View source for Forum:Covenant land losses

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It seems to me that the covenant army was woefully inadequate to go head to head with the UNSC army. Most of their vehicles are slow, heavy, and the support aircraft (Type-26 Ground Support Aircraft "Banshee") was not either fast enough or strong enough to take on the UNSC army in open combat. It seems as if the Covenant army is more built to fight in street combat than open combat. In open combat the UNSC Army, while not having the technological edge, had the firepower edge. Their Cobra tanks could take down wraiths and ghosts with relative ease, and the Scorpion M808 had more than enough manueverability to dodge wraith and plasma artillery with relative ease. 

Imagine this situation. The UNSC Army is entrenched along a designated area with High ground all around. They are guarding say, a highly valuable "forerunner artifact" Hoping not to the damage the artifact, the covenant engage on the ground. They first send in Wraiths and banshees, which are quickly subdued by Heavy cobra and Wolverine fire. Seeing the attack fail, the covenant then sends in Heavy amounts of Infantry and to Scarab tanks. The Infantry are slaughtered by Machine gun fire and volleys from the wolverines, with Warthogs and Cougars gunning down the survivors. The Cobras overload their guns to take out the Scarabs, supported by napalm and JDAM bombs to quickly subdue the Scarabs. In between waves, The defenders forge for covenant supplies and weaponry. Given that the supplies they started with were enough, and that they could get more from the planet stores and from dead Covenant, it's only logical that they cold hold out indefinitely, unless destroyed by orbital bombardment. Replecate the situation all over the planet, and the result is millions, if not billions of casualties for the covenant forces if the overall ground commander had the supplies. I can clearly see the UNSC army easily taking down billions alone during the battles for the inner and outer colonies. The generality here is that the Covenant army, when matched against the UNSC army, would be almost annilated in almost all ground engagements. For that reason and that reason alone, it leads me to believe that the information present in this wiki regarding the covenant vehicles is inaccurate. Match any Covenant ground vehicle against it's UNSC equivalent, and the result is the UNSC vehicle winning near every time. If you want the facts, read my paper about it. It isn't finished, and mostly provides theories, but it is insightful in understanding the scope of the war. The main article is copied below
Evaluating the war War: Technology.
One of the greatest factors in the win against the Covenant Empire is the development of better technology and deceptive strategy. One of the innovations made in the war was in the Slipspace Drive.  Slipspace drives function by using a particle accelerator, similar to the CIRN Supercollider, to artificially punch a hole into slipspace, which the ship squeezes into. The ship requires thousands upon thousands of tiny calculations to successfully move through slipspace. Ships however, are not moved through slipspace by their FTL drives, by their regular engines. The faster the ship’s engines and calculations, the faster it can move through slipspace. Indeed, as early as 2557, humanity had the ability to distort slipspace to a degree of near perfect accuracy on where they wanted to end up. In Infinity’s case, the result of its faster engines and advanced forerunner technology allowed it to move over thirty approximate light-years in a few short hours with a 99.99% accuracy on re-entry.  In 2525, such accuracy was almost impossible. It was also improbable to preform an in-atmosphere slipspace jump (records suggest that the Bellicose preformed this type of jump in 2507, and Admiral Cole likely repeated this feat in 2543 at Psi Serpentis). 
The advancement of armor plating, energy shielding, and the development of MJOLNIR powered armor was just as crucial in the war. UNSC starship specifications in 2536 was inadequate to defeat covenant ships, but en-masse, it was highly effective through usage of Magnetic Accelerator cannons, standard on all UNSC Warships. Still, Humanity was outgunned until after the war ended, with the development of the UNSC Infinity.
By 2557, The UNSC Infinity was debatably the most powerful warship in the known galaxy (UNSC/Covenant). It’s arsenal included four CR-08, Series-8 magnetic accelerator cannons, possibly more powerful than an ODP in themselves. It included also an array of 830 70mm Auto cannons, M96 Howler Missiles, M42 Archer Missiles, and M75 Rapier missiles. The ship also possessed energy shielding, which would make it the first UNSC ship to be fitted with shielding systems. These shields are shown to be strong enough to withstand direct impact with a CCS-class battlecruiser with negligible or minimal damage to the hull. Give an extra 200 years of development and the advantage is clearly shown. 
Shielding in warfare has always been crucial in winning battles. Walls keep troops from being massacred by heavy assault, personal shields blunt strikes from swords and maces, and Tank armor in WWII was crucial to keeping the crew of the tank alive to fire more shots at the enemy. The UNSC’s development in ship armor was both imitative to past structure and innovative with the development of the Halcyon-Class Cruiser.
The Halcyon-class light cruiser,[1] known as Human Attack Ship class C-II by the Covenant,[4] is a United Nations Space Command cruiser starship classification designed by Dr. Robert McLees in 2510, with a hull classification symbol of C. Their service lives were short due to a unique hull design that was costly to construct and maintain with low maneuverability, poor armament, and concerns about their tactical viability. They were replaced by the Marathon-class cruiser. The most noteworthy design feature in the Halcyon-Class Light Cruiser was a series of internal cross bracings and honeycombs that made the ships surprisingly resistant to battle damage; ships of the class were able to remain operational despite sustaining breaches to all compartments and losing 90% of their armor. This innovation in armor was possibly deployed in the construction of the Infinity. Given the massive size of the vessel, it’s quite possible that it could defeat vessels over five times it’s size, proven when the primary armaments of Infinity were able to punch directly through the Didact’s ship. Even though the ship had taken a massive beating on Requiem, surviving almost intact.
When it came to weapondry, the covenant had the advantage technologically, but when it came down to the actual battles, humanity won straight up, despite the evidience one could make against it. True, Humanity’s weapon’s were more primitive, but one has to understand that Humanity throughout the war was the more innovative when it came down to the battlefield and the weapons they created throughout the war. The covenant was simply modifying existing technology that they truly didn’t have a clue how to operate, as demonstrated in “OPERATION, FIRST STRIKE”. Humanity reverse engineered the innovations grabbed from the arms of dead jackals (guantlets) and forged them into feasable designs in the MJOLNIR armor, the Sabre Program, and ONI’s Bubble shield. 
When it came to the actual fight, humanity could do more with their weapons with less. As demonstrated in guerilla conflicts on occupied worlds, ambushes staged in city warfare, and the development of the NOVA bomb, humanity was the more deceptive of the two fighters. If the covenant managed to break human codes, they could simply speak their orders in another language the Covenant had never heard before (Russian, French, German, Spanish, Cherokee, etc.). They would decieve the Covenant into charging in to well fortified positions by sniping off the commanders and officers like Morgan’s Riflemen in the Rev. War, leading to slaughter. If humanity had lost a world, they most likely had a massive pile of covenant dead on top of that loss. 

War on the Ground: Why humanity Had the advantage
This is one of the more questionable sides of the war. Humanity despite being technologically inferior on the ground, always (mostly) managed to win straight up ground operations. This would suggest that the covenant had an inferiority, both technologically and numerically on the ground. This statement, with proper evaluation, is shockingly true  and even with air support, the Covenant had absolutely no chance in winning a ground engagement unless they had numerical superiority. there are three reasons for this theory.
1. Covenant had to supply from space to maintain an invasion against human-held planets, where the advantage is in the defender’s favor.
2. the covenant had no qualitative anti-tank or even anti-air unit to counter UNSC weapons and armor.
3. Covenant Leadership had few effective ground commanders to maintain assaults against fortified locations, as all effective deployment was from space locations.
Covenant technology was superior to mankind, at least until 2553. Groundwise however, the advantage was moot. Covenant tanks and scout units were effective, but not as nearly as the human advantages. Humans could quickly refill their tanks and vehicles from orbit, as there is much evidence to support that the UNSC had developed a far greater fighter than the Banshee or even the vampire anti-air fighter. Seraphs were the exception in flawed Covenant designs due to their heavier armor, but with proper anti air systems, the seraph’s advantages were quickly snuffed out.
Where human held it’s advantage was in guerilla warfare, superior commanders, and better motorized vehicles. Ground doctrine was different than space doctrine, but to compare the two would be like comparing a cow and a wolf. On the ground, the UNSC held significant advantage, starting with armor and aircraft. The Scorpion Tank was much more accurate than a covenant wraith, Warthogs were much more effective than the ghost as they were much more versatile in their role than the latter, and no vehicle in covenant posession could withstand concentrated fire from an SP-42 Cobra Battery. The Cobra anti-tank destroyer, coupled with the M-9 Wolverine anti-air tank ,space resupplyment and  infantry support could hold a position almost indefinitely unless a covenant warship directly intervened. Why, even with technological odds in covenant favor, is this so?
The Wolverine's primary armament is the M260 Multiple Launch Rocket System,[1] a development of the General Support Rocket Systems that have served alongside main battle tanks since the mid-twentieth century.[5] This weapon possesses two pods of Argent V surface-to-air missiles that are located on either side of the driver and gunner seats; the weapon can be upgraded with two additional, smaller pods. These missiles are specialized to target and deliver their warhead to an aircraft with great speed and maneuverability. The missile pods are quite large and can be reloaded via a mechanical system in the Wolverine, which stores a small supply of missiles onboard. this battery of missiles could disable or outright destroy anything from banshees to phantom dropships in rapid sucession. What about the Cobra? How did they fare against Covenant armor? 
Unlike most UNSCDF vehicles, the Cobra fills two distinct roles: that of a mobile anti-matériel platform and that of a self-propelled artillery piece. The SP42 Cobra is equipped with a pair of M66 light rail guns on its turret that fire high-density ferrous slugs - which are twice the size of those used by the M68 Gauss cannon - designed to penetrate enemy armor using sheer kinetic energy.[1] These rail guns fire intermittently, not in a single burst, as the energy required to accelerate the slugs to the speeds required to pierce the heaviest armor could only be managed for one of the cannons at a time. Synchronized fire from both railguns could destroy even the most heavily armored tank, with penetration that easily outgunned the M808 Main Battle Tank's standard M512 90mm cannon.
In addition to the Cobra's anti-vehicle role, the vehicle could be stabilized upon the ground, "locking down", and deployed an arcing-trajectory M98 105mm light rail gun which fires  conventional explosive shells, or anti-tank rounds, at supersonic velocities. The explosive and kinetic forces of the shell complement each other to increase the damage inflicted.[2] An M98's shell, when specially outfitted, could easily penetrate a Type-30 Locust's energy shield and destroy the platform, while one shot could outright destroy the Wraith tank unless the Wraith in question had a shield on it, but this shield would fare no better than the tank. The cobra’s main armaments had an effective range of over five miles, while the 105mm had nearly three times this range, if fired in conjunction with orbital targeting
Covenant weapon’s were, with close examination, weekly armored for UNSC standards. While the main tank the covenant deployed was reliable, it’s effective range was absolutely terrible for it’s size. The Scorpion tank could easily pierce 80mm of sloped steel armor at 500 meters, thus effectively disabling the Wraith before it could even get in range. Why didn’t the Covenant design a better tank for their forces then? because the advantages the UNSC had on the ground were nullified by covenant advantages in orbit. 
The evidence in the books and games state that the UNSC won the majority of ground operations, but at a heavy cost. I believe that the evidence in the books and games was severely flawed. The covenant won the majority of the ground operations, but only through overwhealming numerical superiority and direct spacial intervention in the form of Glassing the planet, and even then, they had lost a massive number of men and materiel of war to do it.  don't you love to contradict the given information? I mean in the LOTR movies the elves are shown to be slaughtered at helms deep, but in reality they have thousands of years of battlefield expirience and combat training. In the halo novels the covenant is said to slaughter UNSC ground forces, but I theorize, like others, that the only way the covenant was going to win any engagement on anything like even terms was with overwhealming superiority in numbers and with spacial intervention. proof of this theory can be seen in the fall of reach, the battle for earth, and in even in some ways the battle for Bothaui in the first republic-Sith empire war. simply put, UNSC had better infantry weapondry, better armored vehicles, better, more qualified low level ground commanders and better aircraft than anything the covenant could ever muster. in a tactical sense, one UNSC soldier was worth at least five covenant troopers. All my theory states that once the UNSC lost the ground war, the covenant must have lost prohibitive amounts in armor, airplanes, and especially in infantry. Once the UNSC dug into a piece of ground, it would have been near impossible to dislodge them without overwhealming numerical superiority and direct spacial intervention. any arguement about anything that takes place in the games is practically irrevelant, since gameplay is balanced so that neither side has a decisive advantage in ground combat. Only halo wars provides a relevant picture to ground combat. I have personal expirience in terminal moraine (2v2 map with two areas on either side to dig in) where I had held out by myself against two legendary covenant AI's for four hours without any help. simply put, even though damage ratios were innacurate, I still managed to decisively beat any covenant force that came my way without breaking a sweat, and the only reason of my loss was simply because I quit. Not to brag, but i repeated the same feat on fort deen with three AIs against only me using tactics of desperation and guerilla style warfare. This can be directly connected to the actual war. UNSC vehicles were better than their covenant counterpart in almost every way. even the experimental weapons were better than the actual covenant equivalent. Covenant aircraft was certainly not well adapted for the role they needed to be, and the ground armor was overweight and slow. The wraith for example, weighed almost as much as an Abrams, yet could not hold it's own against a scorpion in anything but short range combat, and even then, this was in doubt in most cases. Doctrine states that a tank cant hold its own in any form of street combat, and this has been proven in the streets of Budapest and Stalingrad, along with multiple other cases between then and now. when it came to infantry, the covenant held it's advantage in close quarters combat. only there they had a decisive advantage. in anything but, the covenant was outclassed in almost every way. Although UNSC combat technology was inferior, it was easily the most effective in it's role. seeing as the covenant, with the exception of the brutes and the needler/carbine, had no way effectively reload their weapons after they ran out of ammunition, they charged futilely into well entrenched positions, and the result was a straight-out massacre. In addition, since the covenant used color to denote rank, it was a literal turkey shoot for snipers on all officers the covenant had on the ground. In conclusion, had the UNSC had space parity/advantage with the covenant, there would have been no straight out way for the covenant to ever win the Human-covenant war, and seeing as the UNSC had numerical superiority in almost all major space battles, equal technological footing would have led the UNSC to crush the covenant in space, and massacre on the ground, though no major technological progress was made on ground combat since the late 21st century. If the covenant had invaded in WWII around 1944, they still would have stood no chance on the ground level, but they would still eventually win due to the spacial advantage. To end my arguement, all combat in the books, but not campaign missions, is highly inaccurate. INFORMATION TO SUPPORT THE ARGUEMENTS WERE TAKEN FROM THE BOOKS AND THIS WIKI. COPYRIGHTS TO OWNERS.
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