DDS-class carrier

The DDS-class carrier is a heavy warship within the Covenant Navy and serves as a force deployment and occupation warship.

Background
The DDS-class carrier unlike the larger and more powerful assault carrier, is a less frequent but powerful warship within the Covenant Navy. The primary role of the DDS-class carrier is to support fleet actions in space, or as a infantry deployment platform; the DDS-class carrier has three bulbous sections; its swollen center boasts a total of thirteen launch bays on both sides of the ship. . It is used for command and control of large numbers of deployment waves of fighters, dropships, and interceptors.

Operational history
For a number of years leading up to the Human-Covenant war the DDS-class carrier served as a support ship in and around the High Charity Defense Fleet. In 2552 a DDS-class carrier being escorted by a pair of enemy frigates and a destroyer, attempted to seize control of the human colony world Sigma Octanus IV. When the destroyer and the two frigates were destroyed by Captain Jacob Keyes the carrier retreated until reinforcements arrived. A short month later multiple DDS-class carriers participated in the invasion of Reach and subsequent destruction of the planet. During the battle of installation 05, the DDS-class carrier Lawgiver assisted the Incorruptible during the battle against the Jiralhanae and the Flood. A DDS-class carrier would also go on assist the Covenant in the Battle of Onyx later that month.

Armaments
Like other ships within the Covenant Navy, the DDS-class carrier boasts a vast array of energy weapons. Like all space based warships, their ships come in a varying classes and sizes, though military observers note there are variance of weaponry, length, and estimated tonnage. The DDS-class carrier is armed with multiple plasma torpedo launchers, pulse laser turrets, and anterior plasma cannons.

Aircraft
The DDS-class carrier boasts three squadrons of Seraph fighters, two hundred Banshees and thirty-four Spirits/Phantoms that can be launched at any given moment from the thirteen launch bays located along the sides of the ship.

Military units
The DDS-class carrier is crewed by upwards of four thousand Covenant infantry, and are available for deployment on a moments notice via the ships gravity lift when close to a planet's surface.

Ships of the Line

 * Lawgiver

Production notes
In Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, the Incorruptible, a 3,000-meter long Reverence-class cruiser, took cover behind the carrier Lawgiver. However, the Halo Encyclopedia erroneously listed the carrier's length as 1,455 meters, rendering the Lawgiver too small to serve as the Incorruptible's cover. This was later fixed with Halo: The Essential Visual Guide, in which the carrier's length is said to be 3,000 metres, making both ships to be around the same length.

List of appearances

 * Halo: The Fall of Reach
 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
 * Halo: Fall of Reach
 * Invasion