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Posted by: anton1792
You are off by a bit for the UNSC.
It was revealed in one of the Halo Reach data pads that the total number of ships that the UNSC possessed prior to the war was around 2000.
As for the Covenant, I took a rough stab at estimating them a while ago for another thread. I looked at the number of ships lost throughout the war (Virtually all named fleets in the Covenant were wiped out totally or partially):
~ Chi Ceti: 1
~ Second Battle of Harvest: 1
~ Alpha Aurigae: 12
~ Harvest Campaigns: At least 1
~ XI Bootis A: 8
~ Groombridge-1830: 3
~ First Battle of Arcadia: 1 (perhaps 2)
~ The Rubble: 1
~ 18 Scorpii: 1
~ Psi Serpentis: 300
~ Algolis: 1
~ The Package: 1
~ TORPEDO: 7
~ Sigma Octanus IV: 3
~ Deliver Hope Trailer: 1
~ UPPERCUT: 2
~ Reach: 210 (Or 468 with new TFoR)
~ Line Installation 1-4: ~12
~ Alpha Halo: Unknown. At the end of CE, Cortana says "An entire armada obliterated". Perhaps what was left of the Fleet of Particular Justice.
~ FIRST STRIKE: 485, UH
~ Earth: (Much) Greater than 15.
~ Cleveland: 1
~ High Charity: Unknown. Probably high.
~ Onyx: 54
~ Joyous Exultation: "Hundreds". Two massive combined fleets numbering in the hundreds, 60% wiped out.
~ The Ark: 30
~ The Great Schism: Unknown. After the war, only minor skirmishes were fought, and by 2559, Covenant ships become quite rare. The Return describes the Sangheili issue with ships. Skirmishes imply small scale engagements, so it is unlikely on the same scale as the battles for Earth or Reach, so loses would not be as significant. However, over time those loses might have come out to be a large number.
Total that we know: ~1152 (or ~1410 with TFoR re-release)
Taking into account the unknowns, like High Charity, Joyous Exultation, Earth, the battles after the end of Halo 3 and the fact that all but the latter of those battles/events almost certainly involved enormous fleets I would put the Covenant's ship numbers in at perhaps the 3000 area.
Bear in mind that the Covenant had serious reservations about whether or not they possessed enough resources to commit to a war as large as the Human-Covenant war when they wanted things like the Halo Wars Forerunner fleet.
Ah! Thank for clearing it up. Now it makes sense. Thanks. But don't forget, there's always possibility that covenant probably had fail-safe plan for reservation fleet or something in case if war goes bad for them.