How large is the UNSC's Fleet Post War?

Community Halo Universe
1

Something I would like to know is how large is the UNSC’s Fleet as of 2558? The War heavily damaged infrastructure including shipbuilding facilities, and the most significant of such, Reach itself, was lost late in the War, leaving Mars (and later Tribute) as the UNSC’s primary shipbuilding facilities, especially since many colonies have been lost during the war and the remaining ones are not exactly on friendly terms with the UEG (several of which have outright succeeded from the UEG itself). Furthermore, from 2553-2558, the UNSC’s Home Fleet has suffered two devastating defeats that left numerous ships destroyed. In Halo: Hunters in the Dark the UNSC’s Home Fleet was reduced to a mere dozen ships, and in Halo 4 the Mantle’s Approach was sitting there with its tertiary armaments literally taking out UNSC ships in single hits while sitting there shrugging off fire from Earth’s orbital defence grid.

I honestly don’t see the UNSC’s overall fleet numbering in large numbers due to a variety of reasons which have already been listed above. I’d even argue that they wouldn’t be much larger than, say, Jul’s Covenant Fleet at its peak (Jul’s Covenant Remnant rivalled the Swords of Sanghelios in size, and at its peak possessed more Assault Carriers than the Swords, who only had one (the Shadow of Intent), while Jul had two) given the loss of the UNSC’s Home Fleet TWICE, in a five year period and the (initially) slow rebuilding efforts after the war.

But anyway, thoughts?

2

Home Fleet was never lost. The Mantles Approach attacked anything that could have damaged it’s defenses. Nothing was actually capable of harming the ship itself besides heavy nuclear ordanance and the Infinity’s primary MAC weapons. In this case it was part of Battlegroup Dakota. The most that was lost from that was a few Stridents, Vindicators and Poseidens. All of which are light ship classes. (Frigates, Light carriers and small battleships)

During Hunters in the Dark once again another battlegroup was deployed. If the entire Home Fleet (which includes Infinity when it is in the Sol system) was outside the Ark portal then there would have been no chance for the Sentinels. The Infinity alone has the point-defence weapons capable of taking out multiple Retrievers. Combine that with it’s multiple MAC cannons, Archer, Howler and other missiles plus the ten Stridents it carries and you have an unfair advantage. A few Cruisers, Frigates and Corvettes were outside the portal, most of which were supplied by ONI. There were heavy losses but Home Fleet still had almost the entirety of it’s ships. At the end of the book a large UNSC carrier (I assume it was of Epoch-class) came through and retrieved the coalition while also deploying multiple Firebases and other structures.

The UNSC also has made multiple new colonies. Many of which I would assume are used for ship construction. There would be no issues rebuilding a fleet. The UNSC still has incredible funding although not as much as the Covenant War period.

3

I’m just taking this into another games perspective. The best way to counter attack an enemy that has more firepower and what not than yourselfs. Is to spam a whole lot of units. Hence the UNSC needs massive multitudes of ships to counter most battles. Also hinting that they have very large fleets, that being said largest “Home Fleet” at least that’s what I would assume. Home fleet sticks around Earth’s system as far as I can tell, and if enemies, (like the covenant) were to invade that sector. Home fleet would basically be the last line of defense.

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> 2535440220895207;3:
> I’m just taking this into another games perspective. The best way to counter attack an enemy that has more firepower and what not than yourselfs. Is to spam a whole lot of units. Hence the UNSC needs massive multitudes of ships to counter most battles. Also hinting that they have very large fleets, that being said largest “Home Fleet” at least that’s what I would assume. Home fleet sticks around Earth’s system as far as I can tell, and if enemies, (like the covenant) were to invade that sector. Home fleet would basically be the last line of defense.

Just what it says on the tin basically.

5

> 2535423132749273;2:
> Home Fleet was never lost. The Mantles Approach attacked anything that could have damaged it’s defenses. Nothing was actually capable of harming the ship itself besides heavy nuclear ordanance and the Infinity’s primary MAC weapons. In this case it was part of Battlegroup Dakota. The most that was lost from that was a few Stridents, Vindicators and Poseidens. All of which are light ship classes. (Frigates, Light carriers and small battleships)
>
> During Hunters in the Dark once again another battlegroup was deployed. If the entire Home Fleet (which includes Infinity when it is in the Sol system) was outside the Ark portal then there would have been no chance for the Sentinels. The Infinity alone has the point-defence weapons capable of taking out multiple Retrievers. Combine that with it’s multiple MAC cannons, Archer, Howler and other missiles plus the ten Stridents it carries and you have an unfair advantage. A few Cruisers, Frigates and Corvettes were outside the portal, most of which were supplied by ONI. There were heavy losses but Home Fleet still had almost the entirety of it’s ships. At the end of the book a large UNSC carrier (I assume it was of Epoch-class) came through and retrieved the coalition while also deploying multiple Firebases and other structures.
>
> The UNSC also has made multiple new colonies. Many of which I would assume are used for ship construction. There would be no issues rebuilding a fleet. The UNSC still has incredible funding although not as much as the Covenant War period.

“Home Fleet was never lost”? Did you not read Hunters in the Dark? It explicitly states that the Home Fleet was reduced to a mere dozen ships. You are also severely underestimating the power of the Forerunner Retriever sentinels, several of them armed with beam weapons of tremendous firepower and are capable of combining together to enhance each other similarly to Onyx sentinels (enchanting firepower, shields, multitasking and allowing shields and armaments to be utilised, etc. etc.), then you have to consider that the Retriever Sentinels (even the unarmed ones) were capable of withstanding several MAC blasts and missile silos from a UNSC Cruiser. Furthermore, the Retriever sentinels also had the numbers advantage given how Tragic Solitude had focused much of his efforts and resources into constructing said Retriever sentinels, and Forerunner construction methods are clearly superior to the UNSC’s by several orders of magnitude.

As for the Mantle’s Approach, unless the UNSC are led by -Yoinking!- idiots (which at this point I’m starting to suspect), the UNSC would have sent everything against the massive 371 kilometre tall Forerunner Warship that was capable of taking out UNSC ships with its tertiary armaments AND shrug off fire from Earth’s defence grid. Unless you are saying the UNSC sent only a mere battlegroup to defend their home world against a starship that’s larger than the second Death Star, the UNSC Home Fleet would’ve sent everything it had at its disposal.

The UNSC had just lost a huge chunk of their population only a few years before hand, and had lost hundreds of colonies throughout the war. Worse, several colonies feel abandoned by the UNSC during the Covenant War and are unwilling to work with the UNSC with rebuilding efforts, some of which have outright declared independence from the UNSC, such as Venezia and Gao. There’s also the fact that thus far, we only know that Mars and Tribute are the UNSC’s go to colonies for shipbuilding, and I seem to recall both colonies suffered heavy damage from the Covenant War.

6

It could be quite large. They have Huragok, time bending Huragok on Onyx, could recoup their losses quite quickly potentially.

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> 2533274926227685;5:
> > 2535423132749273;2:
> > Home Fleet was never lost. The Mantles Approach attacked anything that could have damaged it’s defenses. Nothing was actually capable of harming the ship itself besides heavy nuclear ordanance and the Infinity’s primary MAC weapons. In this case it was part of Battlegroup Dakota. The most that was lost from that was a few Stridents, Vindicators and Poseidens. All of which are light ship classes. (Frigates, Light carriers and small battleships)
> >
> > During Hunters in the Dark once again another battlegroup was deployed. If the entire Home Fleet (which includes Infinity when it is in the Sol system) was outside the Ark portal then there would have been no chance for the Sentinels. The Infinity alone has the point-defence weapons capable of taking out multiple Retrievers. Combine that with it’s multiple MAC cannons, Archer, Howler and other missiles plus the ten Stridents it carries and you have an unfair advantage. A few Cruisers, Frigates and Corvettes were outside the portal, most of which were supplied by ONI. There were heavy losses but Home Fleet still had almost the entirety of it’s ships. At the end of the book a large UNSC carrier (I assume it was of Epoch-class) came through and retrieved the coalition while also deploying multiple Firebases and other structures.
> >
> > The UNSC also has made multiple new colonies. Many of which I would assume are used for ship construction. There would be no issues rebuilding a fleet. The UNSC still has incredible funding although not as much as the Covenant War period.
>
>
> “Home Fleet was never lost”? Did you not read Hunters in the Dark? It explicitly states that the Home Fleet was reduced to a mere dozen ships. You are also severely underestimating the power of the Forerunner Retriever sentinels, several of them armed with beam weapons of tremendous firepower and are capable of combining together to enhance each other similarly to Onyx sentinels (enchanting firepower, shields, multitasking and allowing shields and armaments to be utilised, etc. etc.), then you have to consider that the Retriever Sentinels (even the unarmed ones) were capable of withstanding several MAC blasts and missile silos from a UNSC Cruiser. Furthermore, the Retriever sentinels also had the numbers advantage given how Tragic Solitude had focused much of his efforts and resources into constructing said Retriever sentinels, and Forerunner construction methods are clearly superior to the UNSC’s by several orders of magnitude.
>
> As for the Mantle’s Approach, unless the UNSC are led by -Yoinking!- idiots (which at this point I’m starting to suspect), the UNSC would have sent everything against the massive 371 kilometre tall Forerunner Warship that was capable of taking out UNSC ships with its tertiary armaments AND shrug off fire from Earth’s defence grid. Unless you are saying the UNSC sent only a mere battlegroup to defend their home world against a starship that’s larger than the second Death Star, the UNSC Home Fleet would’ve sent everything it had at its disposal.
>
> The UNSC had just lost a huge chunk of their population only a few years before hand, and had lost hundreds of colonies throughout the war. Worse, several colonies feel abandoned by the UNSC during the Covenant War and are unwilling to work with the UNSC with rebuilding efforts, some of which have outright declared independence from the UNSC, such as Venezia and Gao. There’s also the fact that thus far, we only know that Mars and Tribute are the UNSC’s go to colonies for shipbuilding, and I seem to recall both colonies suffered heavy damage from the Covenant War.

If the UNSC’s Super MAC’s were unable to scratch the paint on the Mantle’s Approach then why would you send in all of your puny ships? They would lose all their men and their ships just because some -Yoink- thought it would be a good idea to send everyone in. I would hate to see you as a military commander.
“Sir, they have a Destoyer! It just took out our only Corvette.”
“Send in the dinghy’s!”
“But sir they won’t do anything, we’ll just be massacred.”
“I said do it boy!”

The UNSC has reclaimed some colonies and made many more. Why do you think the UNSC are concerned about the Guardians? They hardly care about backwater planets getting messed up. There have already been multiple planets built up to Inner Colony level many of which have been militarised. Like I’ve said before there are no problems rebuilding ships, especially on Earth. Anyway the UNSC still has a very large number of ships.

8

It doesn’t seem to me that Humanity is in very bad shape at all. I would really like to know where they got the infrastructure to rebuild so fast. Maybe with ~25 billion less mouths to feed the UEG can focus more on military spending and less on social programs. I really don’t know. I thought the fleet was based and largely built at Reach and as I recall something bad definitely happened there. Even Earth sustained heavy damage and I would be amazed if there weren’t long-term habitability issues after the events of Halo 3 (half of the second-largest continent having been glassed will have an effect of global climate, I assure you). I really wonder how humanity rebuilt so fast. Maybe we’ll find out some day, but in the back of my mind, I fear it’s simply a plot hole big enough to fly Infinity through…

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> 2535423132749273;7:
> > 2533274926227685;5:
> > > 2535423132749273;2:
> > > Home Fleet was never lost. The Mantles Approach attacked anything that could have damaged it’s defenses. Nothing was actually capable of harming the ship itself besides heavy nuclear ordanance and the Infinity’s primary MAC weapons. In this case it was part of Battlegroup Dakota. The most that was lost from that was a few Stridents, Vindicators and Poseidens. All of which are light ship classes. (Frigates, Light carriers and small battleships)
> > >
> > > During Hunters in the Dark once again another battlegroup was deployed. If the entire Home Fleet (which includes Infinity when it is in the Sol system) was outside the Ark portal then there would have been no chance for the Sentinels. The Infinity alone has the point-defence weapons capable of taking out multiple Retrievers. Combine that with it’s multiple MAC cannons, Archer, Howler and other missiles plus the ten Stridents it carries and you have an unfair advantage. A few Cruisers, Frigates and Corvettes were outside the portal, most of which were supplied by ONI. There were heavy losses but Home Fleet still had almost the entirety of it’s ships. At the end of the book a large UNSC carrier (I assume it was of Epoch-class) came through and retrieved the coalition while also deploying multiple Firebases and other structures.
> > >
> > > The UNSC also has made multiple new colonies. Many of which I would assume are used for ship construction. There would be no issues rebuilding a fleet. The UNSC still has incredible funding although not as much as the Covenant War period.
> >
> >
> > -Snip-
>
>
> The UNSC has reclaimed some colonies and made many more. Why do you think the UNSC are concerned about the Guardians? They hardly care about backwater planets getting messed up. There have already been multiple planets built up to Inner Colony level many of which have been militarised. Like I’ve said before there are no problems rebuilding ships, especially on Earth. Anyway the UNSC still has a very large number of ships.

What? The first eleven worlds to get smacked aside by the Guardians were backwater colonies (Meridian, Conrad’s Point, Ursa IV, Laika V, etc). Inner Colony level? I presume that you are referring to the process of dense industrialization and urbanization on a sub-planetary scale?

Outside of a few colonies in the immediate vicinity of the Sol System, no. You’re biggest producers (and industrial centers) are limited to Mars, Tribute, and probably the Oort Cloud. All of these places are worthless without the resources to back up and supply these centers - which means your working with carefully restricted resource management guidelines and a high demand - low supply crisis.

Since the UNSC had also some how evacuated the entirety of Earth’s population (and refuges) with the assistance of what appears to be thousands of Phoenix-class carriers or transport equivalents (define: asspull), you’re looking at an exponential growth spurt in consumption rates that won’t be diminishing anytime soon - which means that every factory and every food production facility will be working day and night to fulfill the needs of the remaining human populace.

This same population has also lost all of its suppliers (The Outer Colonies and Harvest, aka the Breadbasket, specifically were quoted as being the major suppliers for the Inner Colonies), which also brings me back to the point I was trying to make earlier. There’s no way that any colonies can be “militarized” (I’m pretty sure you meant fortified) as humanity is resource-strapped, logical prioritization would have the UEG focusing on rebuilding an actual infrastructure (support for the ships and their crew), and the economy is in literal shambles.

FordFalcon also brought up Hunters in the Dark and the Didact’s attack on Earth, where the UNSC suffered repeated and heavy losses in the face of overwhelming power. I would also like to point out all the damage that the Infinity has suffered during its very costly campaigns, meaning Humanity’s mighty worship is eating away an enormous portion of what little the UNSC has.

With these factors in mind, we’re looking at, at most, two hundred warships. With only a fraction of them ever active at one time, and the rest in drydock for refit and resupply, crew changes, or just as a reserve force in the event of another attack on Earth.