Real Life vs

[adam_grif]

Those decoys will be in a ballistic or orbital or whatever trajectory. The instant those missile-mines start their rockets, they'll be targeted by point defense. The instant Covenant sensors detect the hiddden weapons, they'll be targeted by point defense. If the Covenant are stupid enough to enter this bigass orbital debris field without checking for weapons, and the sheer disparity between the handful of Covvie ships and the shitloads of nukes in orbit is huge, then yes, the Covenant could get trapped and killfucked.

If that happens, I can imagine the Covenant ships' bridge would have multicolored space gremlins going "SQUAWK! SQUAWK!" while their ship explodes or something.

If grunts pilot the ships, then that's probably exactly what it would be like, yes.

And I'm well aware they can target the missiles easily once they start firing engines up and thrusting, but if the covenant is flying into orbit and just starts zapping sats, at least the missile arsenal will not be wiped out before they get a chance to start up their engines and head on out. If they aren't randomly zapping satellites, then it's even better for us. I don't think tactical competence can be necessarily assumed when dealing with these people.

We would have to build the gigaton-yield nukes and space-missiles that are fast enough to defeat Covenant point-defense systems, of which our military intelligence would know nothing of (unless they started reading up on Bungie's shitworks to learn Covenant weapons specifications).

We don't need gigatonne yield nukes. Without magitech shielding, they're not nigh-indestructible, and KT/MT yield nukes should suffice. Especially if we're doing the nuclear shaped charge thing, in which case, even if the hull DID need GT nukes to kill, we would need less than 50% of the yield of comparable Halo era nuke since at least 50% of the energy is pissed off behind the nukes into space.

Did you miss the whole point of this? Where everything is resting on the reported abilities of EMPs to knock out shields? According to novelizations and the like (the only info we have on such matters), EMPs also effectively disable electronics (because ruggedizing electronics would be too smart for the dumbshit covenant to think of) for a tactically useful period of time, in addition to shields.

Unlike Halo, where the missiles have to actually strike the hull of cov ships to do anything useful, EPFCG missiles only have to get within perhaps half a kilometer of the ship, depending on explosive yield. Nuclear boosted ones could drastically improve this range. Of course, to avoid assumptions, we'll treat them as though they do have to see the whites of their eyes for the EMP to affect the ships.

Their shields can withstand relativistic impacts from UNSC weapons. That means their shield generators, which absorb the recoil, are strong enough to withstand the kinetic energy of being violently pushed by the momentum of a relativistic weapon. That means the Covenant has some serious shit for its materials science, which means that even IF the shields are somehow defeated by the EMPs, their hulls most probably won't be made out of tissue paper or paper mache artistically sculpted by technicolored space gremlins that go "SQUAWK! SQUAWK!"

No, the world builders just didn't think of the fact that the ships had to do something with the momentum and didn't think that far head. The hull is NOT resistant to nukes, nuclear detonations inside of the shields of covenant vessels destroy them thoroughly. Not just inside the vessel itself, but "detonations within shields but outside the hull".

They do have serious shit for material science, but not so much that a 475 KT loaded into a shaped charge body isn't going to ruin it's day.

SQUAWK! SQUAWK!

[Black Admiral]

The one instance of EMP affecting Covenant ships I can recall would be in TFoR, where a nuke detonated in the upper atmosphere of the planet Sigma Octanus IV temporarily disabled the shields of a pair of Covenant frigates. There's no indication that the EMP had any effects on their other systems, although it's hard to tell on account of them being hit by MAC gun shots just afterwards.

[Shroom Man 777]

What was the yield of that nuke? How big a nuke is required for an EMP effect that can take down a Covie ship's shields? Kilotons? Single-digit megatons? Double digits? Triple digits? Gigatons?

[Black Admiral]

What was the yield of that nuke?

Unknown; was a Shiva-type warhead, but there's apparently a lot of different subvariants continued within the Shiva family and we don't know which type the Iroquois was carrying. A hundred VE3-type Shivas were used to ignite the gas giant Viperidae (as per one of the short stories in Evolutions; I think I've got the quote here somewhere - if not, Connor has it), but those were being carried aboard one of a pair of cruisers (the Everest (flag, Adm. Preston J. Cole) or the CTL'd Io).

It's a big fat unknown what the nuclear missiles carried by destroyers are.

[Black Admiral]

Okay, found that quote from Evolutions;

Everest launched everything she had.

Archer missiles rocketed out of the gravity well of the planet along with a dozen Shiva nuclear warheads - while another hundred Shiva missiles plunged deeper into Viperidae's churning clouds.

The gas giant's hydrogen-helium atmosphere was so dense, so compressed, that if it had a tiny fraction more mass it would have ignited and become the smallest of brown dwarf stars.

The Archer missiles had no effect on the Covenant shields. They did, however, provide a dazzling display of pryotechnics; flashes of white and blue and red and obscuring clouds of propellant.

The nukes launched out of the gravity well exploded.

The lead Covenant ship was destroyed - an insignificant loss compared to the two hundred remaining Covenant vessels moving closer, now near enough to punch through the magnetosphere and obiliterate Everest.

But the vast majority of the nuclear ordnance had not been aimed at the Covenant - rather, they fell deeper into the atmosphere of Viperidae.

And detonated.

One hundred dots of light flickered deep within the thick atmosphere, compressing the already superpressurised hydrogen - adding the needed spark of fission that flashed through and around the gas giant's surface, sending helixing tendrils of solar plasma about the planetary circumference.

For an instant, Viperidae was a star.

Countless tons of hydrogen blasted off its outer layers and filled space with plasma - washed everything away with a blaze.

The expanding ball of destruction slowed and dissipated.

Until only a cloud of glowing haze reminded ... and in the centre, the dark cinder of Viperidae.

Every ship in the Covenant fleet had been destroyed.
- Halo: Evolutions, pgs. 481-482

[Coyote]

In some cases, we won't need 5 years head start. We already overkill some SF ground forces. I think we once worked out that Napoleonic War era forces would own Federation ground forces. I'd wager they could stack up equally well against Klingons, since Napoleonics have at least realized that "massed flintlocks > swords".

With 5 years head start, we could abandon conventional military structure altogether and train for global guerrilla warfare and give the Empire serious fucking headaches before they decided to withdraw and BDZ out of frustration.

I think we'd already outdo Babylon 5 ground forces, if the stuff I saw on TV is any indication.

Seriously, a lot of SF military ground forces have powerful weapons and tough armor, and good medical and commo support, but it's all tech. There's very little skill, organization, and competent leadership, much less basic fieldcraft. There is so, so, sooo much to ground combat that is "intangible" and can only be counterbalanced by toys to a certain degree.

I think Hammer's Slammers, if there were enough of them, could asspunch modern militaries. Telling that it was written by an actual combat vet, so is that cheating?

[Shroom Man 777]

What the hell - is using nuclear weapons to burninate a gas giant even remotely possible or is it something that'd make those Bad Astronomy guys keel over and die?

[Stark]

I think Hammer's Slammers, if there were enough of them, could asspunch modern militaries. Telling that it was written by an actual combat vet, so is that cheating?

What are you talking about? Why should the author matter at all? And hey, the Fed could 'asspunch' modern militaries 'if there were enough of them' too.

[Coyote]

Hammer's Slammers is a small organization, about a Battalion in size, so obviously sheer crush of numbers would be against them.

However, if you remembered the context in which I made the original post, my comment was made in regards to those "intangible elements" I was talking about. The OP acknowledged that most sci fi militaries would win through sheer attrition and mass of resources that could be brought to bear.

But in a contest of equal sized forces, most modern Earth militaries would come out fairly well against typical sci-fi ground forces, and would probably even win against most of them because in a contest of equal sizes, sci fi armies generally rely on tech to save the day, and don't use any tactics, skills, organization, or leadership much.

[Stark]

I dunno; what I've heard about HS suggests they have pretty ridiculous hardware; if you step down from 'conquer world' to 'conquer countries' they'd probably do fine in the short term.

It's part of the vs business to deal with the unspoken elements of scifi; that's why people get sick of the asteroid thing. Nobody does it in scifi, but if it came down to it many universes could do it. It's just boring.

[Imperial Overlord]

Hammer's Slammers is a small organization, about a Battalion in size, so obviously sheer crush of numbers would be against them.

Hammer's Regiment is well, a regiment. In the latter books Hammer takes over the government of his homeworld and hires out part of its military for currency and to keep his men sharp so its a lot bigger than regiment sized. They have nuke blockers, routinely shoot down artillery shells and satellites, and have no compunction about using WMD when they feel it will be to their advantage. Modern weapons can deal with them (their body armour is nice, but doesn't cover everywhere, their tanks have massive armour and wicked computers but aren't magically invulnerable) but they'll inflict massive damage before going down.

[Black Admiral]

What the hell - is using nuclear weapons to burninate a gas giant even remotely possible or is it something that'd make those Bad Astronomy guys keel over and die?

As far as I understand it, yes, it's possible, at least in theory, but the maths involved is awkward in the extreme (and far beyond me, I'll have to admit). And it depends on a lot of variables not covered in the text.

[Marcus Aurelius]

But in a contest of equal sized forces, most modern Earth militaries would come out fairly well against typical sci-fi ground forces, and would probably even win against most of them because in a contest of equal sizes, sci fi armies generally rely on tech to save the day, and don't use any tactics, skills, organization, or leadership much.

I don't think there is such a beast as "a typical sci fi ground force". If you limit your statement to audiovisual sci fi (TV, movies and computer games), I might agree with you. However, there are lots of reasonably competent ground militaries in literary sci fi. No doubt retarded ones as well, but without doing some kind of comprehensive analysis it is impossible to say what would be "typical" (or average in other words).

It's part of the vs business to deal with the unspoken elements of scifi; that's why people get sick of the asteroid thing. Nobody does it in scifi, but if it came down to it many universes could do it. It's just boring.

Of course asteroids as weapons has been done. The first examples that pop into my mind are Starship Troopers and Babylon 5. I am pretty certain people could come up with several novels and short stories featuring them as well. Nevertheless, you are of course right that doing them in every other space opera sci fi show would be extremely boring.

[Stark]

Thanks, professor. The point is that all kinds of universes with the capability don't do it, although it's certainly an element in vs. B5 doesn't do it at all; they just use railguns. They don't snag giant rocks and throw them across solar systems (although, of course, they doubtless can). We can't use the 'it's boring so it rarely happens on TV' as an excuse to ignore it. Even if it is boring as shit.

[Coyote]

"Hammerfall" was a good one. People writing the Big Giant Rock don't stop to think that there might be a reason to take the place intact, reasons that may include political, social, or some sort of ethical code about asteroid dropping. It may be their "we can do it, but won't go there because it is too horrible" type thing, the way nukes were the taboo "end of discussion" option.

[Wing Commander MAD]

The disadvantage is that you're not launching missiles from a space platform, like a spaceship that's also traveling pretty fast, but from a planet with a shitload of gravity for the slowass missiles to overcome. The Covenant might end up ruining the shit out of those missiles while they're still in boost phase, or might just outmaneuver the missiles, or they could just FTL right above Earth and start slagging away (depending on Covenant FTL capabilities).

Earth is at an inherently disadvantageous position and, really, I don't think five years is enough to mobilize us in a Fortress World position when we still have to design, test, and mass produce these wundernapkinwaffen weapons to defend ourselves from an opponent who's got superior technology and superior ultimate high ground.

I'm a bit rusty with my Halo lore, but Covenant FTL is accurate enough to be used from within a planetary atmosphere ( Halo 2 cutscene where truth leaves Earth), but I believe that it can also exit slipspace within the atmosphere of a earth-like planet (Earth in this case). I believe we see this twice in Halo 3. Once during the level Tsavo Highway, where a covenant cruiser appears and flys by overhead, and again when the Flood controlled Covenant vessel arrives at earth. I am not entirely certain about the first one, though the sound effect used appears to be identical to the sound effect when the Flood ship exists slip space onscreen. Make of that what you will.

First incident, around the 5:20 mark.

Second incident, about the 1:45 mark.

[Wing Commander MAD]

That first sentence should read:

I'm a bit rusty with my Halo lore, but Covenant FTL is accurate enough to be used from within a planetary atmosphere ( Halo 2 cutscene where Regret leaves Earth), but I believe that it can also exit slipspace within the atmosphere of a earth-like planet (Earth in this case).

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, that means they certainly have the option of just zipping over Earth, bypassing the orbital whatevers, and killfucking us. But, ah, why didn't they just zip into Earth orbit in Halo 2? Why did they have to come from deep space, get engaged by the MAC, and then engage in orbital warfare and have Master Chief ride a bomb like a surfboard in space while punching space dinosaurs?

[adam_grif]

Well, that means they certainly have the option of just zipping over Earth, bypassing the orbital whatevers, and killfucking us. But, ah, why didn't they just zip into Earth orbit in Halo 2? Why did they have to come from deep space, get engaged by the MAC, and then engage in orbital warfare and have Master Chief ride a bomb like a surfboard in space while punching space dinosaurs?

Because the covenant is run by space gremlins that go SQUAWK!

[Black Admiral]

Well, that means they certainly have the option of just zipping over Earth, bypassing the orbital whatevers, and killfucking us. But, ah, why didn't they just zip into Earth orbit in Halo 2? Why did they have to come from deep space, get engaged by the MAC, and then engage in orbital warfare and have Master Chief ride a bomb like a surfboard in space while punching space dinosaurs?

Because the Prophet of Regret (whose personal forces that detachment was) didn't know Earth was humanity's homeworld and, as such, didn't expect to find himself staring down the barrels of 300+ MAC platforms.

[adam_grif]

Even so, wouldn't you always want to do it if you could, as a precaution against planetary defenses?

[Khoryos]

Even so, wouldn't you always want to do it if you could, as a precaution against planetary defenses?

Would a devout Muslim paradrop into the kaaba just in case he got mugged?
They were approaching what was quite literally their holiest of holies, it's not unreasonable they'd want to take the whole thing in.
Plus, keep in mind how rarely the Covenant LOSE in ship-to-ship combat - they have, at that point, no real reason to even give a shit if the planet IS defended.

[Marcus Aurelius]

B5 doesn't do it at all; they just use railguns. They don't snag giant rocks and throw them across solar systems (although, of course, they doubtless can).

The Centauri don't use giant rocks, but the mass drivers do fire smaller rocks still large enough to cause WMD level damage on the planetary surface, most likely small asteroids gathered from the same solar system. In particular they are nothing like typical railguns in sci fi, which usually fire small metallic projectiles at very high velocity.

[adam_grif]

stuff

No, but soldiers would patrol around wearing body armor and carrying ammunition, even if they weren't expecting an all out firefight. It seems like a no brainer unless it's extremely risky to do it for some reason.

[Khoryos]

First and foremost, the Prophet ISN'T a soldier, he's a fanatic theocrat.
Second, dropping to sublight closer to a planet is obviously going to be more dangerous, simply because you have less wiggle-room.
Think of it as like parachuting into a convertible - sure, it's possible, but if you get it wrong your crotch is going to be in a VERY uncomfortable place.
Better just to land on the road and open the door.