Kerel-pattern assault carrier

"Look at the size of that thing!"

- Edward Buck after an assault carrier arrives over New Mombasa.

The CAS-class assault carrier is a large capital ship used by the Covenant. The CAS is designed for ship-to-ship combat, command and control of fleet operations, and support for ground occupation forces. Such vessels are typically deployed during invasions of worlds with high strategic value.

Function
These ships 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 a number of Scarabs. In November 2552, the UNSC frigates Forward Unto Dawn and Aegis Fate docked inside the launch bay of Shadow of Intent, an assault carrier, demonstrating the immense size of the class.

Assault carriers are often 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 turrets, and at least one energy projector. Along with the larger CSO-class supercarrier, the CAS is designated a "Class-Five flagship carrier" by the UNSC due to its common use at the center of fleets.

Background


Assault carriers are much larger than s and standard s; they are more rare and more heavily armed than either of them. They are armed with at least two energy projectors, 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 vessels led the Fleet of Sacred Consecration to Earth, where they engaged the UNSC Home Fleet in orbit above Africa. The first one, carrying the Prophet of Regret himself, managed to penetrate Earth's orbital defenses. The second attempted to follow, but was subsequently destroyed by SPARTAN John-117.

The Prophet of Regret's assault carrier fled to slipspace, as the UNSC forces were likely to recapture the city of New Mombasa with the following close behind in its slipspace wake, leading human forces to Installation 05.

Another assault carrier, Shadow of Intent, later became the flagship of the Fleet of Retribution. 'Vadum, in command of the ship, led his fleet to Earth in pursuit of a surviving Flood ship, arriving in time to glass the infected area of the planet. Shadow of Intent and its escorting cruisers joined the remnants of the UNSC Home Fleet to launch a joint attack on the Covenant remnant at Installation 00, destroying their fleet and providing a distraction while ground forces engaged the loyalists that had landed on the installation. It later evacuated the UNSC and Sangheili personnel and returned to Earth for a short time before returning to Sanghelios.

By 2554, Jul 'Mdama, a shipmaster and leader of the revived Covenant commanded the assault carrier Song of Retribution during his attempts to enter the Forerunner shield world Requiem. Three years later, the Song of Retribution led a fleet of numerous CRS-class light cruisers.

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, which are 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 Seraph multirole fighters, Banshee attack craft, Phantom and Spirit dropships, and boarding craft, 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. Thanks to these innovations, a single assault carrier can easily launch large-scale invasions quickly and effectively.

Characteristics
Assault carriers, like the majority of Covenant ships, are characterized by their bulbous, whale-like front, 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, given its shields were down. 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 pinch 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 assault carrier is also fitted with Modular Dispersal Technology, giving it the ability to completely detach sections of its outer hull as well as whole corridors, as seen during the Raid on the Third Fleet of Glorious Consequence. They can also separate into two distinct sections which leaves the rear section (with the main engines) behind and allows the fore-section to move away with previously hidden engines, the fore section, and likely the rear, are still Slipspace-capable. Unlike its unorthodox means of use by the Fleet Master in an attempt to disperse the advancing SPARTAN forces, the dispersal feature is actually intended to be used in order to detach sections of the carrier that sustained extensive damage in order to increase the chances of saving what is left of the ship and its crew for future use.

The UNSC frigate Forward Unto Dawn was small enough to fit inside Shadow of Intent's hangar. Therefore, it is possible that the assault carrier could carry small Covenant ships, such as a light cruiser.

Known assault carriers

 * Clarity of Faith
 * Resplendent Fervor - flagship of the Third Fleet of Glorious Consequence
 * Shadow of Intent - flagship of the Fleet of Retribution
 * Solemn Penance - Personal flagship of the Prophet of Regret
 * A second carrier, possibly escorting Regret's carrier, survived the human defense when attacking Earth, but was destroyed by the Master Chief using a Covenant bomb intended to destroy the Orbital Defense Platform Cairo.
 * Song of Retribution - Personal flagship of Supreme Commander Jul 'Mdama

Trivia

 * An early draft of Halo 2 was intended to feature a level tentatively called Covenant ship, in which John-117 would board an assault carrier and destroy it from within.
 * In the modern US Navy, the term "assault carrier" refers to the Amphibious Assault Ship, which is used to transport troops over water and offload them via hovercraft or helicopter.
 * In Halo 2, Regret's carrier has visible structures on the surface above the engines. However, in Halo 3: ODST, these structures are not visible, but are rather obscured or replaced by what seems to be a second hangar bay.
 * In Halo: Reach, assault carriers and supercarriers share the same model in order to save in-game resources. This is why the assault carriers appear to be colored purple in the ending cutscene of the campaign level Long Night of Solace.

List of appearances

 * Halo 2
 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
 * Halo: Uprising
 * Halo 3
 * Halo Wars: Genesis
 * Halo 3: ODST
 * Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
 * Palace Hotel
 * The Return
 * Halo: Blood Line
 * Halo Legends
 * Origins
 * The Package
 * Halo: Reach
 * Halo 4
 * Terminals
 * Spartan Ops
 * Halo: Spartan Assault
 * Halo: Initiation
 * Halo: Escalation