Assault harness

The Assault Harness is an armor set of the Elite race, and features a dynamic recharging Energy Shield. It is an Armor Permutation in Halo 3 Multiplayer. It is one of the four permutations to be unlocked by default.

Development and History
It is a reissued pre-Covenant Elite Harness that features reinforced aligned composites and buttress principle protective stratum to preserve structural coherence of underlying tissue, and ultra resilient deltoid protection to aid in the concussive shock force and direct kinetic energy.

Much like the Combat Harness, it is also designed to be intimidating and damage the enemy's psyche and morale. The armor was restricted from use when the Sangheili joined the Covenant, due to its startling effectiveness, but began to once again issue the armor after seceding.

Helmet Characteristics
Unlock: Starter.

The helmet is completely sealed unlike the combat harness and its main feature is a rounded plate around their forehead and head. It then features a pair of orange goggle like lenses. Both mandibles are protected by an angular guard and features a neck ring to the back with a pair of lights on each side. Unlike most other Sangheili armors, this helmet only has two mandible guards instead of four separate ones. The helmet also has metal plates along the Sangheili's neck.

Shoulder Pauldron Characteristics
Unlock: Starter.

The Shoulder Pauldron is squared off with a simple set of shapes and rectangle plate with a roughly triangular form on each side. Due to the fact that they are square and feature a "trim" (the triangular plates), they are arguably more similar to Halo 2-era Elite Shoulders than Combat models are.

Thoracic Cage Characteristics
Unlock: Starter.

The Thoracic Cage of the Assault Harness is nearly identical to that of the Combat Harness. The differences include a pair of clasps on each shoulder and a hexagonal piece armor set on the center of the chest.

Trivia

 * Rtas 'Vadum wears the shoulder and body pieces of this armor permutation with the helmet of a Combat variant during the events of Halo 3; meaning that 'Vadum's armor in some ways carried over from Halo 2 since the Assault shoulder pads look similar to the ones he sported during the events of Halo 2.
 * In the Halo 3 level Floodgate, some Elite corpses have an Assault helmet, but due to a glitch, the Combat helmets are on them as well, making a combination helmet. These corpses only appear toward the end of level in the crashed Flood ship.
 * In concept art released for The Package, the Assault Harness was incorrectly labeled as the Flight Harness.
 * The Assault Harness is the only elite armor permutation besides the combat harness which appears in campaign, being worn by Spec Ops Elites, Usze 'Taham, Rtas 'Vadum, and the aforementioned glitched corpses.
 * Dead Elites in Halo 3: ODST can be seen wearing the armor, despite the fact that they were still part of the Covenant at the time.