Kerel-pattern assault carrier

Assault Carrier

The Covenant Assault Carrier is a Covenant capital ship and heavy warship classification of the Covenant Navy. It is one of the largest known Covenant ship classes and the largest seen in-game. It appears in both Halo 2 and Halo 3.

Function
Assault Carriers seem to be designed primarily for planetary assault scenarios, using their powerful energy shields and extensive weapons to break through orbital defenses and transporting and deploying large numbers of ground troops. They also possess an expansive hangar bay, capable of transporting large numbers of Seraph fighters, Phantom dropships, boarding craft, and large fleets of Ghosts and Wraiths, along with one to two Scarabs and - later - the UNSC Frigates Forward Unto Dawn and Aegis Fate would dock inside the vessel's launch bay, which shows the vastness of the ships.

Assault Carriers are also used as Flagships, leading Covenant Fleets into battle. Though designed for planetary combat, they also excel at ship-to-ship combat, possessing multiple pulse laser batteries, plasma torpedo launchers and at least one energy projector.

Background
Assault Carriers are larger than s and standard Carriers, and are more rare and heavily armed than either of them. They are armed with at least one Energy Projector, as well as plasma torpedo launchers and pulse-lasers. They also possess gravity lifts, used for ferrying supplies, personnel, and vehicles from the ship and to the planet's surface.

Two such crafts led the Prophet of Regret's Fleet to Earth, where they engaged the UNSC Home Fleet in orbit above Africa. The first one, carrying the Prophet himself, managed to penetrate Earth's orbital defenses. The second attempted to follow, but was subsequently destroyed by the Master Chief.

The Prophet's Assault Carrier fled to slipspace, as the UNSC forces were likely to recapture the city of New Mombasa, dragging the along its slipspace wake, leading to the second Halo ring.

Another Assault Carrier was later repossessed by Rtas 'Vadum and the Sangheili, and became the flagship of the Fleet of Retribution, leading it to Earth in pursuit of a surviving Flood Ship, arriving in time to glass the infected area of the planet. The Shadow of Intent and its escorting Cruisers joined forces with the remnants of the UNSC Navy to launch a joint attack on the Covenant remnant at the Ark, destroying their Fleet and providing a distraction while ground forces engaged the Loyalists that had landed. It later evacuated the UNSC and Sangheili personnel and returned to Earth for a short time before returning to Sanghelios. Only in Halo 2 is shown the destruction of this kind of ship, in the Cutscene "Return to the Sender" when Masterchief destroys one of the two Assault Carriers of Prophet of Regret's Fleet with a Covenant Bomb, after that the destruction of a Covenant Assault Carrier has never been seen again.

Armament
As some of the larger ships in the Covenant Fleets are often used as fleet flagships, it is necessary for them to be heavily armed. Assault Carriers possess energy projectors which are powerful enough to cut through UNSC capital ships  on its ventral and dorsal surfaces. They also possess multiple pulse-laser turrets used for intercepting enemy missiles and fighters, and plasma torpedoes for engaging in ship-to-ship combat and assaulting planetary defenses.

Assault Carriers are also equipped with at least one gravity lift, capable of dispatching troops, personnel, vehicles and equipment to the surface of a planet rather quickly. They also possess a large main hangar, capable of carrying multiple Seraphs and Banshee fighter crafts, Phantom dropships and boarding crafts, or a UNSC Frigate. In addition, Assault Carriers possess the ability to launch Drop Pods, tactically delivering Sangheili warriors into areas without resorting to bulky and obvious dropships. These ships also carry the dreaded Scarab walkers in their holds for quick deployment.

Characteristics



 * Assault Carriers, like the vast majority of other Covenant ships, are characterized by their bulbous, sleek silhouette and pale white/blue hull. However, they also tend to be characterized by their unique swollen and bulbous "hooked" bow section that is frequently characterized to be similar to the head of a whale and would (theoretically) be a massive weakness as the ship could be blown in half comparatively easily.


 * Rather than possessing multiple smaller hangar bays, like smaller cruisers, Assault Carriers use a single, gargantuan hangar bay for storage of fighters, dropships, boarding craft and small capital ships, at least 500 meters long, 320 meters wide and 120 meters high. In Halo 3, however, there is a second hangar bay visible, near the stern of the cruiser, above the main engines.


 * For propulsion, Assault Carriers rely on large deuterium-tritium fusion reactors, housed in cavernous chambers, which power the ship's vital systems, as well as the three aft-mounted plasma drives that propel the ship, capable of operating in a vacuum or in an atmospheric environment. They also employ non-reactive gravity drives for standard maneuvering and hovering above the surface of a planet, resisting its gravity.


 * The UNSC Frigate Forward Unto Dawn is small enough to fit into the Shadow of Intent's Hanger. Therefore, it would be plausible that the Assault Carrier could easily carry small Covenant ships, such as a light Cruiser although the advantages of this would be few.

Known Assault Carriers

 * Shadow of Intent


 * Prophet of Regret's Carrier, possibly the Infinite Sacrifice


 * A second Carrier, possibly escorting Regrets Carrier, survived the human defense when attacking earth. But it was destroyed by Master Chief using a bomb intended for Earth Defense Platform Cairo.


 * Ascendant Justice (presumed)

Appearances

 * There were two Assault Carriers that participated in the First Battle of Earth - one was the Prophet of Regret's personal starship and the other was destroyed by SPARTAN-117 using a captured Covenant bomb intended for usage on Cairo Station.
 * In the Halo 3 preview, the only Covenant capital ships present in the "excavation force" at the site of the Forerunner artifact are Assault Carriers. This is most likely due to the importance of the holy site to the Covenant.
 * Assault Carriers appear several times in Halo 3. The first carrier is shown holding position above the Ark excavation site during the levels Tsavo Highway and The Storm. The Elite Fleet that arrives at Earth during Floodgate is led by the carrier Shadow of Intent, which drops off 7 Special Operations Elites and one Elite Major which later engages a Covenant Loyalist Fleet above the Ark, containing at least three Assault Carriers.
 * In Halo 2 when the Prophet of Regret's Carrier (which is sleeker and more sliver in color than Shadow of Intent) enters Slipspace it destroys the whole city of New Mombasa, because the ship was too far into the atmosphere, causing a massive over pressurization shock wave, heavily damaging the Orbital Elevator and the entire city of New Mombassa.
 * In the commentary for cutscenes in Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, they misnamed an Assault Carrier a Supercarrier. The Supercarrier is actually another type of Covenant ship and is even larger than an Assault Carrier. An example of a Supercarrier would be the Fleet Carrier Sublime Transcendence, commanded by Xytan 'Jar Wattinree.
 * It is also known that an Assault Carrier can hold up to one or more Scarabs. This was demonstrated by the Prophet of Regret during the First Battle of Earth, when he utilized a Scarab during the battle against UNSC forces in New Mombasa.

Trivia

 * In an earlier plan of Halo 2, there was supposed to be a level where the Master Chief boards an Assault Carrier and destroys it from the inside called Covenant ship.
 * In the current US Navy, the term "Assault Carrier" refers to the Amphibious Assault Ship, used to transport troops via water and offload them via hovercraft or helicopter.
 * There appeared to be over 500 Assault Carriers and CCS-Class Battlecruisers seen jumping in over Delta Halo along with High Charity just before Spartan-117 killed the Prophet of Regret.
 * Near the ship's midsection is a symbol similar to the large hologram found on the Halo 3 Multiplayer map Epitaph.