Canon

Pulse laser turret

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This article describes the Covenant weapon. For the pulse laser mounted on UNSC prowlers, see XEV9-Matos Nonlinear Pulse Cannon.
A CCS-class battlecruiser firing its pulse laser turrets.

The pulse laser turret is a light ship-to-ship weapon system used by both the Covenant and UNSC. These laser weapons are known to have been mounted on most Covenant ships and starfighters, and are mostly used for point defense but also for ship-to-ship combat.[citation needed]

Design details

Specifications

The pulse laser turret is one of the Covenant's primary weapon systems, often classified as a point-defense weapon and compared to the UNSC's point-defense guns. These pulse weapons are affixed to most Covenant ships, including Kig-Yar privateer ships such as the Minor Transgression, and starfighters such as the Type-31 "Seraph"-class. Covenant pulse lasers are typically considered superior to their UNSC counterparts, due to the Covenant's superior power storage systems and gravitic-lensing focal arrays.[1]

Firing operation

Main article: Laser

The pulse laser turret fires by means of laser, using hydrogen fluoride as fuel.[2] Before the weapon fires, it must first charge; during the charge, a sphere of light energy forms around the charging weapon. After finishing charging, the weapon expels a cyan/purple beam of energy. A section of the ship's shielding system must be dropped to allow the pulse weapons to fire completely.[3]

Damage

A certain type of pulse laser turret can fire kilowatts of infrared light which could easily destroy circuits on human cargo ships.[4] Damages dealt by the pulse laser turrets are known to be serious threats to most, if not all UNSC ships; a pulse laser salvo is capable of melting through Paris-class frigate UNSC Commonwealth’s 60 cm of Titanium-A armor hull in a single shot.[5] In this instance, the UNSC Commonwealth received severe damage in sections three and four, armor down to twenty-five percent and hull breach in section three .[5] As such, it is believed that UNSC ships with thicker armor would have to take multiple pulse laser salvos to show the same results.

Known types

Covenant

UNSC

Gallery

List of appearances

Sources

  1. ^ Halo: Warfleet, Glossary - p.91
  2. ^ Halo: Contact Harvest, page 163
  3. ^ Halo: The Fall of Reach, chapter 14
  4. ^ Halo: Contact Harvest, chapter 1
  5. ^ a b Halo: The Fall of Reach, chapter 12