Halo: death by the shiny

[Skywalker_T-65]

The thing with the Onager (assuming I'm remembering my fluff right) is that the Cruiser it shot at had its shields down (around the energy projector) in preparation to shoot at the Autumn. So not 'strong' so much as incredibly lucky to exploit a flaw in Covenant shield tech.

Though, granted, I could be misremembering that. It has been a while.

[MrDakka]

Reach has you using a mini-MAC "Onager" (also called a mass-driver? There's supposed to be a distinction?) on a turret to disable a Covenant cruiser. That's impressive since the thing isn't anywhere near the size of the ones that the starships mount. Apparently, it's mobile enough that it may have been deployed specifically to defend the Pillar of Autumn from the incoming attack.



If I'm remembering right, it's just sitting on a scaffolding-like platform; which I can only assume is made out of the same stuff used to build the space-elevator.

Mass drivers are typically coilguns for chucking stuff in orbit, so functionally they're similar to MAC's. The only distinction is that its supposed to be an inexpensive alternative to rockets, but they work just fine as weapons. It would also explain why the "Onager" isn't armored at all with no other defenses.

[kitty]

So now the MAC orbital platforms and MAC equipped ships could destroy Covenant ships but not take the damage necessary to take them all out and there were always more. I will reference in the second game they sent in ground troops to set a bomb rather than take a orbital defense platform head on with ships.
Still the conditions of the fighting the Covenant
1: over whelming numbers
2: superior firepower
3: can care less if they use a good portion of their troops as cannon fodder.
4: they will always attack

Now what do we have to the humans advantage?
1: the whole covenant military does not contain very much independent thought
2: The covenant is not very stealthy
3: they are slow to innovate.

So here would be my thought. Use disposable weapons and traps on both the small and large scale. Something like the super tuna can would still be a effective weapon going by the games, and it could be made cheaply. Lets say the price of a new economy car today. One it's been shot up or you need to abandon it. Blow it in place or just leave it. Same could be say for automated cannons, mortars, and mines use them as support and connected to a division's AI.
Traps could be be something as simple as IEDs like, or as complex as creating a policy of hit and run tactics for every battle, creating drone carriers that would jump, drop off a small automated ship with the single command to ram a ship and detonate.
now I'm past off road and into here be dragons land of this thread.

[Cykeisme]

Traps could be be something as simple as IEDs like, or as complex as creating a policy of hit and run tactics for every battle, creating drone carriers that would jump, drop off a small automated ship with the single command to ram a ship and detonate.

Uh, they're called "missiles", and someone here stated that the Covenant is stated to handle that sort of attack pretty well.

Super-MAC orbital platforms are all over the place; the start of Halo 2 has you fighting on them. They don't seem to do much good defending Earth there, but then, they are surprise-attacked by something like an entire battlegroup. According to the fluff I'm reading, the super-MAC's fire 3,000-ton iron/tungsten rounds. Ship based apparently fire 600-ton rounds, and the Onager from Reach fires 15-cm rounds (no weight mentioned).

Curious, how come the orbital platform-mounted Super-MACs didn't do much good?
If their projectiles mass five times as much as the ship-based MAC shots with similar velocity, and the ship-based MACs are decent weapons for killing Covenant ships, how come the super-MACs messed up?
Were they overwhelmed by sheer numbers of Covenant ships?

[Skywalker_T-65]

-snip-

Super-MAC orbital platforms are all over the place; the start of Halo 2 has you fighting on them. They don't seem to do much good defending Earth there, but then, they are surprise-attacked by something like an entire battlegroup. According to the fluff I'm reading, the super-MAC's fire 3,000-ton iron/tungsten rounds. Ship based apparently fire 600-ton rounds, and the Onager from Reach fires 15-cm rounds (no weight mentioned).

Curious, how come the orbital platform-mounted Super-MACs didn't do much good?
If their projectiles mass five times as much as the ship-based MAC shots with similar velocity, and the ship-based MACs are decent weapons for killing Covenant ships, how come the super-MACs messed up?
Were they overwhelmed by sheer numbers of Covenant ships?

In the case of Fall of Reach (the book) they did quite well considering there was only 20 of the things at Reach. Assuming I remember it right, every shot they fired that hit a Covvie ship 'shattered' said ship. Not 'destroyed' or 'blew a hole through'...they shattered. And if another ship was unlucky enough to be behind the wrecked ship, the shell had enough energy to wreck IT too.


The main problem at Reach wasn't the size of the Covenant fleet, or the firing rate of the guns. It was the fact the Super-MACs needed so much power that their generators were massive fusion generators planet-side. Covenant ground forces got past the fleet (using Reach's poles IIRC) and overwhelmed the defenses.

As for Earth's platforms...they did even better. The only Covenant forces that reached them at first were boarding craft. And the only ships that survived the MACs and the UNSC fleet were two Assault Carriers (large even by Covenant standards). And they didn't break through till two platforms went boom-boom from the boarding parties bombs.

[Cykeisme]

So on Reach it was a problem with the angular coverage of the platforms; if they'd covered the planet's axial poles they wouldn't have had big gaps to exploit, and at Earth they just needed more conventional ships to defend the Super-MAC platforms from boarding attempts.

Sounds like it was a pretty fair fight, and with a few more years of preparation Earth would've attained parity in space.
I had the (incorrect ) impression that humans in the Halo-verse was totally outclassed by the Covenant.. I admit I don't know much about Halo.


Also, Sea Skimmer's explanation of possible reasons for the way Halo ground forces are equipped and organized makes sense, but aren't they still lacking in organic infantry heavy weapons, like GPMGs?

[Me2005]

...They don't seem to do much good defending Earth there, but then, they are surprise-attacked by something like an entire battlegroup.

Curious, how come the orbital platform-mounted Super-MACs didn't do much good?
If their projectiles mass five times as much as the ship-based MAC shots with similar velocity, and the ship-based MACs are decent weapons for killing Covenant ships, how come the super-MACs messed up?
Were they overwhelmed by sheer numbers of Covenant ships?

Reading through the wiki; it sounds like the attack in Halo 2 was by a much smaller fleet that took both groups by surprise - the Covenant fleet didn't know Earth was the human home-world, and humanity didn't expect to be attacked so soon or by such a smallish fleet. IIRC, the platforms were just being commissioned when the fleet showed up, so they may not have been fully operational yet. Then the Covenant just took the losses and flew straight through the orbital defenses to get to the city they were looking for. It also sounds like they had a couple of the really big ships, which aren't susceptible to one-shotting from the regular MACs and presumably would take a few hits from the super-MACs.

Then there was the attack in Halo 3/ODST, which was a much larger force. Reading through that, the Covenant lost most of their fleet (down to 40 ships), but again, were headed straight for Earth looking for stuff. I'm beginning to see a problem with the orbital super-MAC's - if you're not willing to point them at your planet, they don't necessarily do much good against an enemy that doesn't care about losses and has more ships than you have guns.

Both times the Covenant didn't leave by going back out to regular FTL range in high orbit/out of orbit - they just opened up slip portals in-atmosphere and did loads of damage to the cities they were in/near.

[Cykeisme]

I'll go read the wiki myself and see if I can find any cinematics on yootoob.

Both times the Covenant didn't leave by going back out to regular FTL range in high orbit/out of orbit - they just opened up slip portals in-atmosphere and did loads of damage to the cities they were in/near.

I'm not sure what this means yet, but it sounds like a nasty capability for your enemies to have when you're trying to defend a planet

[Skywalker_T-65]

So on Reach it was a problem with the angular coverage of the platforms; if they'd covered the planet's axial poles they wouldn't have had big gaps to exploit, and at Earth they just needed more conventional ships to defend the Super-MAC platforms from boarding attempts.

Sounds like it was a pretty fair fight, and with a few more years of preparation Earth would've attained parity in space.
I had the (incorrect ) impression that humans in the Halo-verse was totally outclassed by the Covenant.. I admit I don't know much about Halo.


Also, Sea Skimmer's explanation of possible reasons for the way Halo ground forces are equipped and organized makes sense, but aren't they still lacking in organic infantry heavy weapons, like GPMGs?

The Super-MACs were the 'ace in the hole' for the UNSC. Enough of those (plus escorts) can take down a much larger Covenant fleet. The problem is they were fairly new inventions by the Fall of Reach. So only a few worlds had them. Thus the Covenant were winning against the inferior conventional UNSC naval forces.

As for a GPMG equivalent, you have this [url=http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/SAW]SAW[\url]. Which is arguably the most effective 'standard' weapon in Halo 4.


And since I was ninja'ed...a Slipspace Portal is their method of FTL. Like Hyperspace, but it makes massive portal that does Bad Things(tm) in an atmosphere.


Note: The SAW is the closest thing you get to a GPMG. It doesn't fit, but it's the best you get. Really need my computer to make checking these things easier.

[Me2005]

Note: The SAW is the closest thing you get to a GPMG. It doesn't fit, but it's the best you get. Really need my computer to make checking these things easier.

What about this one M247 GPMG? Or this one M247H HMG? They also have some Gatling-style designs.

In-game they're high ROF turrets with unlimited ammo until they're removed from their mount, at which point they have a very limited supply and you don't find ammunition for them. Due to the rule of cool, it's easier for a Spartan to just rip the turret off the tripod rather than remove it some normal way or pick up the thing with the tripod attached. I suspect that it's to emphasize the coolness and add balance that characters can't run when carrying the thing, even though they're strong enough to rip it off it's mount easily. I believe the first one is from the first game or two, where turret-removal wasn't a mechanism.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Forgot about those/didn't know one of them was labeled as a GPMG. Hmm...need to surf the wiki more I suppose.

[Nitrophage]

I for one believe that the tactics of Halo aren't nearly as rediculous as they are often made out to be. Their small gunned tanks do make sense against an enemy lacking MBT's (closest the covenant uses is a sort of mobile howitzer thing), they do in fact have air cover from longswords, even the use of Armoured Cars instead of APCs can be seen to make sense for an army often at considerable air and space disadvantages - lots of small vehicles can hide better than a few big ones, and would presumably handle broken terrain better too though someone really needs to lower the centre of gravity on those things:-)

Of course, I'm not saying that the tactical, strategic, or any other aspect of the series is perfect, just that it tends to get a lot more flak than it deserves, and I kinda feel sorry for it.

[RogueIce]

Some of the scarce resources for the ground troops probably comes from the fact that they're a distant second towards keeping the UNSC Navy supplied and fighting. They get whatever's left, aside from the Spartans.

I have heard one explanation was that in the original game, of course, your cruiser had crashed. So you got whatever survived and/or was scattered in the areas Master Chief ended up exploring. So any theoretical Space APCs were either destroyed or off in a part of the Installation the MC never got around to. Which made sense.

I suppose it got a little weirder in Halo 2 and beyond, since you didn't have that excuse. I would almost say the whole surprise attack angle would cover it, but that's a little thin.

Of course stuff like the exposed Scorpion cockpit I put down to pure game mechanics. In "reality" they wouldn't have built it like that, but Bungie didn't want you to be completely invincible in the thing so, you can get shot.

[aieeegrunt]

As much as I enjoyed playing Halo back in the day it's pretty sad that the weapons issued to the UNSC ground forces in 2500 AD are far less capable and sophisticated than say the stuff you get in a Blops level set in Vietnam in the 70's.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I suppose the reason the super-MACs aren't more effective is because, well, they are fixed defences. It's all well and good being able to shatter Covvie carriers at hundreds of kilometers if you have to wait for the Covenant to get that close to your planet.

Although at Reach even the Covenant realised how effective they were. After their initial charge they retreated out of range and began sniping UNSC ships with their energy projectors and jumped some ships in close to take out the platforms.

Incidentally, the defenders did use the MACs to target the hordes of descending dropships by firing through the upper atmosphere, wrecking "hundreds" of landing craft.

Even in space the UNSC were closing the gap. Fall of Reach showed how effective the Pillar of Autumn was after her fancy refit. Heck, the start of the first game shows PoA scoring four kills against enemy capital ships. If the humans had refitted more of their ships like that the war might have turned.

[kitty]

Cykeisme: that was a little vague, "missiles" would be a correct term what I was thinking, but the same way a TOW and a ICBM are missiles. I was thinking something that was the size of a frigate or cruiser (going with atomic rockets on class conventions) that had nothing but armor, a few turrets and a big engine, hell you could bootstrap a asteroid for the purposes intended. Ramming and/or giving it a single shot cannon. A sort of area denial for a scouting fleet. This was a mental idea. If you see problems with this I would love to hear it. It's fun to watch my ideas get lit up.

Now there is a thought. In the game and the books I did read (I like fluffy sci fi too) The Covenant were getting a little thin towards the end. If the war had continued along the same path as before the games would it have come to the point were both sides just didn't have a military to use anymore?

[Starglider]

even the use of Armoured Cars instead of APCs can be seen to make sense for an army often at considerable air and space disadvantages - lots of small vehicles can hide better than a few big ones

The Warthog is not very space efficient; it is similar in size and silhouette to an M113 APC. You can't even claim that it's weight limited for air mobility, because the Pelican dropships can slingload a Scorpion tank (don't ask how that works with CG and/or hypersonic flight), so there should be capacity for at least a smallarms-resistant armored box. I agree that Halo is generally not that bad for plausibility but the lack of an APC is odd. In game terms there may have been an AI issue with getting troops to load/unload through the hatch without comically jamming up.

[kitty]

I'm not going to completely defend the warthog. It was more WW2 Jeep than Humvee, but this might have a advantage with the fact you want a mobile ground force. The armor means more weight which means a bigger engine, transmission and all this means more inertia to deal with on each turn. Considering if any vehicle caught at a stop while in combat a elite or gods forbid a brute then the driver would be ripped out along with the door.
Most of the long range travel seems to be air, and this again is something you would want for a mobile ground force, if you can afford keeping those complex pelicans in the air ( or cheaply with the falcon, but the falcon also seems to be in the same thread as the warthog completely unarmored)

[Starglider]

I'm not going to completely defend the warthog. It was more WW2 Jeep than Humvee

The thing is as wide as a HMMWV. The wheelbase is shorter as it doesn't have the second row of seats, but it rides very high off the ground. It is very apparent in the Forza 4 high-res model that it doesn't have good volumetric efficiency, which also implies poor weight efficiency particularly if it has any kind of armor. That isn't so important for a normal utility vehicle but for an airmobile force that fights in alien hostile environments you'd want something with maximum capability for mass/volume. Putting the Warthog's weapons on a small APC or even a HMMWV type enclosed/presurised vehicle would be much more useful (remember only a tiny fraction of the human forces have sealed powered armour).

The armor means more weight which means a bigger engine, transmission and all this means more inertia to deal with on each turn.

Not a problem for an APC with band tracks or similar (much larger contact patches). How fast can you realistically drive off-road anyway? Speeds observed in the Halo games are very low, the Warthog just has intrinsically poor handling (possibly due to the high CG).

[Sea Skimmer]

Off road speed is usually governed more by how harsh of a ride the passengers can withstand and still drive under, rather then the performance of the vehicle. This is particularly true of tracked vehicles, since the range of independent suspension travel is limited by the tension of the track, leading to a lot of violent movements as you go over major bumps and rises. A tank mechanically might be able to do 40mph over ground the crew can only stand doing 20mph over.

A four wheeled vehicle with a high ground clearance and lots of suspension travel is a very good thing for off roading. Ignoring General Mud for the moment, the advantage of the tracks are more in terms of you can now cross major vertical and horizontal barriers that would just stop wheeled stuff dead, like a trench or a rock field. For going down a really bad road the tracks aren't necessarily any better then wheels.

Band tracks are nice, but the downside is if you use them you have major durability problems more akin to ones found with tires then conventional tracks which don't mind being used to crush rock walls or cars.

The Warhog seems exactly like a vehicle which was designed for rough terrain performance above everything else, probably as a scouting vehicle when being small and quiet at slow speed, and able to handle soft ground was all judged more important then armor. They might also have left off armor in ordered to get a much longer unrefueled range; that could be important if they expected to operate covertly over vast areas. Aerial resupply from orbit has one disadvantage, which is that it can be seen coming from absurdly far away. I think we are all agreeing the main problem is that its the only light vehicle we see, rather then that it exists though.

In any event, it seems much less bizarre then this thing below that the British are still using in Afghanistan, largely for reasons I mentioned above (long range, low noise ect), the Supercat Jackel.



Some now have partial bolt on armoring like this one below, but its still minimal coverage, and heck, if the doors and windscreen of the Warthog are bullet proof, it'd be similar level of coverage! These are mainly intended for desert operations though, not forests or cities or mountains. The British are mainly in the desert in Helmand province.

[MrDakka]

Skimmer that's just the superleggera model. And oh look, it has a mid engine layout just like all the supercars.

[Sea Skimmer]

I think the concept was to protect the engine with the body armor on the elite SAS crew.