Halo weapon yields?

[ChosenOne54]

Looking at this image, you can see nuclear signs on the plates. Seems a pretty solid sign.

Yes, but do we have any accurate yields? Single digit kilotons? They were stated to be quite a weak weapon compared to other weapons (like the MAC cannon).

[Agent Sorchus]

Looking at this image, you can see nuclear signs on the plates. Seems a pretty solid sign.

Yes, but do we have any accurate yields? Single digit kilotons? They were stated to be quite a weak weapon compared to other weapons (like the MAC cannon).

Also, just because they use a radiological sign doesn't mean they are a fission device, they could use some form of uranium penetrator rods to assist in piercing opposing ships hulls. They also could use a nuclear salt water rocket motor which would require a warning.

Basically all the signs tell us is that it is carrying nuclear material, not the firepower of the weapon at all.

[generalbriggs]

It may be a bit of an outlier as far as weapons yields are concerned, but the 2010 edition of The Fall of Reach pegs the yield of a UNSC nuclear device at 30 megatons. As far as I can remember, this is one of the few locations where actual numbers are given for such a weapon. Also, given that such a device was initiated after being carried into position by a ground team, it would seem a fairly reasonable conclusion that starship based nuclear ordinance would be of similar yield. Which also brings up the question of why the UNSC would use MAC weapons in the first place.

[Covenant]

It may be a bit of an outlier as far as weapons yields are concerned, but the 2010 edition of The Fall of Reach pegs the yield of a UNSC nuclear device at 30 megatons. As far as I can remember, this is one of the few locations where actual numbers are given for such a weapon. Also, given that such a device was initiated after being carried into position by a ground team, it would seem a fairly reasonable conclusion that starship based nuclear ordinance would be of similar yield. Which also brings up the question of why the UNSC would use MAC weapons in the first place.

Probably because this indicates that the USNC nuclear missiles do not have a 30 megaton yield.

Now, if it said it had a 30 megaton yield, and was deployed via missile tube, then we'd know that they can at least fire 30 megaton warheads. But that they did it by hand demonstrates the crazy amount of effort they had to go through to deploy this device. So far everything squares with a concept of USNC firepower being much smaller, including the yield of their missiles and the firepower calcs of the MAC weapons.

It seems reasonable that they may have some variety of ordinance equal to that device, but it doesn't automatically track that such a yield would be found on their average missiles. Otherwise they could have fired one of those suckers at any of the hard targets we've seen so far and vaporized them without much fuss--and from miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers) away. It's unlikely the Covenant (please, I'm in no way named after the Halo franchise, btw) would be capable of knocking down a missile in atmosphere if they seem to be incapable of plunking a helicopter-thingie or some slow-moving infantry with a nuke

[ChosenOne54]

This is just a general question, but is there any idea how large the Covenant Empire is? Because I've seen claims that the Covenant have about 5000 ships, and I'm not sure whether or not this is accurate.

Can anybody shed some light on this?

[generalbriggs]

Now, if it said it had a 30 megaton yield, and was deployed via missile tube, then we'd know that they can at least fire 30 megaton warheads. But that they did it by hand demonstrates the crazy amount of effort they had to go through to deploy this device. So far everything squares with a concept of USNC firepower being much smaller, including the yield of their missiles and the firepower calcs of the MAC weapons.

Quite possibly correct. I was primarily basing my conclusion off the relative (implied) size of the warhead, given that the ground team that carried it to the initiation site was composed of only four people. On the other hand, there is a mention in the graphic novel Halo Wars: Genesis of a starship carrying missiles fitted with the same warhead as the above example. This is however, the only mention of said warheads being deployed on a ship, so I'm unsure of its canonicity.

Moreover, the concept of a low UNSC firepower appears to be correct. The only other weapons with given yields are the MACs and a second nuclear device. Addressing the latter item, a second man-portable (approx. the size of a football) nuclear weapon appears in both the First Strike novel and the Deliver Hope trailer. The novel states the weapon has a 1.3 km blast radius, while the trailer shows a visible display giving its output as 63 terajoules. This (assuming my math is right) equals about 15 kilotons, significantly lower than the havok warhead described earlier.

Finally, the only other capital scale weapon with numbers given as far as I know is the MACs mounted on orbital defense platforms (ship mounted MACs were covered earlier in the thread). These are described in The Fall of Reach as firing 3000 ton shells at .04c. Plugging that into the relevant sdn calculator gave me an output equal to approx. 52 gigatons, adding to the schizophrenic nature of UNSC firepower.

This is just a general question, but is there any idea how large the Covenant Empire is? Because I've seen claims that the Covenant have about 5000 ships, and I'm not sure whether or not this is accurate.

Might I ask where you got that ship number from? I've never heard it before. Also, in regards to the size of the Covenant, as far as I know it has never been described. Only two Covenant systems have ever been given actual stellar locations: the star 51 Pegasi, and the Jackal homeworld at HD 69830. Both of these systems are fairly close to earth (51 and 41 ly respectively), but that isn't enough info to determine the full extent of their territory.

[ChosenOne54]

A couple fairly random links:

http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php ... rs)/page11 (scroll down a bit, you might want to use the 'find' function if it is available to you)

http://www.factpile.com/2284-united-fed ... /#comments (post 15)

I honestly don't know where they got it from.