The covenant had a reason to engage in ground combat because they didn’t want to damage forerunner artifacts, but why did the UNSC when they could’ve used nukes and spacecraft?
If they used nukes in ground fights it would just help the covenant with the glassing process lol
True they could have but they used nukes as a last resort. Holding territory is essential to winning a battle or a war. Air supremacy can only do so much and unfortunately the UNSC didn’t have that. As for the forerunner tech, once the UNSC and more importantly ONI figured out how to reverse engineer it, it became imperative to preserve as much of it as they could.
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> True they could have but they used nukes as a last resort. Holding territory is essential to winning a battle or a war. Air supremacy can only do so much and unfortunately the UNSC didn’t have that. As for the forerunner tech, once the UNSC and more importantly ONI figured out how to reverse engineer it, it became imperative to preserve as much of it as they could.
You can still hold territory after nuking an area.
Once the navy realized covenant ships could be destroyed by them, nukes were largely reserved for the fleet. They became rather short in supply, as they didn’t have large stockpiles before the war, given the lack of need. What they did have in ample supply was marines. They were useful for things like managing civilian evacuations, and asset denial. Because remember, the number 1 importance in the event of covenant contact was destroying all data that the covenant could use to find earth or any other colonies or outposts. If 10,000 marines have to die to try to preserve the location of a world of 17,000,000 then so be it. Ultimately they had to think of preservation of the species, not winning the war. That was seen as largely impossible unless we saw success through a longshot (like the s-2s) or we could stall them long enough (with say the s-3s), until we could reverse engineer our tech up to a point of being able to fight them on level ground. They’d still have the numbers on us, but we’d be fighting them @ 1:1 strength instead of the 3:1 we had been. But without fire superiority it really didn’t matter if they fought them on the land or sea, in the air or vacuum of space. Losses were going to be heavy and victories were going to be few and far between. And that giant unwieldy run on paragraph, is my take on this, your welcome lol
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> The covenant had a reason to engage in ground combat because they didn’t want to damage forerunner artifacts, but why did the UNSC when they could’ve used nukes and spacecraft?
Using nuclear weapons should always be used as a last resort, never as a first option. Many Covenant engagements were in heavily populated areas or areas with significant importance to the war effort: Arcadia, Cleveland, New Mombasa, Reach, to name a few. If you use a nuke on civilians you are no better than the Covenant, and if you used a nuke on Reach, you have just lost a lot of military assests that could have been fundamental to the war.
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> > True they could have but they used nukes as a last resort. Holding territory is essential to winning a battle or a war. Air supremacy can only do so much and unfortunately the UNSC didn’t have that. As for the forerunner tech, once the UNSC and more importantly ONI figured out how to reverse engineer it, it became imperative to preserve as much of it as they could.
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> You can still hold territory after nuking an area.
True but you can’t build or station anyone there for a while because of the nuclear fallout.
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> Once the navy realized covenant ships could be destroyed by them, nukes were largely reserved for the fleet. They became rather short in supply, as they didn’t have large stockpiles before the war, given the lack of need. What they did have in ample supply was marines. They were useful for things like managing civilian evacuations, and asset denial. Because remember, the number 1 importance in the event of covenant contact was destroying all data that the covenant could use to find earth or any other colonies or outposts. If 10,000 marines have to die to try to preserve the location of a world of 17,000,000 then so be it. Ultimately they had to think of preservation of the species, not winning the war. That was seen as largely impossible unless we saw success through a longshot (like the s-2s) or we could stall them long enough (with say the s-3s), until we could reverse engineer our tech up to a point of being able to fight them on level ground. They’d still have the numbers on us, but we’d be fighting them @ 1:1 strength instead of the 3:1 we had been. But without fire superiority it really didn’t matter if they fought them on the land or sea, in the air or vacuum of space. Losses were going to be heavy and victories were going to be few and far between. And that giant unwieldy run on paragraph, is my take on this, your welcome lol
Your run on paragraph is spot on. No need to worry about grammer and proper paragraph styling while make an excellent point in my opinion.
I would also add that the UNSC was mainly fighting a defensive war. In order to evac civilians and other important assets the UNSC really had no choice but to engage in ground combat.
They were fighting a defensive war more than anything, so they really didn’t have much of a choice in fighting on the ground. I guess that might beg your other question as to why they didn’t just go into space and nuke everything. Other than that would be doing the Covenant’s job for them essentially, its interesting to note that the UNSC had more success on the ground than in fleet engagements in space. I just finished reading the Fall of Reach again a few days ago, and Eric Nylund touches on this point a few times in the book. The Covenant was so far ahead of the UNSC in terms of naval strength and technology, that the UNSC generally had to outnumber the Covenant greatly to gain any type of victory in space, and even then that victory would come with tremendous loss. The ground war is really the one place where the UNSC could level the playing field in some respects.
They had pretty much had no choice but to engage in ground combat.
When did they ever have a choice?
I’d guess that the humans, like the covenant, although for much different reasons, would be interested in preserving forerunner technologies and structures for study? Although this is an interesting question.
In the books, it talks about how the UNSC actually excels in ground combat compared to the covenant whereas the covenant had better ships. That being said, nukes were beginning to become depleted as that was their only means of cracking through enemy shields in the early years of the war. That and specifics, you dont want to nuke a location of significance if you can infiltrate and take out the opposition with a small team.
I think your question is a little bit backwards, friend. Humanity were WAY outclassed in space. Planet-side engagements were where they had a much a better chance. If this had been a land-based war, humanity wouldn’t have suffered the slaughtering it did.
Because the ground is where the UNSC could actually win.
Short answer: they need to keep important stuff too and nukes are the last option or used for the fleet not the ground
Ironically the UNSC have more advantages in combat on the ground, as naval victories were few and far between due to the insane superiority of Covenant cruisers and shield-tech.
Don’t know if the following spoils anything in the books but I’ll put a warning on just in case! Click at your own risk.
For that reason naval victories were highly celebrated due to their rarity. I suggest you look up the Keyes Loop which explains how Keyes become relatively famous within the Navy. I forgot what book it takes place in but it shows the ridiculous hoops the Navy has to jump through to pull a win haha
Conversely, UNSC shined a little brighter on the battlefield as they were forced into a more guerrilla warfare role, and the Covenant didn’t have so much of a crazy advantage. In fact, the Marines on numerous occasions steal wargear from the Covenant to gain an advantage, something Master Chief states in one of the books the elites would never do in reverse, even if their lives are on the line due to their honour. Hope this helps a little!