Why Don't We See Artillery in Halo?

[@darkbooger]

During the mission Tip of the Spear in Halo Reach you can see artillery streak through the air at Covenant positions if you watch the distant battles taking place. It's a neat little detail I missed my first couple of times playing the game, but the UNSC does make heavy use of coordinated artillery and air strikes during the battle.

[@techzone1552]

Exactly, it's just not a mainline thing in the gameplay itself because it's a game and not reflective of having to sit around operating artillery like you do in a real war. I certainly do hope it gets expanded on tho, I'm all for more realistic depictions of the UNSC while still maintaining that futuristic sci-fi feel that Halo is best at

[@captainplexiglass6475]

What does the target designator do in halo reach?

[@darkbooger]

@@captainplexiglass6475 It paints targets, primarily for artillery for more accuracy which I believe was mentioned by someone over the comms when the Kat asked about it.

[@captainplexiglass6475]

@darkbooger so it designates targets for off sight artillery batteries.

[@darkbooger]

@@captainplexiglass6475 Along with any other available air or orbital support where normal target acquisition is difficult due to the environment. It's not really specific to artillery as it just paints a target and makes a request to any available assets to sentence the target to nonexistence.

[@clan741]

I think what really influenced the games is that they were all made during America’s wars in the middle east. During that time period artillery was rarely used, and for 20 years most people just assumed air superiority was the only way to win a war and artillery was ancient and redundant. This is largely because American forces were fighting terrorists and insurrectionists, who did not have many fixed positions or trenches to throw artillery shells at, and couldn’t refute American airpower. Now with the war in Ukraine it has drastically shifted our perspective on wars once again. Air superiority does not work if both sides have adequate anti air missiles, so tanks artillery and infantry are the main go to. I imagine during development bungee just looked at the American military for reference and during the time it was more focused on fast and flexible counter insurgency.

[@CallsignYukiMizuki]

Thats not how that works. Just because air superiority isnt instantly achieved, it doesnt mean aircraft cant fly or operate in contested air space. If your nation's air force is competent and worth a damn, they can still perform stuff like SEAD or OCA. As an example, during the 2003 Iraq invasion, despite the coalition side having achieved air superiority, aircraft were still shot down due to Iraqi AA. That did not stop the coalition from flying missions, and likewise, casualties are still expected

[@medallaman5603]

That’s literally not true at all, there where plenty of artillery battalions throughout the entire war on terror ya silly billy.

[@DovahFett]

"Now with the war in Ukraine it has drastically shifted our perspective on wars once again. Air superiority does not work if both sides have adequate anti air missiles, so tanks artillery and infantry are the main go to." That line of logic only holds true if none of the involved militaries have an overwhelming advantage in air power, which is something US always does. There is not a country on the planet that has AA systems in a high enough quantity or quality to deny air superiority to the US military. Likewise, AA aren't the rock-paper-scissors counter to aircraft that some think them to be. If your air force and its armaments are advanced enough you can easily use it to neutralize AA defenses with little threat of retaliation. This is why the modern US does not invest very much in artillery development. Why have a gun on the ground that can only move and shoot so far when you can just use a much more agile jet aircraft that has missiles that far outrange any shell? The US does have artillery in a way, it's just in the sky.

[@valzicplayz3845]

because the Covenant and Banish would get CLAPPED by them if the UNSC actually acted like a proper military.

[@WolfeSaber]

Not exactly. They have shields and plasma weapons, along with advanced materials.

[@alexisbaz8746]

They have heavy artillery like the Kodiak, as a Military they are even more competent than us but is hard to fight when your oponents are giant aliens able to tear run limb by limb and run faster than a Horse with plasma guns and energy shields.

[@valzicplayz3845]

@dustynmiller9933 Wrong. In space the Covenant & Banish would smoke the floor against the UNSC in space combat. But on the ground where it's air force, heavy/light armor, artillery, and infantry. The UNSC claps both the Banish and Covenant. Yes both the Covenant & Banish have shielding, both have plasma, and both have materials the UNSC hardly use. However, plasma weapons in the Halo universe aren't all that accurate and sometimes aren't effective. 30 year old UNSC Spirit of Fire forces tech & equipment was destroying Banish upgraded infantry, airforce, and light/heavy armor vehicles. UNSC weaponry is much more reliable, much more effective at range, and accurate. ( 2nd ) unlike the Covenant & Banish, UNSC artillery doesn't give itself away unless it fires plasma shots.

[@WolfeSaber]

@@valzicplayz3845 The Fire against the Banished on the Ark was only considered a firefight.

[@theduckking5720]

​​@@valzicplayz3845 in lore plasma is actually extremely effective even though the plasma pistol doesn't seem very effective in game. In lore once a Spartans shields are down it can blow though the armor withe ease.

[@carlospomares3225]

It's one of those things you don't think about until someone points it out... Or your position is being bombarded and you don't see any aircraft

[@psykology9299]

I guess ODP's and giant spaceships MAC cannons kinda negated the need for artillery in the UNSC, prior to the covie war they were fighting guerrillas essentially and its way easier to just shell locations from orbit than it is to lug an artillery piece down to the surface

[@TarsonTalon]

Truth be told, I think that's also the reason we see artillery in Halo Wars. You can't have the Spirit of Fire everywhere, so they had to make artillery. As for why the Earth forces don't use it, there might be stupid political reasons like "We don't want to destroy our own planet just to stop them!" Look at, for example, the reaction the human command had to the Elite rebellion forces glassing half of Africa to prevent the Flood from infecting the planet. It was actually a perfectly reasonable response, but the human high command HATED it. Do not underestimate the power of misplaced moral dogma, as perhaps the UNSC just doesn't like artillery specifically because of how destructive it is. Don't think that can't happen? Well, there was a time during the dark ages where the Pope banned crossbows, because the idea that a commoner could kill an armored knight didn't sit well with them. I can only assume that the use of artillery might be considered a war crime by the time of the UNSC/Covenant war, due to the expense of replacing infrastructure and repairing the landscape.

[@watch.v-dQw4w9WgXcQ]

@@TarsonTalon They have frigate with archer missiles, and MAC guns to obliterate surface targets, I don't think they care about "destructive" when they have nukes on pretty much every spaceborne craft

[@danielk.english6004]

@@TarsonTalon - it might also be the designers/developers wanted more focus on Spartans. artillery pieces are a great way to shift focus from supersoldiers to grand strategy, and that would be waste of colorful sci-fi aliens. also Halo players would definitely find ways to cheese using artillery pieces.

[@Ghostx357]

If you can make cannons for scorpion tanks, you can make cannons for artillery, and is a lot harder to pinpoint than orbital support.

[@psykology9299]

@Ghostx357 your regular guerrilla fighter isnt going to have anti-space battleship weaponry, theyll definitely have mobile mortars, so what if they can see your ship orbiting at a safe distance 150'000km away they cant do anything about it 🤣

[@vermin9190]

my guess why we dont see it to often is because during the missions we play the covenant had control of space and air which could effectively knock out any arty from the unsc. thats my best guess. the only other reason i can think of is because the game devs dont really spend the time fleshing out the factions they make

[@DakkaDakka12]

Artillery is actually more important when you don't have air superiority, look at the Ukraine war. In Ukraine air to ground defenses are so potent that airpower is unreliable so using artillery with the strategy of firing and then moving to a new location is very effective as by the time your opponent is ready to counter attack, your artillery has already moved. Artillery is also easier to hide than a ship with a MAC cannon as the Covenant clearly have air supremacy in most battles.

[@Syndie702]

Well looking at the mainline Halo games, there are only a few instances where massed artillery would make sense within the conceit of the mission's place in the story. We only see a few pitched battles in the Halo universe, and only one non-urban pitched battle. Most of our POV characters are also some kind of special operations troops - artillery centric trench warfare is strongly implied to have happened in the Halo universe, but these are not the sorts of battles Spartans and ODSTs would be involved in. Also, actual human artillery would be pretty much entirely "off-map." It kinda seems like the UNSC largely has an edge in long-range fires and BVR combat over the Covenant. I picture large scale ground battles in the Halo Universe to be covenant troops advancing through a firestorm so as to close to CQB, where the Covenant has the advantage, kind of like the stereotype of the Imperial Japanese military during World War 2. Unlike the Imperial Japanese, the Covenant's use of energy shields and fast ultra-light vehicles might make the banzai charge effective. I digress. I really wish Reach had given us more opportunities to use the target designator. I know it would have been difficult to balance within the constraints of the 360, but just imagine if one of the New Alexandria missions had involved defending a fixed position against waves of enemy attacks using the target locator so as to allow civilians to escape. There's a cutscene that mentions a bunch of other spartan teams being deployed to civilian evacuation operations while Noble team goes on its Cortana side-quest. I really like Halo Reach, but I also would have liked to see more desperate civilian evacuations through the eyes of Spartan teams being overrun.

[@JMObyx]

I think everyone's missing the fact that Halo already has artillery! In Halo Reach, you can use a Target Locater to call an artillery strike on a certain area, or vehicle!

[@DovahFett]

That artillery doesn't come from the ground though. It comes from UNSC ships in orbit. Bungie stated this itself in interviews leading up to Halo Reach's release.

[@JMObyx]

@@DovahFett Oh.... bugger.

[@Proctor_Conley]

You are right; the devs want a different vibe & also struggle to depict combined arms warfare. It has to do with how they write & develop levels, as they don't normally make battle plans but instead mostly focus on ground-based infantry action with minor vehicle activity. Of course, there are quite a lot of vehicular warfare missions & segments across the franchise so Microsofts' strict focus on infantry combat is extremely reductive & shortsighted.

[@henrykimberley5320]

Considering how the most powerful weapon in Halo Reach is the target locator I understand why UNSC artillery isn't shown too much in the game. (No, the target locator isn't necessarily a orbital bombardment weapon, it can do that but its used to provide target solutions to any fire support platform including artillery)

[@chrisv9866]

It's a well established fact that the UNSC is extremely competent when it comes to ground battles and win more often than not, it's when the glassing starts that they lose ground. On planets with Forerunner artifacts like Harvest, the UNSC was able to consistently push the Covenant back because they were to afraid of destroying the relic and didn't glass the surface. Once they found it was when Harvest was finally lost

[@RM43]

I can think of a reason we don’t see it outside of halo wars for each game. Halo CE: if the Autumn had any artillery units on board at the time they likely were still on board when she landed on the ring, and would probably be one of the last pieces of equipment the crew of the autumn would be willing to salvage from the wreck due to the situation on the ring. Halo 2: early game being due to the location it took place, late game: the Amber Clad likely didn’t have the space to carry any artillery units. Halo 3: likely weren’t able to be used in the areas the chief was operating in while he was in them. As for when they were on the ark, I don’t think the Dawn had any on board. Halo 4: again the Dawn likely didn’t have any on board, and the Infinity was more concerned with exiting requiem and only deployed assets when necessary towards that goal. Halo 5: the reason why we don’t see unsc artillery is self-explanatory due to how the story is laid out. Infinite: simply put any unsc artillery piece on infinity would likely either be in the wreckage of the infinity, scrapped for banished use, or are just not on the part of the ring the chief is on

[@RM43]

ODST is also self explanatory And Reach … is well reach

[@RM43]

As for something the applies to all of them, due to the games being told from the infantry perspective, the only ways we’d see artillery is if it was wrecked, in a cutscene of a FOB, or if a mission was directly connected to it. Two Artillery misson examples are, having to defend the artillery from attacking forces or scout ahead to guide the artillery’s fire

[@nicovelardita8619]

​@@RM43there is artillery in Reach, in the background battles and you can call drops with a target marker

[@RM43]

@@nicovelardita8619 yeah I found that out during a recent replay through of reach

[@DOSFS]

If your airforce can't control airspace then artillery is a must. So for UNSC, I am always curious about its lack of 'any' artillery pieces in mainline games.

[@bakes1324]

Problem is In halo wars the unsc actually dominates the air, and their air acts as artillery as well.

[@watch.v-dQw4w9WgXcQ]

simple - UNSC not gonna deploy arty onto the front

[@DKNguyen3.1415]

It's possible warfare has become too mobile for artillery.

[@baneofbanes]

@@DKNguyen3.1415 mobile artilelry is a thing.

[@GrOuNdZeRo7777]

Halo Reach has Artillery off screen when using the target designator.

[@rouge6]

thought that was the frigate

[@xShadow_God]

@@rouge6 When you get near it Kat asks if there any artillery and a soldier replies on the comms saying that artillery is limited but they would prioritize our targets.

[@rouge6]

@@xShadow_God thats honestly pretty cool. thank you for informing me. literally 13 years later and i finally was informed it was not a frigate lol

[@DovahFett]

That "artillery" comes from UNSC ships in orbit, not the ground.

[@DovahFett]

@@xShadow_God That "artillery" comes from UNSC ships in orbit, not the ground. Bungie confirmed that the target locators call in orbital strikes in several interviews during the lead up to Reach's release while discussing Firefight (because the locator is in that game mode).

[@6ucket]

So many times on the level Tsavo Highway in H3 i would just get blown up by a wraith without even knowing where it came from. I really hope that they include the Kodiak more cuz the Seige tank in Starcraft is the coolest thing in the world. In terms of lore, i think artillery may not be needed that much when you can call in a missile barrage from a frigate flying miles away in the air.

[@cpMetis]

I think it's down to the UNSC having very tight restrictions of equipment mobility. They may only get one or two frigates of transport capability at most when responding, and more often than not they are forced into very mobile warfare on those missions. And when given the choice between a slower, more vulnerable Rhino and an additional Scorpion, in contexts where you may only have three or four in a force with no air cover against an force with supremacy, most commanders would chose the extra scorpion. Then when they WOULD want arty, in a set defensive situation, the Covies are likely way too quick with their initial bombardment for arty to realistically survive in force. The Covenant can and do you blitz air attacks when they attack fortified or set known positions, deliberately taking out AA first, and arty likely falls in these initial attacks more often than not, so they can't stick long enough to take advantage of their abilities once the fight devolves into ground engagements. The Covenant War is much less like Ukraine in most situations, and more like Iraq, with the humans being Iraq. Hence why arty DOES show itself in rare engagements with prepared UNSC army against Covenant forces that don't have air dominance, namely, in much of Halo Wars and in the background engagements in Halo: Reach. The only reason you don't see the arty in Reach is that you're in the vanguard. Same as Halo 3, *you're* the penetrating force, which is why you regularly encounter Covie AA and arty.

[@467lachlan]

On point as always with your halo law , gotta say man you know your shit so well you kinda revived this game for me. not long agoafter watching one of your video's I rang up my oldest friend of nearly 30 years and we played Halo CE original on an xbox for old times sake.

[@luckey2s475]

My guess is it was gameplay, bungie probably didn’t wanna mess with the idea of long range vehicle artillery being a tight rope to balance on, plus they wanted things to be super specific in the sandbox, so if they felt like a mortar truck would have a projectile go up and over something, they’d think “that’s kinda like the wraith, let’s try something else.”

[@NerdyGardevoir]

My guess is 343 didn’t really think about artillery guns in a space game. If you have massive frigates in space that can just use MAC guns or even drop artillery from orbit, the only reason you’d have it on the ground is convenience.

[@skepticalmagos_101]

Or in case you loose orbital superiority.

[@DovahFett]

I think it's fair to call out 343 specifically when Bungie made the same exact "mistake" in their games. There is no artillery in any Bungie game.

[@patton3rd1]

I think it's mostly because it wouldn't be very fun in game. Shooting targets you can't see from dozens of KM away isn't really Halo's gameplay style. They did get into arty a little bit in Halo Reach: You get to use the target designator to call in artillery and there is radio chatter about UNSC artillery in a few missions

[@bro..stop.]

It’s most likely just in orbit. What’s harder to track than something that can move 100 miles in seconds?

[@bobybimberbod8500]

Because almost all halo media (that takes place on a planet) follows Spartan supersoldiers who never have any "small" missions so if they need fire support they're most likely going to be given the biggest gun available: a ship in orbit. Edit: This is the reason for a lot of things in halo such as why we never see the winch on the front of the warthog in use, because who would bother setting that up when a Spartan can just use their hands.

[@JUNIsLuke]

To add counter points because they popped in my mind 1 Spartans aree on the assault the majority of the time out in the field not set up defensive lines 2 a lot of combat is also in urban areas and to be fair I don’t really see the UNSC wanting to murder thousands of civis and there own cities also tall buildings getting in the way of the arc of fire for artillery 3 also in alot of battles there’s probably a frigate or something along those lines above orbit acting as artillery

[@timmyvdb3]

We see a lot of artillery from the covenant side from AA guns to the Wraiths raining down plasma and I can see the Mac platforms being the premier UNSC artillery. But the lack of artillery can be explained with the UNSC being on the defense for 26 years and the Covenant just nuke everything from orbit if a location doesn't have forerunner artifacts. Harvest was a bit of an exception but most planets fall within months with the Mac's platforms only delaying the inevitable and forces on ground being lambs to the slaughter. In the games except Reach a lot battles are fought with guerilla tactics or special operations so there is no way to use ground artillery effectively. Halo 2 shows how effective Mac's can be but are also shown to be number 1 target when the covenant enters a system. In short it wouldn't work in-game and in-lore only Mac's where shown to be useful.

[@josephcasper8803]

imagine in game with the blister back it acts like an tv missle

[@iivin4233]

It's hard to get artillery in place to help small special forces units, so the main line games get a pass. If I had to give a reason, I'd say Covenant counter battery is too quick and constant to deploy artillery. Plus, barring some unique doctrine that equips all ships with land maneuver units, I would find it strange for UNSC ships to carry more than a few pelicans and perhaps some very light land vehicles. Maybe the UNSC likes to hide ships "behind" celestial bodies. They deploy small land forces to dig in and hold observation posts on the vulnerable side of the body. Maybe those forces also bunker up with ballistic missiles to add another threat vector. Maybe space marines use celestial bodies in the same way modern marines train to use islands on Earth. In any case, the energy needed to stop, slow, or even orbit around star systems without constant use of slip space would be immense. Future Human and Covenant economies may or may not find that energy cost to be too high. It's worth looking into the numbers. An 80-ton tank or 80 tons of an SPG, its ammo, crew and everything the crew needs--produced on the moon--has the moon's orbital energy. Balancing that account is the moon's gravity holding all of those resources in place. That's hugely different from the energy account of the same equipment built on Earth. Even the crew being born on the moon vs. Mars vs. Earth vs. floating in Venus' atmosphere vs. on a colony ship gravity slinging itself around Epsilon Eridani would make a huge difference to the cost of deploying them with today's technology.

[@Glorymoon97]

It's very possible that the Covenant is just really good at finding human artillery assets because they know how destructive it could be to their forces if they let them get shots off.

[@O.D.S.T.117]

Artillery is key to everything (except air) One time playing halo wars 2 with my buddy I spammed Kodiaks and siege turrets, nothing else, and my friend spammed anti-air and a bit of a normal army and we CLAPPED the enemy so hard

[@FRAG_TOSS]

I think a good answer for the question is that, from the POV we play from most of the games, it wouldn't really make sense for the UNSC to have any artillery. A spartan (or an ODST) wouldn't be the guy operating the artillery, they're out on the front lines blowing up covenant in CQC, while some marine operates an artillery cannon from some secure vantage point of map. So going in order of the games, in Halo: Reach you do indeed see artillery fire, both in the form of the Target Designator, and (as someone else said in the comments) shells going through the air on Tip of the Spear. In CE all the UNSC forces are survivors from the crash of the Pillar of Autumn. As we see in the Maw, it's in no real shape to be getting equipment out of, and I'm assuming most of the stuff we see in the game (and in Fireteam Raven) is just stuff that they were able to take before it actually crashed. So if they UNSC had any artillery on installation 04, it was just not seen in any of the games. In Halo 2 most of the levels take place in areas there just wouldn't be Artillery. Cairo station is in outer space, so no artillery there other than mounted cannons on the station itself. New Mombasa probably had some UNSC artillery in it at some point, but it looks like it was evacuated and then overrun by covenant pretty quickly (and it basically got nuked). All the Arbiter levels can be ignored, since they aren't the UNSC. For the levels set on Delta Halo, the UNSC only had 1 frigate, which if it did happen to have any artillery on board, it was most likely used of-screen. And most of the levels on Delta Halo happen pretty fast, so there probably wasn't enough time to deploy any if they did happen to have some. For Halo 3 the Levels on Earth also, again happen pretty fast. That being said, most the scope of those levels isn't too big, and so there most likely was artillery (I mean earth is our homeworld, so they definitely had artillery), it just isn't seen in the game. Then the flood attacks, and so they have to glass pretty much all of africa anyways, which they probably started doing as soon as the flood started taking over the city. Then on the ark, again it was only one frigate, so probably not a whole lot of artillery kept on it, and if they did have any it was just used off-screen. In Halo 4, The infinity gets attacked pretty quick, and they probably didn't have enough time to get the artillery (which I'm sure they had) out. We do see the mammoth which is a mobile artillery gun, so they did have it in the game. Everywhere else in the game is somewhere they wouldn't have it, like flying through the mantle's approach, or attacking small forerunner structures. I honestly don't remember Halo 5's exact locations as well, but on the Shield world there wouldn't be any, and on the colony world (can't remember the name) there probably was artillery, just not very much and was used of-screen. Halo Infinite is also similar to CE, the only UNSC presence we see is what's on the portion of the ring we play on, which is just a bunch of FOB's (which were all captured) and lots of scattered marines. On other parts of the Halo there probably is artillery support, but what is going on there primarily remains to be seen. So for Zeta Halo, really no UNSC forces, and what is there is in no position to be using or even have any artillery. So that's my explanation for why there's not much Artillery seen in the games.

[@NauticalCoffin2404]

Hopefully the UNSC Army does utilize artillery, while the UNSC Marine Corps we always see is more of an expeditionary force reliant on supporting starships and air units for fire support.

[@PackHunter117]

That would make sense. They also prefer using the Falcon and DMR over the BR and Hornet. Also they use a smaller more rugged Assault Rifle model and Shotgun model over the Marines.

[@JMObyx]

THEY DO! In Halo Reach, we use a Target Locater to mark an area for Artillery bombardment!

[@Seriona1]

This is correct and a complete failure that so called Halo fans still continue to miss. The UNSC Army acts more like an planet defense force and there for has more traditional combat loadouts while the Marines have to rely more on a mobile command and control structure for their objectives.

[@cowerdnerddespacito9518]

The target locator in halo reach uses nearby artillery to destroy targets, I’m not sure if the artillery comes from stationary guns, mobile SPGs, wet navy or the space navy though, Although you mention that. The missile pod from halo 3 is basically a mortar so I guess that counts as artillery. it can track ground vehicles and hit them with precision from above, I would say that’s indirect fire.

[@rowrowmrmao6250]

I’m willing to bet it due to the amount of enemies required to make artillery us ful in game would be too taxing on the original Xbox and 360.

[@allosaurus_0079]

hi very nice video its something i wondered about for years and i finnaly got an answer but one question do you know if the UNSC uses any lighter assets like 20 or 60 mm mortars or something alike? i mean just imaginean how effectiv 60 mm mortat mounted on an warthog would be

[@petamerican2588]

I’m not sure about light guns like that, but the Scorpion uses 90mm APBC, so it can’t be much different from that.

[@allosaurus_0079]

@@petamerican2588 true i wonder tho if theirs some thing like that for the infantry

[@Ratich]

We do. Just not in the FPS games but in the RTS games they do have artillery.

[@SovereignTurkey]

Artillery really isn't fun to use in an FPS setting, because practical artillery is firing at targets well out of sight, for the layer it would be either shooting into the air, or watching an area get bombarded from no where. also, i'm pretty sure that the Rhino does have a normal gun variant, we just see the experimental plasma variant in halo wars 1.

[@demian_csomic_winters9484]

Thought of a terrifying weapon that could be used in halo, though more of double edged sword, flood bombs/missiles, idea only insane would use but it fall in chemical warfare, idea is if unsc is going loose say planet it out right while thing, they could detente a bombs/missiles holding flood spores into a planet, ship containing these flood bombs/missiles will always be un manned, or placed least five kilomiters underground so if unsc flood bomb/missiles goes off when not supposed too, they have chance to contain it, and these flood bomb ships and missile silos and are have cooled down liquid nitrogen around them. Bombs are dropped from orbit or missiles shit out of the five kilometer tall silos once flying straight up to a certain height will detonate filling the planet's atmosphere with flood spores. This weapon is a last resort use when it believed the planet is too far gone to take it back or unsc is like an hour away from completely being extinct will it be used.

[@mill2712]

The issue is that the flood are not going to stay put on that planet. It will find away to leave off world so unless humanity is flat out doomed and this is a final act of spite or we have an efficient way to kill or sterilize spores, using weaponized flood spores is a no go. But I am open to using other chemical or biological weapons against an enemy who wants nothing more than to burn our worlds and wipe out our populous. Human rights are for humans.

[@grugmangaming5152]

Absolutely not, too much risk involved and planets are *huge* that anything can happen. Even if the Covenant or UNSC could scour a entire planet and leave it uninhabitable so there's no food for the flood, what if a spore hitched onto a fleeing ship?

[@halolasomaster3900]

We use siege in Reach with the Target Designator

[@wastelesslearning1245]

Ah good catch. I love the target designator concept weapon. Giving infantry the power of a artilary god with no recoil is too good.

[@varnasblade]

The only reason I could think is that orbital ships completely replaced artillery in the unsc.

[@anonmcdonnell7716]

A cheaper alternative to excal is PGK fuzes, they can guide standard m795 he to a target. Nato also has m549 or High explosive rocket assisted projectile to extend the range of 155 artillery

[@learner8509]

In this era of space battle, the artillery should be put on space warships for protection and firing range.

[@DonCamargo]

The only real reason I see them not using artillery is because they lack air superiority and the moment they would fire banshees and phantoms would attack and land troops

[@sirflapfla97]

in the books they do use artillery quite a bit, but no wear near to what we do today

[@vladthedeathless9439]

There's no party without arty

[@JustSomeWeirdo]

Halo reach has artillery in background set pieces, the UNCS does use it but it’s not very prominent during gameplay.

[@chenli9778]

most shooter games actually don't have many usable artillery... And in game such as Battlefield series, artillery vehicle could be absolute devastating with the talented player.

[@joshuahudnell7401]

The target designator calls in an arty barrage in reach

[@thelegotrooper3975]

Because the covenant and banished are so aggressive that often the unsc troops get pushed into the fire area getting there troops

[@Red-238]

Also adding to your point for a aerial denial, some artillery rounds also use white phosphorus, so pretty much you can cook anything that has a pulse, like: grunts, jackals, brutes, hunters and maybe elites Also can you do a video why unsc doesn’t use more automatic grenade launchers, and why doesn’t every one soldier in a squad carry something like m32 mgl

[@josephcasper8803]

resources ?

[@Red-238]

@@josephcasper8803 I don’t know man, they kinda are a space faring species, so they should have a lot of resources

[@PackHunter117]

I bet the UNSC would’ve used stuff like that before but again the Covenant can always resort to glassing the planet if they loose on the ground.

[@Red-238]

@@PackHunter117 yeah they can do that, but not every time because they have to take ground and that means to put boots on the ground, and I don’t think glasing your infantry would be very healthy

[@PackHunter117]

@@Red-238 Depending on the occasion and the kinda troopers on the ground they did start glassing while the ground forces evacuated.

[@John2r1]

In lore they actually have a lot of artillery. And all of the vehicles cut from Halo Wars are considered canon. The largest piece of Artillery in the UNSC arsenal is the 440 artillery cannon. The M145D Rhino is also artillrty at 320mm. The Fox Cannon is a 175mm mobile artillery piece. Also ground based mini MACs can be used as artillery. And they do have mortars in the lore. However the gameplay is the way it is because Bungie was making a shooter game. Not a strategy game. And decided not to include artillery.

[@inductivegrunt94]

TL;DR The UNSC can't field artillery nowadays because of logistics, Covenant and Banished air power, and the doctrine of combat the UNSC is forced into in modern Halo. Because the UNSC can't fight the Covenant or Banished in a straight up fight thanks to certain aspects in the games. Logistics, focus on mobility, general lack of air superiority, and many other variables working against UNSC artillery. The Spirit of Fire has the ability to produce vehicles and equipment on the fly, the Pillar of Autumn, In Amber Clad, and Forward Unto Dawn don't have such an ability. I'm not sure about the Infinity, but its destruction renders that redundant. So the UNSC being forced into combat environments where artillery would not be much use with how much is working against them doesn't allow for artillery to be used. Banshee and Phantoms would make short work of any artillery as soon as they fire the first shot, thanks to the lack of UNSC anti air in modern Halo without the Infinity. Artillery would be useful, but only in larger scale open conflict, unlike the guerrilla warfare that the UNSC is forced into thanks to the loss of the Infinity. So that's my two cents on the subject. Artillery would be very useful for the UNSC, an idea I very much support, but there's so much working against it that artillery would be as much of a liability as it is an asset.

[@wastelesslearning1245]

Makes sense to me. Covenant armor plating and energy shielding (the ones that stop nukes), guided hard hitting plasma, and general tech superiority kept UNSC on the back foot the whole time. Covenant also cut off a lot of supply lines *glass* which artillery is extremely resource heavy to maintain. So even if UNSC didn’t loose the airspace and get melted by orbit or banchee or wraith bombs, they likely would not have the supply chains to feed their artilary with given most their planets especially military planets like reach were reduced to ash.

[@danielbob2628]

The Scorpion's cannon is also good at extreme range, at least in the fps gameplay.

[@Shaun_Jones]

Extreme range for a tank is considered point blank for artillery. For example, most modern Main Battle Tanks have a maximum effective range of about 4 kilometers with a 120mm gun; the British L118 105mm howitzer, which is considered light artillery, has a range of 17.2 kilometers; and, depending on the shell, modern heavy artillery can fire at over 40 kilometers.

[@glacier4286]

UNSC could've used some GDI Juggernauts.

[@izak5356]

I mean, it's a universe where the main covenant self propelled artillery projectile travels slower than a human throwing a tennis ball. Even a current day human military would wipe the floor with covenant infantry and vehicles. Hunters? Couple of Hellfire missiles. Banshee? Blown out of the sky with a BVR missile from an F-22 100km away. Elites? Abrams main gun. Anti aircraft shade turret? Can't even hit something moving as fast as a human, try hitting a supersonic plane. The whole glassing a planet thing is a different story potentially, although covenant cruisers don't seem to have any point defence so maybe even then. Realistic halo would be an interesting Halo Wars mod.

[@John2r1]

In the games yes. But you should read the books.

[@hadesdogs4366]

So just asking but how would the imperial guard fair against a covenant invasion so replace reach with cadia, how would that turn out and the covenant has complete void dominance

[@LockheedC-130HerculesOfficial]

we do in reach with the target designator

[@Ellesiumss]

Artillery for unsc in game would be hard to shoot, since it's fires metallic bullets, not plasma ones like wraiths. Plus artillery bullet speed is very high.

[@aiden.a4166]

During the target locator in halo reach direct artillery?

[@Langerang]

Another great episode!!

[@Nick-st4hb]

Logistics wise, it's pretty stupid to have big pieces of Artillery since your enemy isn't going to be on a garrison or protecting an area for long, assembly and disassembly the Artillery would be really pointless in my opinion but fast deployment self propelled Artillery would be amazing to gun down key position of the enemies that's why it makes more sense to have kodiaks, siege towers, Kobras, are they weaker than convencional Artillery? Absolutely but they can catch up with a pretty fast enemy as the covenant. We have to remember, the UNCS is still a pretty new organization, they ships are pretty small compared to the covenant ships so it makes more sense to have standardized equipment such as the Scorpions, Warthog and Kodiaks but Artillery would take a lot of space, maintenance and for what? Gun down a group of elites while two or three spirits are flanking you? I think it's pretty clear

[@Kyal32]

The Bezo is back!

[@Autobotmatt428]

I love the Kodak design

[@xShadow_God]

Halo Reach having any artillery at all is a win. Reach will always be my favorite Halo game, the best depiction of the UNSC in any of the games imo. It felt way more grounded and realistic. Though I wish we could have done more with the artillery, it being limited to one section of one mission kinda sucked.

[@hypernova2656]

If I had to make a guess as to why the unsc don't use artillery would be because they act more like a navy, and why would the navy need artillery it's on the boat

[@kolinmartz]

Plasma sucks as a weaponry anyways. You might find a way to keep it together using magnetism but you’ll never be able to prevent it from bleeding out thermal energy to the atmosphere over long distances. This simple fact of physics would really prevent the covenant from posing any real counter battery fire threat.

[@nineisamagicnumber]

I swear the Kodiak has a 440mm howitzer

[@aut0correkt545]

Didn't they use them in Reach New Alexanderia if I'm not wrong

[@irishrandomer5497]

Maybe they use their ships as mobile artillery, before the covenent war they only had to contend with themselves and i doubt there was much issues with ship to ship combat back then. So the UNSC had garenteed air superiority over any hostiles until the coventent showed up. They may have not had many designs for artillery and they had to contend with a technology superior foe, so why waste time reserching and developing something you have neglected for possibly hundreds of years at this point . There would be a benifit if they had it but those resources could be used to further other vital pieces of technology, because while the UNSC had a chance on the ground, the covenant may not engage in a ground battle at all unless something interstest them. So long story short, they used the resources they would have put into artillery development into spaceships

[@zizochemlali4639]

They do search up the M400

[@TnZAustin]

Bro what about MAC and Gauss canons?

[@darkwulf4862]

Because if the UNSC used artillery like we do in real life. then we would not be the under dog's in the Halo verse like the story writers wanted. Compare Covenant tech, the plasma 'Mortars' are no doubt powerful, able to do alot of damage, but they are not very flexible, being able to only do 1 thing period. Were as the UNSC, if the developed like we did, would have variable munitions and sub-munitions to use for multiple different things from destroying hardened targets to taking out swathes of infintry. Artillery would very much make the UNSC the Prime contender in ground engagements with the covenant. After all the Covenant's biggest trump card is that they have had access to more forerunner technology (including the Dreadnought) to make "low-budget knockoffs" of Forerunner tech. Humans however, until the Infinity was built, was using their own technology development to build ships, so their tech in that field was woefully behind the covenant. So UNSC was a prime contender in ground fights but was losing out in the naval engagements due to the Covenant being able to crude copy the Forerunner Dreadnought.

[@halinaqi2194]

Even if the UNSC used artillery properly, it still would be a one sided fight. The covenant had more production capacity, more capacity to replace lost troops, better outer space vessels and faster slip space drives. The UNSC always did put a much better fight on the ground and likely any weird things about them can be chalked up to them being designed in the 2000s, in an fps game you only got so much resources so they arent going to waste a valuable vehicle spot on something like artillery. As for post UNSC, it doesnt make sense to me how 343 wrote them to have such a technological boom in the short few years between the games considering that humanity was absolutely crippled by the end of 3, barely having any ships left and many if not all of their colonies basically gone. If you look at the games only, all they had was basically earth and Mars left, so I have no idea how they went around developing the infinity or their new class of war ships in less than 10 years, especially considering the Infinity's size.

[@cpaul562]

⁠​⁠@@halinaqi2194actually they had a couple hundred worlds left and the Infinity was being built during the war but it wasn’t finished until after it ended.

[@halinaqi2194]

@@cpaul562 i was mainly talking about what we saw in the games and the impression it gives, I havent got the time to read all the expanded lore and honestly, 343 trying to make humanity strong was just a mistep as it made creating stakes much harder without things getting more wonky. Then they tried to back pedal in infinite, such mishandling of an ip is devastating.

[@CallsignYukiMizuki]

My favorite answer whenever someone criticizes the UNSC's deficiency is "tHeY wErE fIgHtINg An InSuReCtIoN". Like my brother in christ, you are using glorified technicals in place of IFVs or any other AFVs for that matter. Your third best dedicated anti-armor vehicle is a Marine with a Rocket Launcher on a quad bike. Your MBT is worse than a Cold War era tank and your TOE for an average infantry squad dont even have an Automatic Rifleman. Like as much as I want to root for the UNSC, they kinda deserved the ass kicking they got for how pathetic their military is :/

[@kekkoinen]

The UNSC has a lot of different vehicles, but they don't make appearances in the games. The primary APC is the Mastodon, but since we're with the marines most of the time, the main APC is the pelican

[@halinaqi2194]

@@kekkoinen the UNSC actually does have better designed ground vehicles, we just dont see them in game because they wouldnt be as fun as headsotting a warthog or mongooe driver with a sniper. The warthog, and mongoose are pretty good for moving people around and dont seem to be designed for direct engagements, but thats what we see in game play because fun comes first over realism.

[@JustSomeWeirdo]

Spartans are artillery

[@515161]

155mm is nato standard

[@hunterh1175]

Same as all FPS video games, artillery isn’t all that fun. Ever seen a Howitzer in Call of Duty?

[@cm-pr2ys]

Because the writers are stupid and dont know how to make a balanced, realistic story.

[@Embry25k]

3rd comment :(

[@flavcookie]

First.

[@thedaveed1]

You were the second comment.

[@kabuki_kitten7129]

1st comment

[@thedaveed1]

Congratulations, you are the first comment.