Posted by: PLUT0NIUM 235
problem is though, SPARTAN-IIs aren't made for a war against modern armed forces, since IMHO the UNSC are based on modern armed forces, similar to the forces used by the US marine corp. as an example, they excel at rapid deployement and completing their objectives quickly rather than prolonged, full-scale war. so i would think a bunch of SPARTAN-IIs would suffer the same fate as one in an engagement against a deployed modern force, complete with infantry and support vehicles. fair enough they have energy shields but weight of fire in the Halo Universe is enough to take them down, and modern forces are well trained to use their weapons, and must throw machineguns and grenade launchers into your standard squads.
to be frank, the UNSC are behind our modern military forces in a number of key areas, automation being one of them, now we have squads of infantry who can use UAVs to scout positions ahead of them, these UAVs can even call in artillery, air-strikes. we have air-bursting munitions that negate hiding behind something, lots of thermal optics built into modern battle machines, tons of things. couldn't imagine Covenant Banshees for example would fair well against something like an ADATS, patriot missile battery or starstreak missiles, all deployed extensively in the field. 'ancient' AC-130 gunships would be highly effective against Halo universe ground forces, as long as air superiority was established, a 105MM howitzer round from an Spectre would probably junk a Covenant Wraith in a single shot. don't really think these sorts of things should be compared to be honest, not unless someone fancies totally modernising the UNSC armed forces.
Yes, but the thing with the covenant is that they can control the orbital field of earth, seeing as we have no need for fighting for that during modern times. They could just glass various military command centers and your military would effectively be a headless ant.