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This topic has moved here: Poll [68 votes]: Size of Truth's new Fleet in Halo 3
  • Poll [68 votes]: Size of Truth's new Fleet in Halo 3
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Subject: Truth's Fleet
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Poll: Size of Truth's new Fleet in Halo 3  [closed]
10-15:  6%
(4 Votes)
20-50:  1%
(1 Votes)
50-90:  0%
(0 Votes)
90-140:  7%
(5 Votes)
140-200:  7%
(5 Votes)
200-300:  7%
(5 Votes)
300-500:  9%
(6 Votes)
500+:  62%
(42 Votes)
Total Votes: 68

Anyone have a guess what the size of Truth's new fleet would have to be to take out 300 Orbtial MAC Guns on Earth? It took around 50-100 ships or so to take over Reach, which had 20 Orbitial MAC Guns. Also what type of ships do you think would have been used?



[Edited on 6/4/2006]

  • 06.04.2006 4:09 PM PDT
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heh auctually there were more than 314 ships at reach and it depends he might not have any only showed him leaving in the forerunner ship

  • 06.04.2006 4:12 PM PDT
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500++++

  • 06.04.2006 4:17 PM PDT
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oops sorry, i thought the attack at Reach was alot smaller than that.

  • 06.04.2006 4:17 PM PDT
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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]

  • 06.04.2006 4:27 PM PDT

"I'm hungry..."

They wouldn't waste MAC rounds on dropships. They'd save the big guns for the ships themselves. Imagine the rate of fire Cairo Station had. Of the top of my head... about 1 ever 30-40 seconds? Whatever it is, multiply that by 300 orbital defense platforms. Then there's the slightly less powerful, but still devestating MAC guns on the human fleet. They have nukes and whatnot, also. Plus, I don't think Truth is going to go small, anyways. This is his opportunity to end the war and I don't hink he would send an unbeatable juggernaut to do so.

  • 06.04.2006 4:38 PM PDT
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Posted by: Gotterdammerung
They wouldn't waste MAC rounds on dropships. They'd save the big guns for the ships themselves. Imagine the rate of fire Cairo Station had. Of the top of my head... about 1 ever 30-40 seconds? Whatever it is, multiply that by 300 orbital defense platforms. Then there's the slightly less powerful, but still devestating MAC guns on the human fleet. They have nukes and whatnot, also. Plus, I don't think Truth is going to go small, anyways. This is his opportunity to end the war and I don't hink he would send an unbeatable juggernaut to do so.


After the Athens and Malta were destroyed by bombs brought via dropship, you can bet your sweet arse that they would "waste MAC rounds" on dropships that could repeat what happened to the Cairo's battle cluster again, and again, and again. When you're desparate, you'll use anything to delay death for a few more seconds.

As for your second point, the big ships could release the dropships out of range of the MACs. Problem solved.

And the thesis of the topic wasn't how many ships Truth would have, it is how many ships would be nessicary to destroy the orbital defense grid.

[Edited on 6/4/2006]

  • 06.04.2006 4:47 PM PDT
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It might not take too many big ships(Frigates, cruisers, carriers) to take out the MAC platforms. If the covenant send out lots dropships some will be able to land on the ground to try to disable the generators that power the MAC platforms. As soon as that happens the MAC platforms will be useless.

Or maybe they will find out that they can make a jump into a planets atmosphere so they can bypass the orbital defenses and land troops to take out the generators. Actually, they wouldn't even need to land anybody. They could just fire at the generators with their plasma weaponry, and then the ships in orbit would only have to destroy the human ships without having to worry about the MAC platforms.

[Edited on 6/4/2006]

  • 06.04.2006 4:54 PM PDT
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Posted by: opogjijijp

Or maybe they will find out that they can make a jump into a planets atmosphere so they can bypass the orbital defenses and land troops to take out the generators.


I never thought of that. If that happens, Truth will probably only need a fleet of a few dozen, as weapons for use on planets (save nukes) wouldn't be powerful enough to destroy a ship without massive concentrations of fire at one spot.

  • 06.04.2006 4:59 PM PDT
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but at the end of halo 2 the Cairo station is still in operation, and the events of Halo 2 took a couple hours or a day or two?

  • 06.04.2006 6:54 PM PDT

Halo CE......(sigh) the good ol' days......

“Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell that here, obeying her behests, we fell.”

if any of you read first strike which im sure alot of you did, whats stopping the covenant from slipspacing right next to the guns, or even past them(remember they got the ability to do that so close to a gravity well from cortana-regret did it when he bugged out of new mombasa)

  • 06.04.2006 7:09 PM PDT
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about 1 ever 30-40 seconds?
Well, according to Halopedia it takes five seconds to fire one shot. One shot for one Super MAC can destory a covenant capital ship and the Super MAC is the only type in the three hundred MACs orbiting earth.

[Edited on 6/4/2006]

  • 06.04.2006 7:12 PM PDT
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Sorry, doubled posted the samething.

[Edited on 6/4/2006]

  • 06.04.2006 7:13 PM PDT
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Tubman42 is correct. The Covenant now possess the ability to Slipspace jump into Earth's atmosphere. They wouldn't have to destroy the MAC guns immediately. The MAC guns, if they were to be used, would have to pivot 90-180% downward just to shoot the Covenant fleet and that takes time. Does anyone even know if such an occurance is possible ( the MAC gun thing)?

[Edited on 6/4/2006]

  • 06.04.2006 7:22 PM PDT
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The Orbital MAC Guns can fire over and over again in seconds, and each salvo could take one Covenant ship out of the fight, and with 300 guns firing 300 salvos every couple of seconds i don't think any small fleet could last very long. And i bet the speed of the MAC guns are faster than the plasma weapons of the Covenant so the MAC Guns could propbably get off several salvos before the impact of the plasma, which would reduce any size fleet down to size, and i doubt hitting drop ships would affect the fire of the MAC Guns. Each salvo wieghs like 100 tons? i don't think a small drop ship will affect that.

  • 06.04.2006 7:23 PM PDT
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Truth's Fleet would have to be over at least 700 ships if they are to survive a direct charge on the Super MACs for ten seconds.

  • 06.04.2006 7:42 PM PDT
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Any charge would be a direct charge because the MAC Guns surround the whole planet.

  • 06.04.2006 7:51 PM PDT
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A battalion is like 1000+, so truths fleet must be astronomical...

  • 06.04.2006 7:53 PM PDT
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A battalion=600 troops
A regiment=2000 troops
A division=5000-6000 troops
An army=10-15000 troops

Hope this information clarifies some things for you.

  • 06.04.2006 7:57 PM PDT
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darn... 1000 is alot.. if all of them fired at once.. the platforms around the planet would be totally destroyed, but they would probably get off 3-4 salvos, so between 900-1200 MAC Gun rounds flying through space and decimate the Covenant fleet.

  • 06.04.2006 7:57 PM PDT
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The Covenant wouldn't need to charge the guns with there big ships. They could jump into the atmosphere of Earth, bypassing the guns and then destroy the generators powering them.

Or they could use boarding craft and plant bombs on them, while the bigger ships wait out of range of the MACs

[Edited on 6/4/2006]

  • 06.04.2006 8:01 PM PDT
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at that rate it would take him 1500 ships to completely obliterate earth's mac guns

  • 06.04.2006 8:04 PM PDT
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But we don't totally know that the Covenant know they could jump into the atmosphere, i know in the books that the Covenant AI got that information from Cortana that their ships were capable of doing so, but in the game they don't exhibit this type of knowledge, except for Truth's desperate escape out of the planets gravity well. The rest of the fleet engaged the MAC Gun platforms with drop ships.

  • 06.04.2006 8:09 PM PDT

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Posted by: Ad_Hominum
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.


After reading this thread this scenario seems the most complete but it does not factor in Covenant Capital Ships have energy weapons that can fire at ships and the MAC Stations well outside of the MAC Guns range. This detail is defined on HBO.

  • 06.04.2006 8:23 PM PDT

"You have been measured, you have been weighed: And you have been found lacking."

Posted by: Foxtrot Zero Six
Tubman42 is correct. The Covenant now possess the ability to Slipspace jump into Earth's atmosphere. They wouldn't have to destroy the MAC guns immediately. The MAC guns, if they were to be used, would have to pivot 90-180% downward just to shoot the Covenant fleet and that takes time. Does anyone even know if such an occurance is possible ( the MAC gun thing)?


It would take a few hours to do that if it is possible...

It would require the entire station to be realigned to orbit and would require an substansial amount of energy to 1) maintain station and not fall into earths gravity well, and 2) remain in geosyncronous orbit.

As for the orbital defence grid... well... 50 ships to take out enough of the grid to infiltrate planetary defences, another 50 to eliminate the entire grid... but then again we don't know the power of the forrunner ship... That alone might have a super weapon on it design to blow planets up...
Besides... we don't know the effect that might have on the Gravity... hell does anyone actually know how the UNSC has artificial gravity? I knew they had the rotational things... but... ah well
Posted by: Rex89
But we don't totally know that the Covenant know they could jump into the atmosphere, i know in the books that the Covenant AI got that information from Cortana that their ships were capable of doing so, but in the game they don't exhibit this type of knowledge, except for Truth's desperate escape out of the planets gravity well. The rest of the fleet engaged the MAC Gun platforms with drop ships.


The covenant AI didn't release any information. It just sent out a broadcast signal calling cortana an infidel.

It didn't release any information about the refitted covenant technology

[Edited on 6/4/2006]

  • 06.04.2006 8:56 PM PDT

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