Covenant Assault Carrier

The covenant assault carrier is a class of heavy capital warships used by their navy during the Human-Covenant war. They are the biggest ships seen in the Halo games and are second in size only to

the Covenant Supercarriers. They primarily serve as the flagships for large armada's and even the Prophet of Regret used an assault carrier instead of a supercarrier. This might be because they are more maneuverable than their larger cousins. They are designed with Planetary assault in mind and in that sense they carry an extensive number of troops and equipment into battle. They also carry a large complement of Seraph Fighters, Phantom drop ships along with numerous boarding craft. They also boast powerful energy shields and carry on them all the weapons found in the covenant arsenal. They carry pulse lasers, Plasma turrets and  Energy projectors. The energy Projectors are powerful enough to completely gut an UNSC capital ship bow to bow with a single shot; they have these on their ventral and dorsal surfaces.  The pulse lasers are used for point defense and are used to destroy incoming UNSC missiles; a role which they excel at. The plasma torpedoes are their main armament as it is capable of engaging both ships and can also be used on the surface of the planet to glass it.  It is worthy of note that the Energy projectors are only used in the Halo novels, there is no mention of them in the games and they are not seen in action either. This class demonstrated their worth when one Carrier broke through the Cairo Defense platform in Halo 2 and managed to get to New Mombasa. This combination of Speed and firepower make them an almost unstoppable foe. They also posses a huge hanger bay, one that was easily capable of holding the Human frigate Forward unto dawn

SPECIFICATIONS

Length - 5,346 meters/ 17,540 feet/ ~3 miles

Width - Greater than 862 meters
Height/depth - Greater than 700 metersSlipspace velocity - Faster than 2.1 ly/per hour
Cargo capacity - Few hundred vehicles/ Two UNSC frigates
Role(s) - Carrier/ troop transport/Flagship
These class of ships were almost 5 times larger than the Halcyon class cruisers used by the UNSC

Known Assault Carriers

• Shadow of Intent and its escort
• Ascendant Justice( See Halo:First strike)

Appearances

• There were at least two assault carriers that were part of the Prophet of Regrets battle fleet during the events of Halo 2; One of them was an Escort and the other one was his flagship

  

• Assault carriers appear in Halo 3 several times. The ships over the Portal are all assault carriers and the Elite Seperatist fleet is led by Shadow of Intent which is an assault carrier. Also when they engage they Brutes over the ark, at least two of their ships are assault carriers
• There were over 500 AC's that were part of the High charity battlegroup and they can be seen when they make the jump to Delta Halo