The Andromeda Ascendant at the Battle of Reach

[Eternal_Freedom]

During the Andromeda Ascendant's slipstream journey to Hephastus, a slipstream anomaly dumps then into the Epsilon Eridanii system, two hours before the Battle of Reach.

Details:

-The Andromeda Ascendant has her full High Guard crew complement aboard. She carries all her standard armaments (including 40 Nova bombs) and fighter complement.
-Gaheris Rhade decides to delay betraying Captain Hunt once he realises the ship is not where it should be. He continues to serve as a loyal High Guard officer for the time being.
-The Covenant armada is still on it's way, as described in "The Fall of Reach."
-The UNSC has all the ships and forces described in "The Fall of Reach." It is aware of the Covenant approach.
-Cortana and the SPARTAN's are aboard the Pillar of Autumn, which is heading out-system for it's "capture a Prophet and end the war" mission and witnesses theAndromeda's arrival.

What happens next? Does Captain Hunt side with the UNSC, and if so how effective would Rommie be against the Covenant? Or does Captain Hunt decide it's none of his business?

[Molyneux]

During the Andromeda Ascendant's slipstream journey to Hephastus, a slipstream anomaly dumps then into the Epsilon Eridanii system, two hours before the Battle of Reach.

Details:

-The Andromeda Ascendant has her full High Guard crew complement aboard. She carries all her standard armaments (including 40 Nova bombs) and fighter complement.
-Gaheris Rhade decides to delay betraying Captain Hunt once he realises the ship is not where it should be. He continues to serve as a loyal High Guard officer for the time being.
-The Covenant armada is still on it's way, as described in "The Fall of Reach."
-The UNSC has all the ships and forces described in "The Fall of Reach." It is aware of the Covenant approach.
-Cortana and the SPARTAN's are aboard the Pillar of Autumn, which is heading out-system for it's "capture a Prophet and end the war" mission and witnesses theAndromeda's arrival.

What happens next? Does Captain Hunt side with the UNSC, and if so how effective would Rommie be against the Covenant? Or does Captain Hunt decide it's none of his business?

Seriously? None of his business? Humanity fighting a desperate war against an alien foe that wants to genocide the whole of Homo sapiens? I don't think there's all that much chance of that.

What I don't know are the offensive/defensive abilities of the Andromeda compared with those of the UNSC and Covenant. Do you have any resources that might be able to provide such?

[Eternal_Freedom]

From the Andromeda wiki page on the ship itself.

Andromeda's standard missiles have a 40 mt yield, and reach speeds of 90+ PSL. They also have a 1 kg mass, which is approximately the size of a human fist.

She can fire 8 mps (missiles per second) from each of her 40 ELS Launch Tubes, giving her a total rate of fire of 19,200 missiles per minute. With this kind of firepower, she is able to depopulate a planet in under 2 minutes.

I think it's a safe bet she can take out covenant ships. The question is whether she can take out the whole 300+ armada.

As for it not being Dylan's business, I didn't think it likely but I felt I had to give another option.

[Thanas]

Novabombs are overkill.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Novabombs are overkill.

I merely included Nova bombs because Rommie was carrying them at the time. Dylan would never use them at Reach anyway.

He might use them against the system containing High Charity,if he as convinced it was the only way to end the war.

[Thanas]

Why wouldn't he? He is no wuss when it comes to using them, nor are other HG commanders.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Remember his comments to Rhade at Hephastus?

"This system is inhabited. We will not use strategic weapons, no matter how many ships we're up against."

I have no doubt he would use them in due course, but they make no sense at Reach if he is helping the UNSC save lives.

[Thanas]

Remember his comments to Rhade at Hephastus?

"This system is inhabited. We will not use strategic weapons, no matter how many ships we're up against."

I have no doubt he would use them in due course, but they make no sense at Reach if he is helping the UNSC save lives.

The people there were commonwealth citizens. He never had any qualms using them against the worldship for example.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I know he had no qualms using them against the Magog, but I don't think he'll be so trigger-happy in this situation, especially as Reach is inhabited by Humans, rather than very bitey and very vicious aliens.

[Themightytom]

What is the payload of the AA's missiles? She dumps out missile spam like crazy, and has pretty extensive point defense weapons I think if she can hold the covenant at bay so that the UNSC can use their MAC guns Reach might not necessarily fall. It was stated several times that the UNSC's weakness is space superiority. AA may not necessarily give them an edge in the Reach situation but they could make things less unfavorably skewed.

Failing that, Hunt would probably decide to end the war by demonstrating the Nova bomb's effectiveness once the planet is glassed, and threaten to start blasting Covenant worlds.

[Eternal_Freedom]

From the link I posted earlier, and from IIRc Season 2's "The Prince," her standard missiles have a 40 Mt yield and she can fire 8 per second from each of her 40 tubes. This gives 19,200 missiles per minute.

Standard missiles more at 0.9c and are kinetic-kill weapons. So they are effectively longer-range guided MAC guns with a high rate of fire.

[lordofchange13]

Is it possible in anyway that the Covenant are aware of Andromeda's arrival?i do not remember the show well, did the High Guard have shield technology?

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Covenant are unaware of the Andromeda's arrival. And even if they knew an extra ship was there they would be unlikely to change their plans - they were on a Holy Crusade after all.

No, Andromeda did not have shield tech. She was however very durable, extremely maneuvreable and used to engaging targets at distances of multiple light-seconds.

[Thanas]

The problem here is that we do not know how much damage Covenant ships can take or dish out (look for Connor's post on that topic) neither do we reliably know how much damage Andromeda can take - all we can offer are a few calculations and estimations, of which the main problem is that damage in the Andromedaverse is usually dependant more on where the missiles hit than how they hit. For that, I once refer you to the search option to look at my and Connors posts on that topic.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

From the link I posted earlier, and from IIRc Season 2's "The Prince," her standard missiles have a 40 Mt yield and she can fire 8 per second from each of her 40 tubes. This gives 19,200 missiles per minute.

Standard missiles more at 0.9c and are kinetic-kill weapons. So they are effectively longer-range guided MAC guns with a high rate of fire.

That sounds intense, how long can she keep at it before the magazines run dry?

[Eternal_Freedom]

I would think she can keep it up for at least two minutes, or she would not have said she can depopulate an Earth-type planet in that time.

[Molyneux]

I would think she can keep it up for at least two minutes, or she would not have said she can depopulate an Earth-type planet in that time.

Well...damn. I somehow got the impression that Andromeda was a fairly low-powered sci fi universe...guess I was completely bass-ackwards on that one.

[Eternal_Freedom]

She can release 320 longer-ranged MAC equivalent rounds per second., and has hefty countermeasures to avoid being targetted. And if she is fired at, I think she might be able to outrun or outmanoeuvre the plasma torpedoes, given that the AA can reach ~80 PSL and pull some insane manoeuvres for a Star Destroyer scale starship.

[Thanas]

Considering the performance at ADDB, TBOTB she can keep it up for longer than two minutes. The depopulate planet is however not a valid indicator seeing as how it depends on a lot of factors like city spread etc. The countermeasures however are an unknown, given we do not know what sensors the covenant use. What do they have?

This thread is all about speculation given - as I outlined above - how we do not know anything secure about the covenant and actually quite little about Dromverse ships. Thus, I find little value in it.