Why Are There No Fighters in Halo?
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- Halo features a large variety of both spacecraft and aircraft, but we never see true air dominance fighters. Considering their utility in dominating both space and atmospheric fighting, how relevant and useful would they have been for humanity?
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Hey folks! I've had a lot of comments about the Longsword, for which I just made a separate video: czcams.com/video/xLVfvIinFgk/video.html . Call me a purist, this one was more oriented towards Air Dominance / Air Superiority fighters which I didn't really consider the Longsword to be (it's a crew aircraft!). That said if you're curious about the Longsword, its design inspirations, and how closely modern fighters will look like it, give the video a watch!
In Halo 3 ODST there were "F-99 Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle"s flying around for air support and observation, and in the books there was the "AV-19 Skyhawk" which was used as a multirole interceptor fighter. I'm sure there are more things to fill the role in the lore that might have just not appeared in the games.
The Longsword is a intercepter fighter . The F-41 Broadsword is a multi role air superiority fighter.
The Sabor is a superior fighter.
They also have other fighters in lore like the Skyhawk VTOL muli role fighter.
@@bobsterclause342 I actually have to agree.
Of course the UNSC did use fighters and bombers but they are not conventional aircraft. They are all A/X craft capable of space flight.
So not only does he not know the lore. He doesn't know that the UNSC had plenty of fighters just not conventional ones.
Bro I think you forgot to mention some Halo wars vehicles craft, was REALLYYY hoping the condor would get mentioned here and what you'd think of it
The halo aircrafts for the covenant that are good fighters would also be the Space banshee, it could be seen flying along side the seraphs, they move quite fast since they are modified for high speed space combat, the space banshees won’t have as much protection as the seraphs, however the they bring an extra gun that can fire at the enemy that seraph can’t fire, and with the banshees being smaller fast targets that are easier to kill they could be a lower priority for killing than the seraphs. However moving on, let’s say for dog fights in space for Halo, if the Seraph is being tailed the supporting space banshees could come from behind the fighter tailing the seraph and light them up, etc…
I have the idea that the UNSC uses a UAV Air Force, we can see several Wombats during the ODST campaign so I always assumed that the skies must be full of these planes only we don't see them.
They UNSCAF exists, they even have aircraft carriers that are more advanced versions of the carriers we use. The carriers are seen on a map in Halo 3, and the model has 2D cards of the wombat UAVs.
Though for only being visible from one angle, the carrier is surprisingly detailed all around.
@@Codster121 yes and they also have both conventional and A/X capable fighter's.
@@Codster121 i dont know why nobody its talking about the Broadsword that its litearly a fighter or the non canon F-371 Halberd concept
@@cosmicsword2585 The F-41 Broadsword is a fighter, and is capable of both space and atmospheric combat.
But...
With the exception of the YSS-1000 Sabre and its production variants, manned fighters aren't very useful in space in ship to ship combat, or at least they weren't against the Covenant due to their point defense systems, and plasma lances that would shred any fighter that comes close.
And the UNSC also have point defense systems, which did the same thing to covenant fighters.
Physics is another reason, as a manned space fighter has to carry life support systems for the pilot, which adds mass to the spacecraft, which decreases acceleration, and introduces G-force limitations.
If there isn't a pilot, there are two things that can be used:
1. Unmanned Fighters, of which the UNSCAF used plenty of on Earth, and likely other colonies. Basically UAVs but in space.
These would be lighter and just as deadly because they aren't limited by the maximum G-force a pilot can handle, which means faster acceleration.
They can also carry weapons on board, use them, then fly back to a ship or base.
2. Guided missiles, which the UNSC use more than fighters.
They likely have small fusion drives on board for forwards propulsion, along with RCS thrusters for maneuverability are even lighter than the Unmanned Fighters as well.
Even these weren't effective against the Covenant, the only weapon that was effective was multiple MAC blasts from UNSC Ships, and much of that was just to take the shields down, missiles were likely used to damage the enemy ships while the MACs reloaded.
@@Codster121 I do remember that the typical naval warfare tactic used by the UNSC to defeat covenant ships in the books were exactly as you said, MAC’s to to take down the shields (and in the case of small covenant ships, punch straight through the shields and destroy them out-right.), followed by archer missiles to finish them off. UNSC cruisers like the Pillar of Autumn used this tactic to the best effect. While Frigates were only effective in larger numbers.
No naval engagement was won on a 1:1 playing field either. Even as the defending side, the UNSC needed larger numbers to win.
Been a long time since I read the books, so I could be off, but I digress. I second your statement.
I disagree with you on the the statement "most of the fighting happens on the ground". It stated in novels that UNSC has higher chance at winning ground battles compared to space battles.Winning a ground battle is meaningless if covenant destroys UNSC fleet defending the planet and glass it from the orbit. So I think you can't really blame them for focusing on space combat.
Yeah, I remember it being said that although the Spartans were nearly invincible, they were mostly useless to the war effort as a whole because most of the time the Covenant would rather glass a world than invade it.
@@battlesheep2552 Exactly, the Covenant would land their forces, go after whatever Forerunner artifact drew them to the place, fighting the UNSC all the while, and once they had what they came for they'd retreat into space and glass the planet before moving on. On the ground humanity can put up more than enough of a fight to hold off the Covenant, even without Spartans. The problem is we can't really win space battles without a 3-1 numerical superiority on our side and even then we'd still take heavy losses.
The statement is true in conventional wars. Where your objective is to defeat your opponent and control the territory.
Of course WMD will turn the table, if your enemy is willing to use them.
Yup. Halo: The Fall of Reach is basically a whole book of humanity getting its ass kicked in space. The discovery of the Halo Rings changed the game and made ground combat crucial, but without that aspect, Spartan Operations were extremely limited in scope.
@@renegade_patriot I love in one of the side material books, I want to say one of Halo 2's manuals, we get a point of view from the Covenant's perspective and we learn just how frustrating it is for them to fight us. Some of the Elites actually want humanity to join the Covenant as we've proven ourselves capable warriors and even when beaten in space, our tactical skills are either totally random or absolute genius as they can't figure out where we keep coming from. Thanks to the Cole Protocol nearly every human world they discover is found by accident, to the extent that when the Prophet of Regret himself stumbled on Earth, he didn't even know we were here, much less this was our homeworld. That it took nearly 30 years for such a technologically superior foe to find us like that is a testament to our cunning and skills in battle. The war was only going in their favor thanks to their ship technology outclassing ours so heavily. If it were just a ground war with no starships involved it would be a dramatically different story.
In the books there's a part where Cortana realizes that the plasma guidance system, which is a ship projected magnetic field, could be used much more effectively. The covenant could have mass effect reaper plasma lasers, but they just aren't a very efficient group.
Yah, the vibe I always got from the books and games is that the Covenant piggy back'd off Forerunner tech to get a jump to their abilities seen in universe without the respect or understanding of it. Seems like they were always inefficient .
@@TheBigCabezon I love the world building in Halo, it actually makes sense that humans can stand a chance against a much more advanced group.
IIRC, for them it's not about efficiency, it's because they are trying to mimick Forerunner technology using their more primitive tech, and any attempts to deviate from that church-mandated "perfect" design is forbidden, hence why the Covenant AI called Cortana a heretic for doing that.
The reapers guns fire a liquid metal mixture of tungsten and other metals that solidify as they accelerate to a signifigant fractionof the speed of light. Theyre MACs not lasers/plasma.
@@robertharris6092 I am a massive mass effect fan and did not know this. That's a crazy technology lol.
Some fighters that are in the EU are the Baselard, Nandao and Crow. There's also the Wombat Drone Fighter of course. I've always been curious on why we see Falcons and Hornets dogfighting Banshees in Halo 3 and Reach, when both games have Longswords and reach has a Sabre. Plus Halo 3 was supposed to have the Wombat.
the sabre in halo reach was a prototype think, it's probably what led them to create the broadsword in h4
@@m4x927 Yeah, its called the YSS-1000 in Reach, Y in US Military Aircraft designation system stands for Experimental, in Halo Infinite the Sabre's seen are actually SS-1000 models, which means that the Sabre is being produced.
The Sabre is a space fighter. Don’t think it’s designed for in atmosphere warfare.
@@PackHunter117 Yeah, but personally I've always been interested by the fact Colonel Holland says this about them: "These Sabres have been customized for Orbital Defense."
@@Spartan_Tanner Yeah that’s very true. They could always change it to make more for atmospheric warfare
The hornet, falcon, and wasp could easily out maneuver banshees due to their design. Instead of having to loop back around when a banshee moves passed them they could simply turn without moving. There was also the wombat as many other people have mentioned, plus the longsword was mostly used as a fighter
The Banshee in Halo:CE could also hover in place and even reverse in flight.
@@HYDRAdude if I remember correctly they started falling out of the sky when doing so, just like in halo 2 and 3
Longsword was a space fighter/bomber
@@sheilaolfieway1885 The longsword was an interceptor/bomber, and wasn't restricted to just space combat. Though mainly with it's heavy payloads I doubt it'd do much in a dogfight and I think it would mostly be used for harassing heavier covenant ships or taking out defenseless smaller ships like phantoms.
i always wondered if the banshee can go faster, ain't no way their max speed is 60mph.
Halo's airforce is so underdeveloped because fast-moving vehicles like that wouldn't really work in-game. They would require much bigger maps.
Fair point!
This is the answer to pretty much everything that's unrealistic about the UNSC. It's either limitations of gameplay or just writers and devs not really understanding military organisation and technology.
@@TheBigCabezon only in lore I found that actually looks like a decent fighter which was for the UNSC army called the S-14 Striker, and apparently saw service against the banished with the Spirit of Fire
@@TheBigCabezonthey would not matter unfc take the ground oh boy here comes the deadly lazer
What about the broadsword? It could go both atmosphere and space and it was considered a fighter. Then there’s the baselard the crow, Nandao, and the boosterfame which I wouldn’t consider really a fighter more like a protected or a inserter. But most of these fighters are in the books and in expanded lore. But there there
A lot of the fighters just got cut from the games due to cut missions or cut vehicles.
Hawk, Vulture, Sparrow Hawk, condor, Longswords (C712), Shortsword, Wasp, and Broadsword
"You cant win a ground war from the air"
*CCS Cruiser Laughs in Wort Wort then proceedes to glass harvest*
UNSC uses unmanned Fighter Drones for atmospheric interception, which we see in ODST & Halo 3 multiplayer.
almost makes you think why they dont use unmanned everything
@@Blox117
Covenant Plasma Weapons, in-lore, ionize & destroy human electronics as we see at the Visegrad Relay on Reach & the B-Net fighter we see crash in New Mombasa. If one shot effects the electronics the device it done, permanently.
For Bungie Era gameplay; only a Charged Shot from a Plasma Pistol, the field of Disruptor Equipment, or the EMP field of Armor Lock causes this effect for a short period. This was Bungies' concession to lore, though it shouldn't effect Covenant technology at all.
For Microsoft era gameplay the rules have become inconsistent with Halo Infinite, as Ionization now is exclusively limited to Shock Weapons (when last I played).
I always felt the air/space Dominance fighter was the Sabre and broadsword since they were designed to directly engage the covenant fighters and outperformed them but they were introduced only later in the war.
I think the main reason is that what air dominance is now, space dominance is then. There's nothing you can do from the air that you cant do from space.
That's one of the things I love about the Imperium's (and anyone else's for that matter) millitary in 40k. Unlike most space sci-fi worlds they have separate Aeronautica, that's entirely different from their space fighters, even if game devs and animators like to ignore that and us the Aeronautica in Space. (Vakiir boarding the Baleful Edict with a Valkyrie rather than say an Aquilla shuttle in Daemonhunters being the most recent example). I guess part of that is the planes being more reckognizable due to actually appearing on the Battlefield.
The question is why would you need one? Why waste resources on an Air only craft when you can have a space oriented craft that can do both? Just use drones like the wombat or use CAS oriented craft like the skyhawk.
The matter comes down to space superiority, if you can win that you can move your ships in atmosphere and you gain air superiority
Because fuel, a space fighter cant use the same fuel that a ground one can jet engines dont work in space and rocket engines are hella loud on the ground
@@commanderdragco3123 you know the the longsword can do it role in space and air and is able to enter and leave atmosphere by it self and it a multi rule fighter that is well armored and capable of bombing and can pack and use a tactical nuke
Also most ground vehicles run on water in the halo universe literally that made a engine that is use in some form in any ground vehicle that can power and drive a vehicle on H2O that is what the fuel canisters on the warthog is filled with clean water most vehicles that don't use it are aircraft like pelicans because it doesn't produce enough energy for lift off so they us a different fuel source
@@commanderdragco3123 that’s a non issue for the UNSC. Longswords, pelicans, baselard, broadsword, Nandao, all are atmospheric/space based craft. They all are capable of operating in both so fuel or engine types must not be an issue for the UNSC.
There’s also the aspect that the UNSC was losing the war for the longest time they didn’t have a large enough fleet to compete in space. The UNSC could have pulled a Star Wars rebellion move by mass producing fighters, bombers, interceptors and CAS aircraft and use them to overwhelm the covenant. Carriers would be the most useful to get in and out of battle. The infinity is a great ship in theory but is tragically bad compared to the resources it took. Multiple carriers for fighter based craft with frigates and corvettes as escort could have been a much bigger force multiplier than one giant ship.
@@Homer890 ehh that’s not right thou, in Halo small spacecraft are not that amazing. Shields and armor can mitigate most damage they can do. There’s also the highly accurate Point Defense guns/lasers used by both sides that SWs PD can even be compared to.
The fact of the matter is that SWs spacecraft are honestly too powerful in comparison to their warships, Halo takes a more realistic approach to them.
There is a UNSC fighter called the broadsword which resembles most modern fighters along with the Impetus. The longsword had bomber and fighter variations as well so one was a bit smaller than the bomber ones which I think you mostly see in the games.
Simple. 3rd Person aerial combat games like Ace Combat have a completely different dynamic than FPS games. In aerial combat, the focus is on the vehicle and its capabilities. In FPS games, the focus is on the player themselves, which is more fleshed out. There are exceptions; CHORUS being a great example of this, highly recommend it. That said, for games like Halo, a single mission once in a while makes more sense than regularly switching between space, land, air or sea. The reality is that these things ARE happening, just not not on screen where it distracts as a visual from the underlying or main narratives that drive a FPS or TPS shooter campaign.
Hey Cabezon, I've really been enjoying your halo videos. In regards to the UNSC's Air and Space Wings there are quite a few more examples that can be found in the lore of Halo. For example the UNSC did field at least some dedicated interceptor aircraft in the form of the F-29 Nandoa which seems to have been designed as a space superiority fighter with another space craft being the S-14 Baselard which filled the role of a assault fighter. I apologize if the point of the video was questioning why there doesnt seem to be a dedicated Air Superiority Fighters or Space Superiority Fighter in the campaigns.
As a kid playing halo I always thought the unsc didn't have fighter jets because the pilot couldn't breath in outer space, as an adult I realize that the developers and lore writers just completely forgot fighter jets existed when writing halos lore, later on bungie and 343 look back and are like (huh the unsc and covenant don't have fighter jets) and so began the long night of solace level on halo reach, up until the longswords were introduced most of the air units were simply normal gunships not exactly a fast moving similar to an F16 type of vehicle
F-29 Nandao is the UNSCs primary strike fighter and the GA-TL1 Longsword is its bomber/interceptor
I always just got the impression all the fighters were occupied in the space battle above where ever they were fighting, those are the most important after all since it doesn't matter if the unsc won on the ground if the covenant decided to just glass the planet, which they usually did.
The UNSC’s combat philosophy is much more apparent in the books, they have carriers that hold hundreds or thousands of fighters, it’s not specified if they’re drones or manned fighters though. The air superiority that the current earth powers value is also sort of superseded by having orbit control of the planet as a whole. Owning the skies doesn’t mean anything if near orbit isn’t also controlled, and the UNSC has plenty of resources focused towards that.
In the back half of the halo novel 'Shadows of Reach' the broadsword from halo 4 was depicted as a capable air superiority fighter, with longswords filling a more standoff role in atmosphere.
There are some drone craft, and also some others that are only mentioned in the books, but it’s hard to count them when they’ve never been witnessed in-game which is the main Avenue for the franchise
The F-99 is seen in Halo 3: ODST, and that is a fighter, though it's unmanned.
It's almost certainly a by-product of the scenarios played out in the games and books. I'm sure they have advanced fighters that fill this role, but they don't serve a role they need in the content. Though in the newer book, Shadows of Reach, they do send down broadswords to completely dominate the air space, as well as spartan IVs and marines to secure the ground. It was epic. The Infinity even deployed it's frigates to block all comms and signals from leaving the planet so no Created caught wind
I need to read some of the newer novels because that sounds legit, I wish we saw more jamming and other electronic attack types of stuff in Halo. I'm a nerd for stuff like that.
I’ve actually thought of this in my sci-fi witch are electromagnetic mines that the humans place down to interfere with and rip apart any magnetic fields containing plasma
The UNSC actually has quite the selection of aircraft fighters, however most are A.I. controlled and unmanned, such as Wombats which are the most obvious choice, however things like the Broadsword are VERY fast outside of games, and have heavy armaments, but when fighting a enemy that has shields and plasma weaponry, something like a Longsword is required for fighting a much larger(more quantity), and advanced force. The Longswords have so many weapons they can take squadrons of banshees per fighter, and play as Anti ship fighters, and are honestly perfect for what the UNSC needed at the moment
sabre
broadsword is the main one
maybe because it's a ground based game that focuses exclusively on land warfare
For the short ranges engagements take place in I'd argue that the covenant have some sort of stealth tech on their shiny purple armour.
Halo needs that scifi-military philip-k-dick style theme back more in a focus, I'm pretty sure more fleshed out less-campy equipment would be more fun, more skill-planning balanced while still skill based, and thematically much more juicy. The universe needs some help, like no more front mounted bridges and vehicles that bridge specific tactical gaps.
Great videos, you’ll have thousands of subs in no time
To be honest, the UNSC did have air superiority or space superiority fighters. The F-41 Broadswords for example were Covenant war era strike crafts that was used by the UNSC airforce to help in ground based strike missions and Defend Supermac Defense platforms. They were largely inefectively though because they were lightly armored to make it so that their speed wouldn't be hampered all that much. Which made them easy prey for covenant anti-fighter weapons.
You've heard alot about other things, but you really and i mean really have to think about this not because on why not? but rather why?
Why would the UNSC design or field more for atmosphere Air superiority fighters when it doesn't benefit the UNSC at all. Most of the fighting tended to be in space rather in atsmophere when it came to fighter on fighter engagements.
You make the point of stand off missiles, but why wouldn't the UNSC just make them into hard points rather than wasting time investing in designing and producing another fighter for atmosphere conditions.
And the long sword was already designed to just slamming missiles after missiles after missiles. Which is kind of important. Its the sort of mindset we have gone to with the F15EX. More missiles.
There were experiments such as the Sabre, but those were purely experimental and only to aid in trying to figure out if they need the damn things. Against Covenant fights, the longswords were good and great at dealing with Covenant fighters and had the armor to survive hits from covenant fighter based plasma. Which the broadsword could not.
It was only after the war with shielding technology coming out that the broadswords were more in line with the longswords.
Then you had to think about logistics, designs for carriers, etc, etc. Current systems are designed to handle the broadswords, the longswords, and the other types of bombers. then you want to change the compliments to include yet another fighter that is kind of useless in space and should be more so for atmosphere? Let alone the testing phase that would be necessary, the design phase would make it untenable. Then you have to think about costs, resources, and then the creation of entire new production lines. Which also takes time and resources.
Its easy to question why we never saw air superiority fighters take the fight in atmosphere, but when you actually sit down and consider things outside of just the fighting. You would see why.
Even further, even combat doesn't make sense to just have air superiority fighters. Why do we care to launch expensives missiles at slow and and manevourable banshees, which could just dodge missiles if they see them coming. just to give our ground forces, which already has A SHIIITT ton of ample ability to deal with slow moving and manevourable banshees. So you're asking why the UNSC didn't waste time, resources, space, manpower, etc, etc, to deal with a problem that was not a problem?
UNSC
Broadsword - UNSC exoatmospheric multirole strike fighter. - Usable in Halo 4
Heron - Halo Wars unit used for building bases.
Hornet - UNSC ground assault aircraft. - Usable in Halo 3, Halo Wars and Halo Wars 2.
Transport Hornet - a Hornet without missiles and a slower machine gun. - Usable in the Halo 3 maps Avalanche and Sandbox.
Pelican - UNSC troop transport aircraft. - Usable in Halo Wars and Halo 4, but ride-able and flippable through glitches in the Halo Trilogy.
Sabre - Space fighter. - Usable in Halo: Reach.
Shortsword - UNSC atmospheric bomber. - Usable in Halo Wars.
Sparrowhawk (Hawk) - UNSC VTOL ground attack aircraft. - Usable in Halo Wars.
Vulture - huge UNSC heavy gunship. - Usable in Halo Wars and Halo Wars 2.
Human Supply Ship - UNSC dropship/supply transport. - Appears in Halo Wars and Halo Wars 2
Falcon - A UNSC troop transport gunship. - Usable in Halo: Reach
Condor - A UNSC long-range aerospace transport craft. - Appears in Halo Nightfall and usable in Halo Wars 2.
SOEIV (Single Occupant Exoatmospere Insertion Vehicle) Primary drop-shock vehicle for ODST. - Appears in Halo 3 ODST and Halo 2.
Longsword - Main Interceptor/Strike Fighter for the UNSC Defense Force. - Appears in Halo Reach and Halo CE
Wasp - A fast 1 man vehicle mainly used for air support. - Usable in Halo 5 Guardians and Halo Infinite.
Forerunner
Phaeton - An attack vehicle. Great for dealing with swarms. - Usable in Halo 5 Guardians.
I think most people already mentioned it but the Wombat drone might be solely in-atmosphere due to its traditional design, limited appearances and the fact that they take off from a traditional sea based aircraft carrier.
Soviet design was not based only on speed, in fact they worked on maneuvering more than the rest of the world. American design was actually based on avionics and tech focusing massively on better radar systems and longer and longer engagement ranges.
Could call it nitpicking put I feel like it's necessary.
Look up the Nandao and Baselard. They're UNSC fighters from the extended lore, in particular some of the recent books. Could definitely have used a mention in this video
6:55 Banshees were so hilariously slow in old lore specs that it was a wonder how they even got a space variant in the first place. The old Halo Encyclopedia from 2009 stated that they had a top speed of 100 kph or 62 mph. For reference, a Sopwith Camel from World War *ONE* has a top speed of 182 kph or 113 mph.
the covenant has fighters which one is mentioned in the video the seraph and unsc which is the longsword and sabre but also the broadsword which is used in halo 4 and the vampire from halo wars is a fighter so fighters hasn't been excluded from the halo in general.
All shown models of Banshee, Type-26A, B, & C, and Type-27, have guided fuel rod guns on top of the automatic plasma cannons.
The air force variant of the longsword is much smaller than the navy variant so it can perform better in atmosphere
in Halo ODST there's a cutscene of a drones flying overhead, I always imagined that that was the UNFC superiority fighter.
I’d guess that humanity in halo evolved as a overwhelm and over come with firepower over speed tactics, basically all the impactful stuff is done on ground or foot if in space and most fighters/bombers are supposed to support them as distractions. And in a way it kinda makes sense cause looking at how WW two was fought through the pacific fighters/bombers while a threat to carrier ships, didn’t really have a shot if their support ships was up and wrecking havoc
in the books and halo wars 2 we see aircraft like the broadsword (which is driveable in halo 4) and shortsword which could be considered air dominance fighters, aswell as the wombat drones from odst
The UNSC has several fighters. The osprey/Wombat for unmanned. The Broadsword and sabre for usable in-game. And the Baselard and Nandao are in the lore but not seen in-game.
I'd assume it's because the UNSC Pillar of Autumn was doing random consecutive slipspace jumps from the moment they left reach and they couldn't launch any fighters or risk leaving them behind, but when they got to Halo it would be pointless to launch anything accept the escape pods because anything else leaving the ship had a higher probability of being vaporized by the covenant plasma batteries that they were being pummeled by, and by the time captain Keyes crash-landed the Autumn everyone was either dead or left the ship except for Keyes obviously because he was obligated to stay.
One problem, the Russians use blankets to diminish Thermal return, which is caught by IR emission, while stealth aircraft do use IR emission reduction methods too, it's different from the Radar-absorbent coating, which we know the UNSC does use.
I hope we see more fighter aircraft in game instead of just as static models or short cutscenes. we got to fly a broadsword and Sabres but they didn’t really feel like fighters.
Short swords, long swords and wombats would be to see in action again.
The wombat can fight other aircraft but we only ever saw it used for aerial reconnaissance
There's the prowler, hornet(although this is more of a helicopter with troop deployment combined with fire support type), shortsword, Sabre, Wasp
What's funny is the unsc ground tactics were always better include a few spartans and they would destroy them on the ground, but as always they would win the battle and the Covenant once they get the artifact they would just glass the planet. Halo wars also had the vulture and condor which were just basically flying tanks and destroyed everything
I'm glad the UNSC doesn't widely use space fighters. Longswords, broadswords, air dominance, that's fine, but I'm glad there's not really a ton of star wars space planes, considering the inefficiency of shoving one person into a starfighter when the UNSC has computer systems as advanced as they do
The UNSC does have several aircraft, but its the same as in with many things in the lore, we dont get to see it in the games, for example the unsc didnt only use scorpions as their only tanks, halo wars is the best example, we get to see the scorpions heaviest cousin, the grizzly which is way thougher and has double barrels, there is the AA tank the wolverine, the anti-tank cobra, the mastodon APC, the kodiak and rhino artillary tanks and many more, and in the air force, they use the broadswords, sabers, longswords and shortswords as interceptetors and fighters in air and orbital combat, for VTOL's they have the hornet, the wasp, the hawk and the flying tank the vulture, and the pelican, falcon and condor troop transports. The reason why none appear on the games canonically is because in halo reach as noble team we went in commando missions instead of the front lines were all the shit is bein used, sans tip of the spear, but that was more an emergency response force than a army. In the next games is the same, master chief is almost never in the frontlines, but rather behind enemy lines or using guerrilla warfare tactics with the marines, actually if you think about it, the only halo were we aided the UNSC army was in halo wars and reach, the rest we have aided the navy. And since spartans are super soldiers, not super pilots, they rarely interact with the air force unless they require a bombing run or evac.
They've had fighters since the first game though lol.
In a world where all ships are capable of 3D movement there's almost no use for a fighter vehicle.
It worked well for Star Wars given the generally even playing field of Rebels vs Empire, but it doesn't transfer well to the halo universe where a small site superiority fighter wouldn't make much of any sense. Baselards and Broadswords fill a mostly "fighter" role for the Halo Universe, but they're almost exclusively used as suicidal distractions or delivery systems for a nuke.
Also a big air combat fan, but Halo always seemed like there just wasn't a use case for a fighter
There is a drone fighter called the wombat, I think from Halo wars. idk how it compares to a fighter jet tho
The unsc does have a Air force and they use Pelicans, Longswords extra but they mainly use Drones for air conbat
I was also wondering, where are the close air support gunships/fighters? In Halo, there's tons of heavy firefights against the Banished/Covenant. Great video as always!
Edit: I know stuff like the Wasp and Banshee exist, but I'm 'talkin Sabre but repurposed to be like A-10 kinda thing.
the last mission of halo 4 starts with you flying an interceptor aircraft equipped with guns and guided missiles. You use it to to penetrate the defenses of the ship and attack it. Halo lacks fighters in the game because chief and the other spartans are bred for ground combat. Even if they can fly fighters and bombers, the spartans are suppose to be a tank/F-16 with legs.
In halo reach we see what its like when that happens with the long night of solace mission. Seraphs whizzing all over the place.
Fighters that can counter the seraphs in atmosphere are supposedly rare and classified, nonexistent even. and the saber was obviously only a space fighter.
UNSC would do anything to keep that type of combat it in space to give the ground pounders a chance. forcing the covenants hand with longswords and sebers in space keeping all the covenant fighters busy.
I say the same thing that I've said to the question why the USNC seems to use no mobile SAM platforms. Because until the Covenant popped up, the USNC did not need them. And because warfare actually might be a bit different from what we are used them today.
1. With what did the USNC have to deal before the Covenant attacked? With insurrections on colonies. Would they need air superiority fighters? Nope, they would not, because the colonies would not have anything the like. There was simply nothing the colonies had that would have been capable of actively fighting in the air. Yes, having something capable of attacking from or in the air would still be useful, but in the end, the Pelican would most likely have been perfectly capable of dealing with anything a colony possibly might get into the air.
So why having an Air Force and air superiority fighters? Remember, the development, construction and maintenance of weapon systems is _very_ expensive, so is the training of crews, pilot etc. and programs like the Spartan program and all the programs connected to it, like the development of the Miolnir armor already burned insane amounts of money, so did the space fleet. And although the USNC may have wanted some ASF, you can _bet_ you backside that politicians will take care that any weapons system that is expensive, but deemed obsolete will get thrown out eventually.
2. How was the war conducted during the Covenant war? The Covenant popped up on some planet and either send in their troops, because there was something they wanted on the planet or they simply glassed the planet. So the Covenent would not need ASF and actually, they did not have any. No, what we see in the game are not ASF, the role of everything the Covenant have and that is capable of fighting in the air that we see in the game does not come even close to qualify as that. In fact, everything we see would fit more in the category of attack helicopters than anything else.
And what good would ASF actually _do,_ in case the Covenant would attack with ground forces? They could simply glass every airport right from out of space _or_they could drop some troops right onto it, problem solved.
Apart from that, you would need an air force on _every_ planet you don't want to lose. And mind you, with both sides having space ships capable of FTL travel, the term 'strategic' becomes at least somewhat unclear, even more so with an enemy who is not even interested in _holding_ planets, but in the complete extinction of the enemy. Sure, there might be planets that are of massive strategic value, because they have important industries or garrisons, whatever, but again, unless the Covenant were interested in some Forerunner artefacts and the like, they could and would just glass the planet.
And the USNC would need to have ASF and thus, airbases on every. single. planet, just in case the Covenant _might_ attack and they _might_ actually send troops to the surface. And with most colonies not even having a standing army, this idea is simply ridiculous.
Oh and in case you might say 'Buuut the USNC could have ASF at least on their ships, no. Again, apart from the question, why would they, how would you get those fighters from space into the atmosphere? It's not like in sci-fi movies or games, where space fighters are magically capable of doing combat in an atmosphere as well (although the Hammerheads from Space: Above and Beyond were cool and _kinda_ made sense). That is _not_ how those things work, the requirements for space and air combat would be _very_ different.
And by the way, the Covenant (and to a point, the USNC as well) should actually be perfectly capable of dealing with any ASF from space. Just mark the damn thing and then laser it from space. Which is another reason not to have ASF.
If you can, do a video on the urban areas, and the civilian technologies of Halo like in New Mombasa and New Phoenix and the uses of various technologies like cars, and architecture, and how the different cities seen in halo were developed compared to each other.
Halo 2 has always fascinated me with New Mombasa since I was a kid, and my favorite missions take place on the two levels near the start of the game, especially the highway mission with the tunnels and bridge.
Halo 3: ODST is even more interesting because it shows more of the city center on the central island of the city. I personally like the design of New Mombasa in ODST more because of the sleek skyscrapers, and the artificial island the space elevator is built on, and angular H2 style blocky and angular buildings are on the central and northern parts of the central island.
(The Space elevator is not in the city center in Halo 2 like some people may think, it is on the mainland on the other side of the island from where the game takes place, and we don't get to see the southern tip of the island in Halo 2 where actual city center is, which is where ODST takes place.)
New Alexandria is also designed differently from cities like New Mombasa, or New Phoenix.
Cars are very common on Earth's cities, and have larger highway systems, and vast road networks.
The New Mombasa and New Phoenix are more advanced versions of cities today with continuous development and a cluster of huge skyscrapers with massive urban sprawl surrounding it.
(despite the "New" in front of their names, they are actually the same cities but more advanced.)
New Alexandria is a vertically developed, pre-planned city with a focus on public transport and pedestrian paths rather than a vast network of roads, and likely other cities on Reach, there are limited roads, but they would probably be used for freight transport using trucks between cities, or local distribution of freight.
There are a good few fighters in the UNSCs usage, the game mainly centers around ground warfare units and not space/atmospheric warfare. So obviously we arent going to see it happening alot. But the UNSC utilizes the Longsword (it's main fighter) and all its varients, the broadsword, the sabre, the f29, and s14.
The banshee isn't a fight it's a support aircraft it fulfills the same role as the sparrow gunship the UNSC uses but also has a space varient, but it's not a fighter aircraft.
The longsword is what you're talking about, it's in the lore, it fulfills all roles you're describing we just dont see it cause the game is cause the game is mostly ground based combat with ground based forces.
The longsword fills this role... Just like the seraph for the covenant. And slsp the broadsword.
I actually just made a video last week where I discuss the Longsword and its role if you're interested
I think the only time we caught a glimpse of any UNSC Air-Combat assets were on the map Longshore where you can just barely see them sitting on and aircraft carrier
There's a whole lot of them if you read the books. In the games we don't see them because we're pushing them from the ground, but they really are there. Most advanced fighters are stationed aboard vessels, something we obviously wouldn't see because we are following Chief's footsteps. If they weren't there, the covenant would've overrun the UNSC far more earlier than what we witnessed
There is something you might be overlooking. The UNSC would have air superiority from space due to orbital bombardment, as well as lore vehicles being capable of out performing modern "fighter jets", though in the game, they really suck (Pelican, Hornets, Wasp all move so slow in the games, but pelicans and such have amazing radars, tracking, speed and maneuverability.) The role of an atmospheric fighter jet kinda sucks since the UNSC or the Covenant can down them with a single missile or plasma beam / focus weapon. Of course, the Halo Universe is complicated since the games vs the books vs the "TV series" and then Halo Legends and other media really are very different at depicting the world as the world building seems to be done off the cuff for the most part especially recently
Haven’t watched it yet but there are fighters. Like the broadsword
mig25 was designed to intercept the Xb70 Valkyrie. Whis never went into service.. the F15 was designed to counter the Mig25...the F15 was so honking expensive the US designed the F16 as a cheaper version to pad the numbers out
Also there's f-99 drones in 3 odst on uplift reserve.
Halo wars 1 and 2 have alot of this
I’m pretty sure they use the F-45 or something, a few even fly over you in ODST
I’ve watched a bunch of your halo videos and it is always interesting to see how unrealistic halo is in service to the gameplay. Apart from a few important advancements, like true AI, energy shields, and Faster than light space travel, the unsc is practically in the Stone Age compared to modern military technology. Then again being able to shoot the enemy before you can actually see them is just not what halo gameplay is about.
I could see the death of air superiority fighters in the halo universe, what many people dont seem to know about the unsc and covenant is that they were their only super powers, they fought insurrection, guerilla warfare shit, when your enemy is fighting a ground war you tend to start needing ground attack aircraft hence the falcon, hornet and banshee, long loiter time, some troop transport capabilities, a big floating gun to bolster the troops. From there if youre going up youre gonna be going straight up since once space flight is readily achievable it becomes way more efficient to orbit to your next destination, hence the prolific use of heavy dropships both by the covenant and the unsc, once youre in space youre cruising around in big ships and dont actually have a use for "space fighters" since the big ship can rather just carry more missiles and not risk wasting valuable lives on dumb avoidable space fights when those lives can be better wasted on the ground... least thats how i my reasoning goes 🤷♂️
The UNSC has a lot of air/space assets and a lot that hasn't been introduced to the Halo universe. I believe they should have more fighter type vehicles, but I think the UNSC focused on multi-purpose from atmosphere to space combat, hence why longswords appear in bombing runs. I think the closest thing to the modern fighter is the F-99 Wombat UAV (seen on Halo 3 ODST & on board the Aircraft Carrier on Longshore)
In terms of Current Cannon from the various halo games UNSC Air/space assets, here is a list:
AV-14 Hornet
UH-144 Falcon
AV-49 Wasp
AV-22 Sparrow Hawk
DCC-TC Pellican Varients
AC-220 Vulture
B-65 Shortsword
GA-TL1 Longsword
FSS-1000 Sabre
F41-Broadsword
F-99 Wombat UAV
EV-44 Nightingale
D81-LRT Condor
They got the 1st mig-25 from a defector that landed in a Japanese airport they literally shipped it back piece by piece to Russia
I feel that lasers and MAC guns made the UNSC feel it not important to field fighters.
The unc does have a fighter net work there in a alot of cutsences just not game play except that mission in halo 4
I would consider the banshee more of a dive bomber
Best video seen to date
0:50 americas literaly stopped production of air superiority fighter and has moved to a model of producing nothing but multi role fighters with the f35.
They don't need more F-22s and they are in the process of developing its replacement. It's called the NGAD program and should come online in a few years.
I don't think the plasma emmitions themselves can be directly interfered with, but the effects of nuclear detonations can cause the plasma to disapate. This most likely isnt used more because this requires the use of nuclear weapons, and ships don't carry enough of those for this use and the plasma moves too fast to normally be countered in this manner.
UNSC in general needs to actually utilize their advantages over the covenant. I mean the covenant's main advantages are numbers, and superior Slip space drives and general adoption and quantity of Plasma, laser and shield technologies overall. Which is a pretty huge negative for the UNSC admittedly, but the covenants terrible tactical planning and over reliance on brutal strength hurts them dramatically whenever the UNSC gets the chance to exploit it.
Which rarely happens because the UNSC are supposed to get owned. But I think if you removed that, and allowed the UNSC to adapt more to the covenant. I think you would see a superior air dominance fighter appear. Along with more long ranged warships that forgo armor that barely stops covenant weapons, and instead focusing solely on dealing devastating strikes and retreating to safety, maybe even some weird volley musket fire tactics but in space.
Fun to think about either way!
Isn't the Saber from Halo Reach a fighter? It just doesn't have a CAS role for game balancing purposes.
Pretty sure the reason they don’t have them, along with why much of their weapons aren’t as advanced as you would think, is because humanity was basically at peace for a a while before the covenant showed up, they’re only real enemy was insurrectionists who weren’t didn’t have planes or advanced weapons
What about shortswords and drone fighters?
Why are there no AI controlled drone fighters, ships, or ground robotic troops? Swarm the Covies with millions on these and they would have been overwhelmed
they had that in halo odst, wished the drones were used more
@@m4x927 not in the scale that I’m suggesting. Ever seen Enders Game? Humanity was less advanced so they should have doubled down on where they excelled: computer technology and mass production.
It’s mainly because they don’t want to give AI too much power. If a Smart AI goes rampant, it may take over the weaker Dumb AI and start controlling drones.
Last thing I want in Halo universe is AI goes Skynet.
@@jasondahfolf4325 They probably got protocols against that. A manual deletion process in case the ai decides not to end themselves.
One I like I on me see in halo wars was the sparrow hawk I would like to see more of
I mean there is. There's shortswords and longswords. The reason you don't see much is is because halo 1 2 and 3 all follow a single ship. The pillar of autumn had 5 longswords in its entire compliment 4 of which are lost during the space battle. The other 2 ships are frigates and have no fighter compliments.
Whatever happen to the Broadsword? It'd be fun to use in PvP
Dude. SEADS and just EW in general would be so much easier in the HALO universe too. You don’t even need a smart AI like Cortana to brute force and attack their C4ISR capabilities. They could’ve done it with their more ubiquitous dumb AI’s. Especially since according to Cortana, they don’t really encrypt their coms.
Also idk why it took the UNSC decades to decode covenant languages. The DLA of our modern world literally uses a fake made up language to test the skills of cryptologic linguists in the military as part of their training. It would’ve taken an AI working underneath a cryptologic linguistics department way before the fall of reach to crack their language. I’d even say all the intercepted comms during harvest would be been enough to be able to decode covenant communications by the time they had second contact. And canonically in halo the grunts were able to do this with human languages from media broadcasts they’ve intercepted over the years.
Combines with slip-space “buoys” and the covenant’s weak or nonexistent encryption of broadcasts and the use of AI, even fleet battles would’ve turned to the UNSCs favor. They’d know exactly the jump points of incoming covenant fleets. Canonically in halo, space battles were the only place that the covenant had superiority over the UNSC, during planetary combat they were in parity. It was orbital assets all the time that gave the covenant victory on planetary battles. This is analogous to air superiority in modern warfare. Decoding covenant comms would’ve been analogous to Britain with its weaker airforce during the blitz having radar and wrecking havoc on numerically superior German strike groups.
I mean the UNSC eventually did achieve these capabilities in HALO but it was too little too late at that point. The UNSC just sucked at being a military and leveraging the assets they did have.
Halo needs a call of duty type military
They do have fighters there called sabres they operate both in space and in air but that’s what I think I’m not sure if I’m right
In ODST, wasn't there some air combat UAV that we find pieces of in Uplift Reserve? Never seen them anywhere else but I remember that thing.
I do agree, there is a lack of air superiority fighters though. The Longsword doesn't count in my book, that thing is more of a strike aircraft and heavy space fighter, not an air superiority fighter. In atmosphere, I have a suspicion that thing would turn like a brick.
Nothing in the military gets developed in a vacuum. Everything has to have a purpose for its existence, it has to solve a problem.
1. For there to be a need for an "air dominance fighter" implies the opponents of the UNSC had fighters of some sort. Before the Covenant appeared, who actually fielded fighters? The way the lore makes it sound, the UNSC only had to deal with poorly equipped separatists and terrorists. It would be like developing F-22s to fight against Taliban insurgents. Against opponents without significant air assets, developing more generalized, multirole tactical craft makes more sense. The UNSC, by default had air/space dominance. I would argue that there was no need for the UNSC to develop such a specialised vehicle to clear the skies of enemy fighters.
2. With the appearance of the Covenant, the UNSC was immediately on the back foot. No time nor resources to develop an air dominance fighter against a foe that was technological superior and rolling your own forces at an alarming rate. Constantly retreating and losing military assets and manufacturing capability is also not a good time to spend dwindling resources on such a special-purpose vehicle, unless it solved a problem. Existing fighters like the Longsword, Sabre, and Broadsword seemed to be quite capable against their Covenant counterpart.
You could point to these same reasons for why the UNSC doesn't have nor field Main Battle Tanks. MBTs are very specialized and expensive vehicles designed to fight other MBTs. If the opponent doesn't have anything like an MBT, then there is no reason to develop one.
If your short on resources and manpower why devote time to fighters to outclass almost entirely snub fighters when you can shoot missiles from multiple locations and bug out to live another day?
You forgot the short sword and the broadsword
Longsword and Broadsword are both UNSC fighters
If you really think about it, if you have orbital dominance of a planet, it basically nullify every other military branch. There’s nothing Air Force can do about it, but that ships in orbit, and shoot down the Air Force. Why waste resources on an air force when you can make a space force there’s just so much more you can do with that. All of you would have to do is drop a tungsten rod the size of a light post from orbit and you can wipe out entire cities with the kinetic force alone
The UNSC in terms of fighter like aircraft besides the Hornet they have the Sparrowhawk that’s like a fighter and A-10 Warthog and a few other aircraft too
Do you think the predominance of unsc tilt rotor aircraft and lack of fighter aircraft may be do to the lack of need for them before the the ailan invasion. Since the unsc was mainly fighting an insurgency/guerilla style conflict with the insurrectionists?
But there are. S-14 Baselard and F-29 Nandao both not seen in games, only mentioned in books ect. also i consider Sabre and Broadsword being air/ space superiority fighters. Longswords are mostly bombers in my books but can be used at a fighter in space but not in atmosphere. I don't think that when space is major place for war, strickly atmospherical air superiority fighters are neccessary. I think unsc/ humanity can develope space superiority fighters so fast and cheap that basic atmospheric fighters are irrelevant.
If the UNSC had X-wings...