User talk:ProfessorStalhmanSaysHello

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Glad to be welcomed thanks. --ProfessorStalhmanSaysHello 07:18, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Re: some gibberish

"[H]umans only win when outnumbered". The Covenant have a habit of using the overflow strategy akin to the Red Army. By your logic the UNSC only looses when fighting a handful of enemies.....strange.-- Forerunner 10:25, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

LOL!!!! I meant humans only win when they outnumber the Elites (direct quote: "Just because your tactics are different from the UNSC's doesn't make them inferior - just look at all of those battles the UNSC lost. Hell, the Marines only won in battles where they outnumbered the Covenant")

another direct quote you said in favour of Elite tactics "The Sangheili-led siege on Alpha Base in an example of Sangheili tactics - they tricked the Marines into believing that they were a Pelican making its way in, when in actuality they were an armed force sent in to kill John-117. Going around killing people in close-quarters combat doesn't mean that you aren't a strategist - Sangheili have such a big advantage in CQC that they simply don't need to be tactical in such engagements, though neither does this mean that they don't use strategic tactics" --ProfessorStalhmanSaysHello 10:30, 13 August 2011 (EDT) Not very consistent in your arguments are you.

Why do I find it odd that you're having the same debate that CookieMonster was having...--ハローファン (H1234-NET) 11:23, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Who the hell is CookieMonsterayshello?

--ProfessorStalhmanSaysHello 11:27, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Oh wait thats my older brother, sorry this is ex-call of duty hater and we share the same first name btw. Sorry for any confusion, yeah me and Cookie had a very-long discussion and we agreed that if I was to stop vandalising on Halopedia using his account and stop being a "COD fanboy extremist" in his words, he would allow me a place on Halopedia so that I can learn to understand the Halo universe and appreciate it more. Since then, ive been hooked on the lore and me and Cookie's views on Halo have become very similar. --ProfessorStalhmanSaysHello 11:37, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Yes.--UP TO NOW I HAVE TOLERATED THESE CRACKPOT EXPERTS AND ONLY OFFERED A TOKEN OBJECTION!!! NOW THAT THE DRILLING HAS BEEN ACCELERATED, I will not be obstructed any further. 11:53, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Ex-COD Hater" ex- Halo hater sorry lol. --UP TO NOW I HAVE TOLERATED THESE CRACKPOT EXPERTS AND ONLY OFFERED A TOKEN OBJECTION!!! NOW THAT THE DRILLING HAS BEEN ACCELERATED, I will not be obstructed any further. 11:56, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Re: some gibberish

"[H]umans only win when outnumbered". The Covenant have a habit of using the overflow strategy akin to the Red Army. By your logic the UNSC only looses when fighting a handful of enemies.....strange.-- Forerunner 10:25, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

In an attempt to answer that age-old question once and for all, I shall compare tactics we have seen in battle.

Battle	Date	Human strategy	Covenant strategy	Notes
First Battle of Harvest	2525	Covenant vessel lured into relic-related trap and disabled. In the ensuing confusion the Tiara is captured by the militia and the colonists begin evacuation.	Covenant forces search for relics due to the devout religious significance. To remove any threats the planet is assaulted with a planetary bombardment, knocking it into a nuclear winter.
Chi Ceti	2525	UNSC Commonwealth holds of a small Covenant ship long enough to allow the SPARTAN-IIs to retrieve their MJOLNIR mark IV armour. The unit takes advantage of a flaw in Covenant shield design to board the vessel and plant a nuclear warhead. Although resistance is light a SPARTAN-II is injured and is unable to enter vacuum safely. Sam sacrifices himself destroying the ship from the inside.	Unrelenting discovers the human presence at Chi Ceti IV and begins to attack the Commonwealth on its own. Both heavily damaged, the Unrelenting retreats to safety before attacking, again without assistance.	It would appear that the Covenant at this moment have little regard for the combat-effectiveness of the UNSC and believe it safe enough to attack solo. A Kig-yar security crew may suggest that this is a Kig-yar vessel, given its size as a third that of the Commonwealth.
Battle of Bliss	2526	Three UNSC ships are attacked by a fleet of forty-five Covenant ships and are quickly destroyed.	Covenant strategy appears to be in overwhelming UNSC forces through rediculously-greater numbers. Planet is subject to orbital bombardment and evacuating civilian ships are shot down before jumping.	First confirmation of the Covenant Navy intentionally overwhelming UNSC forces.
Second Battle of Harvest	March 2526	Forty UNSC and repurposed CMA vessels attack a single Covenant ship at once, aiming to overwhelm the vessel and quickly retake the colony. A sudden change in tactics from conventional weapons to the MAC gun wins the battle.	Covenant super-destroyer resists constant attack from missiles with use of shielding and takes out thirteen vessels before a MAC strike takes it out, itself.	Covenant Navy doesn't take the UNSC seriously, leading to very-lax strategies.
Battle of Alpha Aurigae	October 2526	117 (or 107, depending on if it was a typo) UNSC ships attack a Covenant fleet of twelve, including three CAS-class carriers, head on.	The Covenant fleet respond like-wise.	A very simply Naval engagement whereby entire fleets simply follow a straight line - akin to engagements in the First World War with dreadnaught-type battleships, which eliminate the need for parallel, horizontal warfare. Tactics seem otherwise lax on both sides and the UNSC takes heavy losses because of it.
Battle of XI Boötis A	February 2528	Seventy UNSC ships attack a Covenant force of of eight head-on.	The Covenant Navy responds likewise.	The UNSC Navy under Admiral Cole continues with his idealogy of overwhelming the Covenant, believing it to be the only way to remotely equal them in strength. Again, a straight-line assault proves costly.
Battle of Hat Yai	2528/9	A UNSC destroyer deploys ODSTs to assist in the groundside engagement. A Covenant base is taken without ODST casualties.	Covenant Navy engages the UNSC in an unknown manner while planet-side ships begin shooting down evacuees. To quickly take the planet, reinforcements are called and the UNSC is forced to retreat.	First known usage of the Covenant calling for reinforcements - they appear to take the UNSC much more seriously than before.
"Harvest Campaign"	2526–2531	Numerous UNSC forces over the years attempt to take control of the planet, only to be beaten back by the Covenant, who are in-tern beaten back again. Ground assault appears to be in a mêlée.	Covenant ground forces attack in an unknown manner, which descends into a mêlée. Later engagements in 2531 reveal that their continued presence on the planet is relating to previously-unnoticed Forerunner artefacts.	Both forces appear to be evenly destructive.
Battle of Eridanus II	2530	unknown	unknown
Battle of the Great Bear	December 2530	Seventeen UNSC ships attack a Covenant fleet of three Covenant vessels, loosing eleven. Attack strategy is unknown.	Three Covenant ships destroy eleven UNSC vessels before they themselves are destroyed.
Battle of Arcadia	February 2531	UNSC fleet of four ships destroys a CCS-class battlecruiser. Two are destroyed and a third, the UNSC Pillar of Autumn is damaged. SPARTAN-IIs are deployed to assist in the civilian evacuation and prototype "Plasma Rhinos" disable the shields of a Covenant base.	With the UNSC fleet in tatters, the remaining CCS-class battlecruiser establishes a base around Forerunner ruins as they look for relics of high significance. Pirth City is attacked as the Covenant Army drives the humans off of the planet. Upon acquisition of desired information, the Covenant depart.	First known instance of the Covenant army and navy working together.
Battle of Trove	February 2531	A UNSC carrier attacks a Covenant force above and within a shield world. Its Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine is sacrificed to maximize their success.	The Covenant attempt to hold the UNSC forces back through overwhelming marines with their army long enough to activate a Forerunner fleet.
Battle of Jericho VII	February 2535	The UNSC Navy holds out against the Covenant for three days while a SPARTAN-II team deploys a nuclear device to take out huge numbers of Covenant.	An Arbiter is sent by the Prophet of Candor for an undefined reason. A massive assortment of Unggoy attack a single platoon of marines(?), possibly eaten.	The Covenant Army again demonstrates the success of their overwhelming strategy. However, light defences elsewhere allows an elite unit to take out huge numbers of them. For unknown reasons the naval engagement is unusually-long and does not end in the complete destruction of one side.
Battle of Charybdis IX	2535	Small UNSC fleet attempts to hold back the Covenant long enough for the civilian population to evacuate. The Marines have "dug-in" in order to defeat the Covenant Army quickly, though it is unknown of their effectiveness.	Small Covenant fleet destroys at least two UNSC destroyers and attempts to steal the navigation data of a third as was custom earlier in the war.	The Covenant's need for nav-data is shown in this engagement - they need at least one ship to survive so that they can find more colonies. However, it has already been wiped as per the new Cole Protocol.
Battle of the Rubble	2535	Joint UNSC/Separatist forces attempt to defend a hollowed-out asteroid-turned colony ship long enough to allow its escape. A UNSC frigate also accompanies it.	The Covenant is very-divided in this engagement due to an internal-dispute. Consequently, they pay much attention in destroying themselves.	The Prophet of Truth shows his desperation in find Earth by having Kig-yar privateers begin trading aggairs wih the insurrectionists in hopes of finally reveiving Earth's coordinates.
Battle of Metisette	2535	UNSC forces deploy ODSTs onto the surface of the planet and capture a Kig-yar-held base. Meanwhile, a UNSC AI decouples the above asteroid base, sending it into free-fall, killing any remaining Covenant forces on the planet.	Covenant forces loyal to the Kig-yar "Reth" use a methane-friendly base camp in order to allow an increase in the Unggoy population in the area to allow them to overwhelm any force the Reth is threatened by.	Fierce internal-disputes are continued over from the engagements on the Rubble.
Battle of New Harmony	Before July 2537	unknown - a UNSC success	unknown	A probe is attached to a retreating Covenant ship (a rare sight), revealing the location of a major Covenant outpost.
Battle of Leonis Minoris	2537	The UNSC responds to the destruction of two colonies in-system by sending in reinforcements, which succeed in annihilating the Covenant fleet.	A Covenant fleet of unknown numbers glasses two planets and takes out an apparently-insignificant number of UNSC ships (ten) before being destroyed.	In the first known engagement to involve a multiply-populated system, the Covenant shows that they will simply attack one planet at a time rather than stretching their forces.
Battle of New Constantinople	Before July 2537	The SPARTAN-III Alpha company erradicates Covenant forces on the ground while Admiral Whitcomb destroys the Covenant fleet.	unknown
Massacre of Troy	May 2537	ONI intelligence discovers that the Covenant are planning attack on Troy and begin to evacuate the colony.	unknown	The UNSC demonstrates the effectiveness in intelligence-gathering while the Covenant are shown to plan invasions.
Operation: PROMETHEUS	July–August 2537	Relying on ONI-intelligence, the SPARTAN-III Alpha Company is deployed onto K7-49 to destroy the shipyard.	The Covenant attempt to defeat the SPARTAN-IIIs by overwhelming them, eventually succeeding after five days after calling for reinforcements.	Covenant forces not in the front line are ineffective against UNSC forces; the SPARTAN-IIIs demonstrate battlefield superiority for three-four days before the Sangheili reinforcements finally take control of the situation.
Battle of Kholo	2539	The UNSC attempt to repel a large Covenant fleet but are overwhelmed and retreat.	The Covenant fleet overwhelmes the UNSC Navy and Marine Corps and glasses the planet before hostilities end.	The Covenant illustrate their complete disregard for their own troops' safety by bombarding the planet through a battlefield.
Battle of 18 Scorpii	March 2543	A UNSC battlegroup attacks a Covenant ship and the three ships sustain damage. An insurrectionist fleet rescues the UNSC fleet by destroying the Covenant ship, themselves.	A lone-Covenant destroyer is sent into the system, where it holds back two UNSC destroyers and a cruiser before being destroyed.	Again, the Covenant show that they take the war without anywhere near as much seriousness as the UNSC, allowing single-ship deployments into enemy territory.
Battle of Psi Serpentis	April 2543	A UNSC fleet of 162 ships with 55 resupply-ships awaiting the signal to assist engage a Covenant fleet of 100 ships, followed by a second fleet of 200. The tactical-brilliance of Admiral Cole and a second fleet of 55 insurrectionist vessels leads to the total destruction of the Covenant fleets.	The Covenant respond to being overwhelmed by themselves overwhelming the UNSC fleet.	The UNSC continues with Cole's usage of numbers to equal the Covenant in strength. An intimate knowledge with physics is employed in this battle to surprise the Covenant and destroy it.
Battle of Miridem	2544	The UNSC holds back the Covenant fleet, while a SPARTAN-II unit tries to rescue Dr. Halsey.	The Third Fleet of Glorious Consequence demonstrates their military intelligence by hunting down Dr. Halsey and capturing her. One SPARTAN-II is killed in the attempt.
Raid on the Third Fleet of Glorious Consequence	2544	The UNSC sends five SPARTAN-IIs to rescue Dr. Halsey.	The Fleet commander Thel 'Lodamee demonstrates his own tactical brilliance, along with madness, by openly destroying his own ships to kill two SPARTAN-IIs.
Operation: TORPEDO	July 2545	SPARTAN-III Beta Company is sent to the 51 Pegasi system to nutralise a refinery. While the near-impossible task is completed, the unit suffers near-total annihilation.	Many thousands of Covenant Army personnel attempt to overwhelm Beta company to try and stop them from taking out the refinery.	ONI's intelligence gathering again shows its importance.
Battle of Skopje	2547	UNSC specialist forces (ODSTs and SPARTAN-IIs) are sent to the planet to repel the Covenant Army long enough to evacuate engineers and equipment critical to ship-building.	The Covenant Army tries to overwhelm the groundside-forces while the Navy engages the UNSC starside before glassing the planet - a standard Covenant strategy.
Siege of Paris IV	2549	unknown	unknown	ONI's Beta-3 division's requirement for Covenant weapons is so great that they are actively-saught after during the battle.
Battle of Gamma Pavonis VII	2550	Three UNSC corvettes attempt to rescue an unarmed science vessel from a Covenant destroyer. The science vessel instead rescues them by colliding with the destroyer, taking out both.	unknown - appears to involve a single vessel
Battle of Ariel	January 2552	An ODST squad is sent planetside to answer a distress call.	Covenant forces are instead on the defencive as they attempt to seek "the knowing".
Battle of Fumirole	April 2552	Noble team activates a nuclear warhead inside a low-lying CCS-class battlecruiser.	unknown - based on available information, the Army attempt to overwhelm UNSC forces with the cruiser reinforcing them when needed.
Battle of Sigma Octanus IV	July 2552	A UNSC fleet of 49 ships takes on the Covenant fleet while SPARTAN-IIs destroy the Covenant's base.	A Covenant force goes planetside to investigate a Forerunner artefact.	ONI gathers more data on the little-known Huragok race, and the Covenant's usage of Forerunner technology as a 'driving factor' of their xenophobic campaign is noticed.
Battle at Szurdok Ridge	August 2552	A large UNSC force likely numbering in the thousands assaults the Covenant, which have advanced little over the month.	The Long Night of Solace sends out reinforcements from its immense bays to push back the UNSC, finally decloaking in order to take out a UNSC frigate personally.	The Fleet of Valiant Prudence is shown to have a great care for the safety of their supercarrier.
Operation: UPPER CUT	August 2552	Noble team and Air Force personnel take off into space in order to capture the corvette Ardent Prayer and use it to destroy the Long Night of Solace	Covenant Naval forces, with their cloaking field no longer sustainable, begin to attack UNSC outposts.	Initial assaults on UNSC outposts involve fighters rather than capital ships - the fleet does not have enough ships to make a full-on attack and instead wait for reinforcements. The Long Night of Solace appears unaware of the UNSC's boarding of the Ardent Prayer - there is a distinct lack of communication between the two.
Siege of New Alexandria	August 2552	The UNSC resists the Covenant for five days while they evacuate civilians.	The Covenant act differently - they only send in ships after five days of fighting, and even then only glass once the fighting is almost over.	Covenant radio-jamming is noticable in the later portion of this engagement.
Battle of Aszod	August 2552	After a month of fighting, the UNSC ground forces on an entire continent regroup at Aszod, seeking to evacuate on the Pillar of Autumn. Nearby Marine forces and survivors of Noble team defend a MAC gun to defend the cruiser.	The Covenant return to their earlier strategy of overwhelming the ground forces by deploying a large assortment of Scarabs to melt any remaining resistance. A CCS-class Battlecruiser notices the UNSC cruiser and attempts to desroy it.
Red team's defence of ODG Facility A-331	August 2552	In a last-ditch effort to pull back the Covenant Navy, the UNSC puts what little it has left to defending the orbital MAC guns' generator facilities. An orbital bombardment by the UNSC is considered necessary to stop the Covenant from reaching the facility.	The Covenant overwhelmes the lightly-defended facility with three Armour divisions of wraiths before three cruisers make their way to the facility to reinforce them.
Battle of Tribute	August 2552	The UNSC battlegroup defending Tribute is attacked by Covenant forces and sustain 90% losses in the engagement.	The Covenant fight the UNSC battlegroup for an unknown amount of time before blockading the planet - their reasons are unknown, but likely end in its glassing.
Raid on Verge	In order to give the UNSC forces fighting on Tribute more time, SPARTAN "Black team" takes out a Covenant refuelling facility on the planet.	The Covenant force defending such an important asset is unusually limited. Most are quickly killed by escaped Yanme'e prisoners.
Battle of Beta Gabriel	August 2552	Limited UNSC forces and the small civilian population is killed or captured by Jiralhanae.	A single Jiralhanae-led assault force is sent planetside. After eating their Unggoy allies, they begin to release the 500 human prisoners for sport to eat later.	The Jiralhanae fighting method shows very little tactical gain, having captured unarmed civilians. Their killing of them is more ceremonial than tactical. ONI is shown to have sent people onto Covenant-held planets for research-gathering.
Battle of Line Installation 1-4	August 2552	A UNSC ship investigates growing reports of disappearences around a sector of space. They broker a deal with a stranded Covenant force to not attack each other while they search for their comrades captured by a Forerunner AI.	A Covenant ship is downed while on a supply-run.	Third known nonaggression aggreement between the Covenant and the UNSC.
Battle of New Jerusalem	September 2552	UNSC forces deploy ODSTs to defend a colony.	The Covenant deploy ground forces per their standard "overwhelming" strategy in order to find Forerunner artefacts.	Almost all UNSC personnel ground-side are killed in a nuclear detonation.
Battle of Installation 04	September 2552	UNSC forces arrive at Installation 04 and build up a base-camp. The Covenant Battlecruiser Truth and Reconciliation is boarded three times.	The Covenant appear largely-disinterested in the UNSC, focusing mostly on the recovery of Forerunner artefacts. A large force of ground vehicles along with a special forces unit is sent to Alpha base to take out the UNSC presence on the ring.
Skirmish over Threshold	September 2552	A small team of survivors from the Pillar of Autumn take control of the Covenant ship Ascendent Justice an evacuate to Reach.	High Charity sends in a battlegroup to investigate Installation 04 and suffer heavy casualties.
Raid on Reach	September 2552	A number of UNSC forces on Reach manage to survive for a week, relying on guerilla-warfare or simply hiding from the Covenant.	The Covenant is pre-occupied with mining Menachite mountain to recover Forerunner artefacts.	The Covenant demonstrate a disregard for their own soldiers by killing a Mgalekgolo pair for almost damaging the artefact.
Massacre at Eridanus Secundus	September 2552	The Reach and Installation 04 survivors rely on the insurrectionists to repair the Ascendent Justice	Covenant forces following the ship allow it to flee while they destroy the asteroid base housing thousands of civilians.
Operation: FIRST STRIKE	September 2552	SPARTAN-II "Blue team" infiltrates the Covenant base "Unyeilding Heirophant" and evacuate via the UNSC Gettysburg. The Ascendent Justice destroys the Covenant base by flying straight into it.	The Covenant are surprised by the UNSC presence and are ill-prepared in handling the situation. Jiralhanae forces succeed in killing a SPARTAN-II, however.	The Covenant is surprised by the UNSC's ability to take control over their vessels.
Battle of Earth	October–November 2552	UNSC forces continue to repel Covenant forces. Driving out the initial force, a reinforcement fleet fights them for three weeks. With Blue team gone and John yet to arrive, the UNSC takes a heavy beating as the Covenant slowly expands outward. Upon John's return to Earth, UNSC groundforces in East Africa converge on Voi where the Covenant forces evacuate to, using the Portal to reach the Ark.	Covenant incursions begin as an artefact-retreival operation with fourteen vessels fighting the UNSC in space. After Regret discovers Installation 05, he leaves. Truth's reinforcements continue his work in uncovering the portal generator. Uncovered but without Truth, Covenant forces move outwards, going on artefact retreival operations in the oceans and Antarctica. A force in Cuba attempts to use a space tether to supply their ships in space. By Truth's arrival in mid-November, the UNSC is almost defeated and the Covenant is focusing on artefact-gathering.
Battle of Installation 05	November 2552	UNSC forces under UNSC In Amber Clad follow the Prophet of Regret to Installation 05, remaining undetected (or simply ignored) by the Covenant ships. An ODST and SPARTAN force is sent to assassinate the Prophet of Regret, destablizing the Covenant political structure. The UNSC presence on the ring is almost entirely wiped out after a disasterous mission into the flood-infested Quarentine Zone to stop the Covenant from recovering the Index. Surviving forces are mostly captured by the Covenant and later broker a deal with the Sangheili.	The Covenant are largely-ignorant of UNSC forces, considering them a minor threat and proceed with their plans. Truth takes advantage of the UNSC presence to rid himself of Regret and carry out his genocidal schemes.
Battle of Onyx	November 2552	Blue team is sent to Onyx to rescue the planet's ONI personnel, which is discovered to largely consist of a former SPARTAN-II and a small force of Gamma company. A UNSC battlegroup of ten vessels attacks a Covenant fleet. Taking out the fleet while sustaining casualties themselves, Battlegroup Stalingrad is wiped out by a reinforcement fleet. Groundside, the survivors race to a dyson sphere in the centre of the artifical world, seeking safety.	The Separatists, before their alliance with the UNSC, race to Onyx to gather new Forerunner artefacts. After destroying the hostile fleet, they are themselves destroyed after the artificial planet is torn apart by the Sentinels which supported its surface turn on them.
Battle of Installation 00	December 2552	A joint UNSC-Separatist fleet of eleven ships jumps to the Ark, where they are outnumbered by the Covenant fleet three-to-one. Luckily the tactical-brilliance of Rtas 'Vadum leads to victory in space. Ground engagements push back the Covenant quickly as they gain control over vital assets such as the Silent Cartographer and deactivate the control room's shielding system.	The Covenant Fleet races to the separatists in order to protect Truth's dreadnought while it lands on the surface. The Jiralhanae-led Army and Navy proves ineffective against the Sangheili.

An analysis

The Navies

The Covenant Navy is largely used to clear up huge numbers of enemies. The space engagements have been known to routinely involve the Navy overwhelming the UNSC fleet before focussing their attention towards reinforcing the Army. With no more artefacts to gather, the Navy begins to systematically assault the planet via orbital bombardment.

Early on in the war the Covenant and UNSC fleets would simply attack eachother head-on to increase the likelyhood of striking a hit. This was highly-effective against the UNSC, which lacked remotely-adequate shielding technology until decades later. Also early on, however, the Covenant would send small battlegroups, sometimes only a single ship, to take out a colony. As was the case in the Second Battle of Harvest, the Covenant ship took advandage of the UNSC's inability to damage it in order to take out dozens of ships, though once its weakness was discovered, its stationary-status didn't stand a chance. The deloyment of only one vessel could be considered either evidence of advanced intelligence of the sector or simply not expecting the UNSC to put up a fight. In their second assault on Arcadia, they intentionally used a number of ships far more than what was needed, which Dr. Halsey believed to have been part of a psychological ploy to terrify the UEG.

The Armies and Marines

The role of the Covenant Army is to recover Forerunner artefacts while under fire - remember that all human-occupied worlds appear on luminaries as locations of Forerunner artefacts. As was the case during their attacks on Ariel and Cleveland, they avoided killing civilians if they believed them necessary to fulfill their aims - during the Battle of Cleveland, the Jiralhanae assumed that everyone knew what the Key of Osanolan was and kept them alive to be questioned. However, they refused to believe that none of them knew of it, and likely assumed them to be hiding it from them. It seems to be a common trait amongst the Covenant Army's artefact-retreival operations to kill very few people, should they be of use. It can be assumed that, upon discovering that there weren't any Forerunner artefacts, they would assume that the humans, just like what they believed about Harvest, had destroyed them to deny retreival. This would seal their fate as heretics and be actively-butchered.

Covenant Army strategies have shown many variations. During the Battle of Jericho VII, hundreds of Unggoy were sent out into the battlefield to swarm small groups of marines and kill them. As what happened on Draco III, they likely ate them. In a number of engagements the Covenant seem to consider the retreival of artefacts the primary objective and the elimination of hostiles a secondary. As such the Army force on Arcadia paid more attention to the Forerunner ruins than assemblage of military defences by the UNSC. As such, the UNSC was able to reach their canopy and destroy it.

As said by William Lovell, the UNSC is known to win most of the ground engagements, albeit with a heavy price. The Covenant's strategy of simply overwhelming their enemy has been used on land as well as space. Consider the Battle of Aszod, where they sent in Scarabs to neutralise remaining UNSC forces - despite having effectively won the campaign, they still focused on eliminating the survivors in overly-destructive ways.

They have shown special care, however, in some places. For example, they installed radio-jammers in New Alexandria to confuse the Marines while they continued to sweep the city - either for artefacts; survivors or both. However, New Alexandria is the only known example of its usage out of the many engagements known.

The SPARTAN-IIs; SPARTAN-IIIs and ODSTs have all been known for their successful missions, even if the larger battle was lost. Examples include the Battle of Chi Ceti IV where a SPARTAN-II team infiltrated a Covenant ship and destroyed it from the inside; Operation: TORPEDO where the S-III Beta company took out a large refueling plant, and the final raid on the Truth and Reconciliation, when the few-remaining ODSTs under Major Silva momentarily captured a Covenant cruiser before its unrelated destruction.

The UNSC has shown its competence against the Covenant Army time after time, and its focus on specific objectives rather than a general aim has allowed it to beat the Covenant back many times, though it should be noted that the Covenant do focus their attention on artefacts rather than combat. This was shown during the Covenant invasion of Sigma Octanus IV. While their forces outside of the city of Cote d'Azure destroyed UNSC fortifications, the forces inside the city concentrated on looting a museum of Forerunner artefacts. Even when the museum's infiltration by Blue team became evident, they were much more interested in their artefact-retreival operation than the defence of the captured city, only deploying Mgalekgolo when the artefact was threatened. In a similar manner, the Covenant refused to engage the UNSC forces under Menachite mountain after Blue team captured an artefact - they even killed a Mgalekgolo pair for trying to kill the SPARTANs, which could damage the object.

Intelligence-gathering

ONI managed to decode Covenant messages, learning that the Covenant plan their invasions. Using their hacking methods, ONI began the evacuation of one colony world shortly before its invasion, and also discovered important Covenant assets such as a ship-building facility and a refueling plant - the destruction of which gave the Covenant a tougher time supplying to the front line. Since the adoption of the Cole Protocol, the Covenant found it hard to find human worlds with the navigational data of captured vessels already erased. Since then they have discovered the locations of worlds and planned their offensives ahead.

A personnal look at the leaders

Arbiter Ripa 'Moramee of 2531 was known to send Unggoy to their deaths as suicide bombers to slow down the UNSC advance, believing that killing his own soldiers was easily justifiable if it meant a victory. This cold belief was shown again during the raid on the Third Fleet of Glorious Consequence, when the Covenant fleetmaster Thel 'Lodamee had antimatter charges placed inside one of his ships to devise a trap which killed a SPARTAN and anyone else onboard the vessel. Another two ships were ordered to collide into each other in order to crush a second. This complete disregard of lives in the name of victory is an age-old philosophy employed in the Dark Ages, when it was also believed that dying for a religious cause would guarentee passage to the afterlife - the Covenant coincidentally also followed such a strict view on religion.

On the UNSC side, Admiral Cole was exceptionally-bright. Using his ships as more than simply objects to be thrown at the enemy until it goes away, he made sure to lay one such trap at Psi Serpentis, whereby he lured the Covenant reinforcement fleet (numbering 200 on arrival) into the gravity well of a planet which, upon the detonation of a number of nuclear warheads, led to their complete destruction.

During the Battle of Installation 00, we see that the separatist fleet is outnumbered by the loyalists by "three-to-one". Despite this, along with the retreat of the two UNSC frigates, the fleet managed to decimate the Jiralhanae-led forces, and repeat their victory on the ground. We can see from this that the Sangheili are much better tacticians than the Jiralhanae, who could have easily destroyed them.

Final verdict

After carefully observing the outcomes of these engagements, I feel that it is quite evident that the Sangheili were the driving force of the Covenant military machine, and their removal from society was among the Hierarchs' worst decisions, particularly given the success in capturing the Index, anyway.

In many engagements in space with the UNSC, the Covenant has won. However, they have also relied many times on outnumbering the defenders by rediculous figures. Further, please take note of their use of shielding, which makes them much harder to destroy than a UNSC ship. This seemingly-well defended design may appear much better than the UNSC's, though you must also take into note the commanders. While many Covenant fleets have been observed to lie stationary in space or else fly in a straight line towards the UNSC fleet, their counterparts have had to use evasive manouveres avoid being destroyed so easily, even resorting to sacrificing a refit station to defend their own ships (though it should be taken into consideration the fact that the crew of the Cradle sacrificed themselved without orders to do such, unlike the fleet under Thel 'Lodamee). We have seen many engagements in which the UNSC has employed their own tactics to take on larger Covenant fleets - the Keyes' loop, for instance, in which a single UNSC destroyer took out a battlegroup.

On the ground, it would appear that, contradictory to claims from other users, the SPARTAN-IIs are not the only way the UNSC can succeed. The UNSC relies on support between the Marines and Army, and the Air Force, allowing attacks to be prepared for both ground-based and aerial-based. The calling of air strikes has been seen several times to work well against the Covenant, who do not have an equally-devestating comparison other than simply glassing with a cruiser. Instead the Banshee relies on the patrolling of already-captured territory - take note that it is neither particularly fast nor well-armed. The men and women of the UNSC have succeeded in carefully-planned assaults destined to disturb the Covenant invasion force's ability to fight - the Battle of Actium involved three Covenant Army bases being destroyed in nuclear detonations; while the UNSC forces sacrificed themselves to make this achievement, their survival after this would have led to a total collapse of the groundside control.

I conclude that, as best the Sangheili are in their engagements, they rely more on technological-superiority in fights than strategy, which is why the UNSC has managed to pull back the Covenant so many times, which is also why they are so well respected by many Sangheili as rival warriors.-- Forerunner 14:52, 13 August 2011 (EDT)