating they are at closer ranges but are aware humans can do a good amount of damage and they desperately fight to the end in such a way that impressed and annoyed the covenant. by the time regret attacked earth the covenant had been fighting two wars at once for 30 years. they were getting more and more desperate for their great journey that they knew was at the tips of their fingers. humans were experiencing xenocide and were extremely desperate. i don't think either side were making the best tactical decisions but i think their state of mind could explain that a bit
Very good vid! new sub
"You cannot project a laser across a solar system"? 🤔 Are you sure?
You can, it's light, but to keep it focused enough to damage another craft would be very difficult. At those ranges, any slight errors will cause the laser energy to gradually disperse. There'll still be light emitted, but not enough to burn through and they'll likely know exactly where you were.
Lasers can be projected across a solar system. The problem becomes that it blooms, making it unsuitable as a long-range weapon in space. At best, it's medium-ranged that can also do close range.
Lasers have a diffraction limit. So no not really. Obviously the photons don't just disappear but it certainly isn't going ot be useful as a weapon at those ranges. In fact the effective range is pretty limited.
Then it's really the ideal space weapon, isn't it? Whereas with a MAC, you might ruin someone's day in a galaxy far, far away.
@@cyberspectre8675 Not really. Kinetic accelerators are the best. MACs are simply one of those. But for the best? Go for something like a Particle Accelerator Cannon or something like that.
just found you today, 10/10 content, nice video hope to see more cool video ideas in the future!!