CookieMonstersayshello's board-to-board with The All-knowing Sith'ari

Exactly, fire and manoeuvre.

The flanking manoeuvre is as old as war itself. Seriously, there are cave paintings showing ancient humans using it against other ancient humans. Whoever strikes flanking from their book of tactical doctrine loses every battle he fights.

The Jiralhanae: Dishonourable, or pragmatic? I don't see why the Sangheili's honour code should prohibit flanking. They are adverse to things like camouflage (though they apparently don't mind stealthy approaches, as in the Battle of Alpha Base, as long as they fight while visible), not tactical manoeuvres. Their use of Yanme'e to attack the enemy from above while they fire from the ground could be considered "aerial flanking". I'm in my school's CCF, and I've seen soldiers carrying out demonstration assaults involving flanking. We were about a hundred and fifty metres away on a hilltop, and it was difficult, but you could still see them moving through the woods to the enemy position, and these guys were camouflaged. The Sangheili wouldn't be, so if they overwhelmed the enemy through flanking, they could just say: "But look at our armour! We made ourselves visible to them, yet they still could not defeat us! Puny apes!" I don't see flanking as a particularly dishonourable tactic.

There's very little to say about Flood tactics. Their's can be roughly summarised as making use of numerical superiority and "Zerg rushes" of infection forms, perhaps covered by combat forms. In the presence of a Gravemind, it's likely that they'd adopt more advanced behaviour, like sending infection forms through pipes or ventilation ducts to drop down on the enemy. We saw that they began to modify the atmosphere systems to pump Flood spores into the atmosphere, restricting breathing for the defenders or weakening them to make them less resistant to assimilation.

As for the Separatists, the Sangheili probably stuck to their usual combat behaviour of fighting in the open, but also trying to flank or distract the enemy. I have little doubt that they managed to keep some of their subordinate Unggoy and Kig-yar on their side, and probably used them as the usual cannon fodder while trying to get some Sangheili around the enemy's flank. Of course, once they ran out of cannon fodder, they'd start being more cautious since it would be their own kind they were risking, and would start making greater use of teamwork.

As for the Jiralhanae-dominated Covenant, their tactics would be little different, though for the Jiralhanae, their reasons for standing in the open would not be as much about honour as using their own natural resilience and pain tolerance to help them soak up damage while still being able to engage the enemy. The Jiralhanae aren't as well-trained as the Sangheili, of course, and their tactics would consist less of flanking and more of frontal assaults, using their natural resilience to get close to separatist formations and then use their sheer strength to rip the enemy apart in close quarters. This would cost them dearly against Flood infection forms, though.

Of course, after the Prophet of Truth's departure, and the retreat of the Sangheili fleet to the Salia system, both sides on High Charity would probably realise that they were doomed, and so would fight ferociously and to the bitter end.

Hi.

just re-edited em

I'm sorry. I thought we had finished.