- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
It could be done with less than 300. Why? The bombs. 200 ships, all releasing a swarm of 200 dropships (likely on the massive carriers) , results in 40,000 dropships, 133 per station. Now, assuming a 75% success rate (VERY generous; the only reason the Cairo didn't go boom is that the Chief was on it; very few MAC stations, if any, would have the luxury of a Spartan. And this is assuming that the other Spartans are even stationed on the MAC platforms), that brings the MACs down to 75 functional platforms. Keep in mind that this a best-case scenario; in all likelyhood, with 133 ships per station, all of the guns would be dead.
Of course, this scenaro does not factor in human ships. A couple dozen ship-mounted MACs, a few thousand archer missles, or a tactical nuke or two could nearly wipe out the dropship fleet. However, doing so would deplete the ammo stores signifigantly, and in the time it would take the ships to re-focus on the Covenant ships, the human fleet would be decimated.
[Edited on 6/4/2006]