UNSC Tannenberg

The UNSC Tannenberg was a United Nations Space Command Frigate operational in the 2530s.

On January 13, 2531, the Tannenberg was near the Groombridge 34 System, where it assisted the Office of Naval Intelligence Prowler in attempting to locate Spartan-051, who had gone missing in the area. It was unable to locate him and was soon after called to action because of Covenant activity nearby.

Though possibly named after the Second Battle of Tannenberg, a decisive German victory on the Eastern Front during World War II, the name more likely refers to the First Battle of Tannenberg (arguably the more famous and historically significant), in which the combined armies of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania utterly defeated the Knights of the Teutonic Order despite the superiority of the Teutonic Knights' heavy cavalry. The battle marks one of the first occassions where "Pagan" (non-Catholic) armies were able to defend themselves against the invasion of Catholic armies under Papal edict, and led to the Thirteen Years' War which ended with Prussian independence from Western Europe; this sequence of events has obvious thematic parallels to the conflict between the UNSC and the Covenant.