Wait…… is it even possible to have a gun that only reachs out for an effective 30 meters…. that seems like the designer would have purposely said “How can I fuck this up?”

@Diana,
On the
Dragonskin armour: its heavy crap that would get you killed, good for cops bad for soldiers…
XM8 Carbine: a cheap weapon that while under normal firing conditions was
excellent, lacked durability under combat duress.. plus it didnt accept ANY of
the picantinny railed items that the US military has… (A big Effin deal)
OICW: This program still exists…
Comanche: They cancelled this because it was only slightly better than the apache… and complicated to fly… and now we have UAV’s…
DD-X: I dont know much about the Navy and their ships… but when a single ship eats up 20 percent of your budget… its not a good thing…

A note on the Us M-16/M-4… with my M-4 i can scope it… shorten it… but a bi pod on it,
target you with infared lasers, mark you, see you at night, see you in thermal,
hit you with a 40mm grenade(at night at 200 meters) launch flares, supress it and
do all sorts of other things…
and i can adapt it to any situation…
all within 5 minutes…
there is more to the infantrymans rifle than shooting…

exactly L-W…. which is why we havent replaced the M-16/M-4 and why the UNSC weapons are sub standard….

Well…. does anyone of anything that the combine has that would counter the Covenant Ships.

depends those this trans-dimensional empire have any way to stop the covenant from blasting the worlds from space, i know the covenant cant get to them but they that dont seem to have means to attack the covenant on large scale either.

the problem with combine teleporters can only generate small portals and this
requires a massive amount of energy, the teleporter in the citadel only was big
enough to allow to gunships through.

“Please explain why the Combine would be “wiped out” on ground terms considering they have the ground strategys that would make a WW1 General laugh,the fact that most modern firearms have been shown to be comparable to the UNSC weapons (Thereby making the Combine non-impotent in terms of firearms), and the OSIPR (rifle and machine gun varients), which not only fires small amounts of Dark energy that damages at target’s very matter to distort. In fact, the Combine Pulse Rifle’s secondary fire shoots out a concentrated form of Dark Energy that can rip through almost anything.

And then there’s the vechicle versions of the dark matter weapons, which are so powerfully, that they warp space around them as they fly through the air.”

Great unquantifiable weapons. To which you can vaguely gesticulate and go “look! Dark energy!”. Whilst we happen to know a Striders main gun won’t blow through a shipping crate(contents unknown, but based on open containers in the are, probably mundane Earth goods) even with multiple shots, and only pushes it back a small distance.

Covenant infantry weapons have been known to do the following:

-The plasma rifle can cause severe burns from a proximity hit. Fragmentation is also an issue for unarmoured or lightly armoured targets.

-A single Needler round can blow a person(actually it was a Grunt, but the comparison is valid) apart.

-The Beam Rifle has been known to achieve kills through boulders.

-Brute personal shields(inferior to Elite counterparts) can withstand fire from ~20 people(using 7.62 mm) for at least a couple of seconds. These same shields can withstand a couple of seconds fire from a vehicle mounted .50 BMG machinegun. Although these events are ambiguous(and in the latter, the shields didn’t even fail) a general low end is around 100 kilojoules. Although most examples of personal shielding are firmly in the low megajoules region. With some ranging as high as the low gigajoules(they are rather inconsistent).

Onto the vehicles:

-The Wraith tank can cause damage to any heavy armour within eight metres of the mortars impact point.

-The Scrabs main gun has an estimated energy(per stream) of approximately ten gigajoules, ignoring cratering, conduction and any excess energy. Based on melting concrete.

The common response to this is “how did the UNSC do so well on the ground then?” To which the simple answer is, they didn’t. They got hammered on the ground. With almost every ground battle being lost.

“That wasn’t there only teleportation device, I got the distinct feeling from Half-Life is sort of a back water planet to the Combine and that there are more powerful teleporters on other Combine worlds. Of course this is all speculation.”

The Combine didn’t have functioning teleportation, except for ripping a hole into a new dimension, they could not teleport within that dimension with the Nova Prospekt teleporter being some kind of experiment.

On a slightly different note, I’ve heard the ancient cartridges argument before. It’s highly suspect, and based on a resemblance between an old round and the UNSC variant based solely on dimensions, whilst going at length to ignore any potential improvements in design that would increase its effectiveness. Besides, UNSC weapons technology(especially when it is evidently inferior to its Covenant counterpart) is irrelevant to the debate at hand.

@ Mega

Perhaps you need to look at your comment again.

@ Nattuo

You basing the fact that you don’t believe the Dark Energy weapons are powerful…. on game mechanics instead of canon. Way to go. You also game a number of powerful weapons the Covenant have, and I do admit their power. However, the simple fact that is that the UNSC is outfitted with a number of weapons that are inferior to modern equivalents (and therefore Half-Life since most weapons are based on real world versions.)and they have been able to counter the Covenant rather well. The main reason why the Covenant do indeed win so many land battles is their superior weaponry, but when you balance this out with the Combine Pulse Rifle (which the secondary fire results in an instant kill on a enemy that requires 8 double-shots from the combact shotgun at your point blank range.) and the fact that the Combine don’t utilize suicide charges, it takes the edge off.

I’ll comment on the rest later.

The “beam rifle” is a Covenant weapon man… not the UNSC battle rifle, which is what you mistook it for I believe.

There exists two schools of thought on the power of Covenant weapons; the Bungie and Novel continuities as I call them.

Bungie have printed and released clear cut information on Covenant weaponry, from effective ranges, velocities to even output and battery levels; all available on their website. Plasma rifle bolts are somewhere in the 5 kilojoule range (capable of causing burns and flash boiled surface wounds), plasma cannons are around 50 kilojoules per bolt and generally most velocities are recorded within the 100m/s range on average.

The novels on the other hand has upped the power outputs somewhat to Blaster levels of firepower, with plasma rifles capable of flash vaporizing organs, dismembering limbs or causing spontaneous combustion from proximity impacts.

Due to the general inconsistency of the novels and printed material (including the massive canon dump the Encyclopedia dropped on our laps), I tend to rely on Bungie as a direct source for Halo canon (the games and associated material), whilst the EU comes under intense scrutiny.

we must remember that the combine, defeated the entire planet in seven hours,
something i cant see the covenant doing.

“We really don’t know how they won though….. just that it lasted seven hours”

That must have been on hell of a day

Sorry, post should say portal storm.

“we must remember that the combine, defeated the entire planet in seven hours,
something i cant see the covenant doing.”

I could see them doing it faster. They have ships in orbit with planet glassing power that we couldn’t touch and they don’t care much about us.

Then the covenant could simple glass all who don’t listen to them.

Well, looks like we’re going to have to wait til Half-Life 2 to uncover more of the Combine then from what little we glean from 2. For right now, neither can claim victory as the Covenant and Combine are restricted to a one-dementional fight. The Covenant doesn’t have trans-dem. teleports and the rest of the unknown Combine’s forces and weapons are in separate demensions Hurrah for a fight that is literally on-hold til next game.

“You basing the fact that you don’t believe the Dark Energy weapons are powerful…. on game mechanics instead of canon. Way to go. You also game a number of powerful weapons the Covenant have, and I do admit their power. However, the simple fact that is that the UNSC is outfitted with a number of weapons that are inferior to modern equivalents (and therefore Half-Life since most weapons are based on real world versions.)and they have been able to counter the Covenant rather well. The main reason why the Covenant do indeed win so many land battles is their superior weaponry, but when you balance this out with the Combine Pulse Rifle (which the secondary fire results in an instant kill on a enemy that requires 8 double-shots from the combact shotgun at your point blank range.) and the fact that the Combine don’t utilize suicide charges, it takes the edge off.”

You call me out for referring to game mechanics, when it was infact a scripted event(and therefore not subject to game mechanics, unless you count all CG as ‘game mechanics’ along with cutscenes too). Then you proceed to refer to game mechanics to define the power of the Combine Pulse rifles secondary attack.

This same weapon also bounces off of hardned(or is it non-organic?) materials. Which IIRC includes shields(the Combine versions at least, although the distinction is almost certainly moot).

I should also reiterate, the UNSC got HAMMERED on the ground, there are only two battles I can think of that the UNSC won without dropping Spartans(read: plot devices) on it. One is of questionable canonicity, the other is MBTs against scout vehicles.

“Indeed, a portal settled over Earth and allowed the Combine to invade en mass. From what I can gleam, it seems that it was mostly conventional warfare with Combine troops able to neutralize every nations’ armies to the point that the world leaders surrendered in seven hours. I find this hard to believe considering just how many military installation are around the world, but I guess with enough portals and troops, the Combine made it happen. Makes me wonder who the ground sloggers were during the invasion, as the Combine didn’t have the transhuman corp at the time and I doubt the Combine just sent the current roster of synths.”

It is heavily implied the resonance cascade forced humanity to move into a few very large cities.

These cities could have been targeted rapidly and efficiently, especially if you are using portal storms to your advantage.

“Well, looks like we’re going to have to wait til Half-Life 2 to uncover more of the Combine then from what little we glean from 2. For right now, neither can claim victory as the Covenant and Combine are restricted to a one-dementional fight. The Covenant doesn’t have trans-dem. teleports and the rest of the unknown Combine’s forces and weapons are in separate demensions Hurrah for a fight that is literally on-hold til next game.”

This is basically true, the Covenant cannot persecute the war, and there is literally no evidence to suggest the Combine can do anything other than roll over and die in a straight fight.

“glassing the planet into oblivion is destroying it, not defeating it in the manner i was describing,
since the combine defeated mankind in a ground based warfare, in just seven hours something the covenant never did in its entire war with humanity.

As well as the covenant where trying to commit genocide so they could go all out, where the combine wanted the earth and mankind, so they where restricted in what they could do and still beat them in amazing time”

The seven hour war is extremely heavily implied to be a combination of things that allowed for Combine victory. One of the primary factors being humanities concentration in a few major cities, there was also the gratuitous use of portal storms to achieve strategic maneuverability(something effectively rendered moot in this, as the Covenant can pick and choose their engagements).

“XM8 Carbine: a cheap weapon that while under normal firing conditions was
excellent, lacked durability under combat duress.. plus it didnt accept ANY of
the picantinny railed items that the US military has… (A big Effin deal”

lacked durability under combat duress? Try reading this article that I found wikipedia

The U.S Military’s XM8 program was cancelled in the Fall of 2005 after being suspended earlier that year. Had this program not been cancelled, the XM8 system may have faced competition from weapons such as from the FN SCAR and H&K 416. Independent work by H&K on the XM8 has continued. It was altered and entered as a candidate for the SCAR competition but was unsuccessful.

In the Fall of 2007 the XM8 was compared to other firearms in a ‘dust test.’ The competition was based on two previous tests that were conducted in Summer 2006 and Summer 2007 before the latest test in the Fall of 2007. In the Summer 2007 test, M16 rifles and M4 carbines recorded a total of 307 stoppages. In the Fall 2007 test, the XM8 recorded only 127 stoppages in 60,000 total rounds while the M4 carbine had 882. The FN SCAR had 226 stoppages and the HK416 had 233. The difference between the XM8, HK416, and FN SCAR was not statistically significant when correcting for the less reliable STANAG magazine. However, the discrepancy of 575 stoppages between the Summer and Fall 2007 tests of the M4 had Army officials looking into possible causes for the change such as different officials, seasons, and inadequate sample pool size but have stated that the conditions of the test were ostensibly the same. The Army countered the controversy surrounding the M4 by stating, in essence, that troops are generally satisfied with the M4. However respondents indicated in independent interviews quoted in Congress that they would much prefer the M4-derivative HK416 or the XM-8 which it builds on.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM8

On its own right the XM8 provedto be more durable than the M4, Americanism only toppled it down since HK416 & XM8 were German made. The US congress instead want to have a M4 that is a variant of 2 rifles, Chinese style of copying military equipment. Besides who would want a assault rifle that is only a re-badged from the aging M16?

“Comanche: They cancelled this because it was only slightly better than the apache… and complicated to fly…”

But it is stealth nonetheless. This helicopter should have been the harbinger of future attack helicopters.

“DD-X: I dont know much about the Navy and their ships… but when a single ship eats up 20 percent of your budget… its not a good thing…”

Nevertheless, the DD-X would become a stealth destroyer plus armed with railguns that will revive the classical age of guns that has been the ideal of sea warfare since the renaissance period. Or would you rather spend more defense budget on producing more lousy Abrams tank that will be only parked in the State side? Or remaking the old propeller attack planes such as the A-1 Skyraider for Counter-Insurgency? Or producing the F-15SE variant for a cheap knockoff of the F-22 Raptor?

“A note on the Us M-16/M-4… with my M-4 i can scope it… shorten it… but a bi pod on it,
target you with infared lasers, mark you, see you at night, see you in thermal,
hit you with a 40mm grenade(at night at 200 meters) launch flares, supress it and
do all sorts of other things…
and i can adapt it to any situation…
all within 5 minutes…
there is more to the infantrymans rifle than shooting…”

The XM8 can do more than the M4 Carbine, all of these you’ve mentioned can be adopted by any assault rifles in the world, what more can the XM8 give?

One instance is the Kinetic energy firing module that will make the bullets caseless, providing much more bullet velocity than gas operated rifle and providing more ammunition since it will discount the shells and enables the rifle to have high heat sabot round ammunition(APDS). One last thing is that it weighs much lighter than the M4.

Disadvantages of the M4:

Sink it in water it will go kaput(This can be lethal on the rifleman carrying it)
If its gas chambers are filled with sand it will go kaput again(Tsk tsk, not again)
Penetrating power is inferior compared to the 7.62mm of the AK-47, you will have a better chance of survival if your enemy is using a M4 while you are using a car as your cover, no bullets will penetrate the metal sheet of the car.
Easily Jams.

Can headcrabs infect Elites? They seem to be similar to Vortigaunts. If they can then the COmbine has this.Of course a strider could blow the hell out of alot of Covenant.

“why spend Billions of dollars to replace a rifle with one that looks cooler and jams less… but has catastrophic failings that you current rifle doesnt have”

FYI, the projct cost of the XM8 is lower than $50,ooo,ooo, so indeed if in my opinion I would still recommend the continuation of this powerful rifle which should be the harbinger of future infantry weapons to come. The XM8 was based to be a kinetic modular weapon or explosive module, much better than those gas operated ones.

The above poster is me, being unused to the format of this site, I forgot to fill in the name field.

Oops.

Well, I’m officially baffled by this sites posting system. Changing your name delets your post, then reposting under the same name results in double posts.

Whatever, comes from being new I guess.

@ Inarto

If the combine have been shown to utilize resistance tech and/or have stockpiles of said tech, then I see no reason why they can’t as these matchs allow for the universes to use all weaponry they possess – pending they they do indeed have it and can use it at the present incarnation.

- I once again ask that this thread remain dormant as the combine’s forces cannot be adequtely described and estimated for lack of info.

@Nattuo

I agree. The Covenant would glass the planet from space and wipe out the enemy forces without even sending down any forces. If it came down to a space battle, the Covenant would have a tough time trying to win it.

i agree that there is info lacking on the combine, since the troops faced in half-life 2
were humans that joined the combine, we never saw the forces that originally conquered earth, by the fact they defeated all forces on earth, in seven hours is quite impressive, since they are armed with the same or sometimes better equipment than unsc troops.

I over shot my last post.

but as seen in the first Half-Life 2 game the Combine has a large gun that shoots into space in witch the dark-matter beam is sent into a satellite then it hits back down, attempting to kill of Gordon when he got too close.

Any of you have the game?

@Nattuo
I think the Covies just won.

“@Nattuo
I think the Covies just won”

They won a long time ago when a handful of planets went up against an elite interstellar fighting force with access to the ark and halo rings in the worst possible outcome.

HK416
i was issued this weapon while i was deployed in iraq. i fired over 4000 rounds from it, and i never had it jam on me. it got wet and still fired. it got down in the sand with me and still fired. i jumped over a wall, it broke my fall, and it still fired. cleaning it was a bitch. reloading it was always difficult because the clip went in akwardly, but i eventually got the hang of it. amazing weapon. plus it was entirely modify able. i wish i still had it.