Cruiser

The Cruiser is a type of heavily armed and armored capital warship in both the UNSC and Covenant fleets, emphasizing weaponry and armor over starfighter compliments.

Role

Even though both major fleets possessed warships of such classifications, the tactical philosophies of the two races were different. The Covenant, while possessing many different cruiser classifications, used carriers as the powerhouses of their fleets. The UNSC, on the other hand, used cruisers as their heaviest warships.

However, it should be noted that Covenant cruisers dwarfed their UNSC counterparts, and are more powerful.

Subclassifications

Further more, there are different subclassifications of cruisers: light cruisers, medium cruisers, heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, and supercruisers, in order of increasing tonnage and power. Also, the UNSC Phoenix classification was a unique warship, a cruiser-carrier, that combined the elements of both major warship designs. Also there is the new UNSC Battle Cruiser which dwarfs the largest of both the Covenant UNSC ships and possibley even the 13km long Forerunner Ship but is very different to the Covenant Battle Cruiser.