Pulse laser turret

A CCS-class Battlecruiser firing its Pulse Laser Turrets.

The Pulse Laser Turret is a light Covenant ship-to-ship weapon. These pulse weapons are known to have been mounted on most Covenant ships including artifact retrieval ships such as the Minor Transgression and Seraph Fighters. The weapon can be used against Starships but is also a likely candidate for a Covenant point defense weapon. Strangely enough, UNSC Prowlers are also mounted with pulse laser weaponry, but this version is likely an independent UNSC development rather than reverse engineering of Covenant technology - pulsed laser technology was available to Humanity as early as 1960, and at least as early as the year 2000 in weapon form.

Physics

Main article: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

Before the weapon fires, it must first charge, during the charge a sphere of light energy forms around the charging weapon. After it is finished charging, it expels a cyan/purple beam of energy. According to the Halo novels and combat observations, a section of the ship's shields must be dropped for it to fire completely.

Damage

Pulse Lasers are rated in the kilowatt range.

The weapon is said to have reduced the UNSC frigate Commonwealth's armor in sections three and four to a quarter the original width, which would mean (as frigates are known to have 60cm-thick armor) that a pulse laser salvo is capable of melting through 45cm of Titanium-A battle-plate in a single shot. This means that pulse lasers pose a serious threat to UNSC frigates and smaller, lighter armored UNSC ships as it would only take one salvo to melt through parts of its armor. However, it is believed that larger UNSC ships with thicker armor would have to take multiple pulse laser salvos to show the same results. The Halcyon-class cruiser class can only resist 4-5 pulse lasers but Supercarriers would be able to resist over 20 shots (10 meters of armor, 45 centimeters melted off per shot), making tactics come before strength in the mind of a UNSC ship captain.