37 replies to this topic

[Lord Stark]

Okay so after scouting out some numbers something just didn't compute to me.  343i issued a statement regarding the population of Earth pre-invasion and post invasion.  

 

They said pre-invasion: 10 billion

During invasion: 200 million

Post-invasion: Several billion

 

Now we know that according Osman the Battle of Earth resulted in a "few billion" casualties. So lets say around 3.  That still means that the UNSC was able to evacuate roughly  7 billion people.

 

Now we know even as of September 4, 2552, the Fall of Reach was known to all but the top brass, so its doubtful evacuations had begun until then.  We know the First Battle of Earth started in October and ended in November.  Evacs seemed to be fairly complete as of November so lets say November.

 

The current warship to merchant vessel in the world currently is roughly 1:17.  We know the UNSC had roughly 2000 warships at the start of the war.  So based on that statistic there'd likely be around 33,000 merchant vessels.  Additionally there'd likely be about 250 cruise liners.  If each vessel held 10,000 people (which is totally possible if they are all roughly the size of a cruise ship today.  33,250 vessels could transport 330,250,000 people in one trip.  Well we know Reach is 10.5 lightyears from Earth and is its closest colony.  So lets say the places they were about 20 lys away.  At a rate of 2.65 lys/day that means roughly a trip every week and there'd still be only 2.642 billion evacuated by the time November rolled around.  If each vessel held 20,000 people that'd jump to 5.284 billion.  If we say there were 43,250 vessels instead that'd put it at around 6,920,000,000 billion evacuated which is right in the ballpark of the survival rate on Earth.   

 

So the combined Earth Fleet is likely (numbers wise) to be approaching the size of the Quarian Migrant Fleet in Mass Effect. Wild.

[SPECTRE]

Can you add sources to some of this please? Not to say i don't believe you, but i want as much information about the UNSC as possible for a side project.

Now thats aside: Nice topic, i enjoy speculative threads.

By 2000 warships do they mean vessels of the line? Or all vessels?

I think 10,000 people per vessel is a bit high, however if they were all phoenix class colony vessels that would make sense. But i suppose you could cram more in up to your sugested number of 20,000 if many of them stayed outside of cryo tubes. Because as you know it would be a logistical nightmare to feed 10,000 people a day, yet alone give them other things such as sanitation.

but to speculate that they all be phoenix class is WAY TO HIGH, i would say there could be at the most 5000 of any such vessel class.

Not to mention merchant vessels may also include other types of equipment and such.

 

The way i see the battle of Earth is that after the first assault on new mombassa, all UNSC ships, military, and merchant alike, raced back to Sol. And fought an attritional battle where military vessels would engage the covenant, whilst the merchant vessels make landfall and drop troops off at earth then cart off civilians back to the colonies. Meanwhile the colonies are probably conscripting troops  to send them back to earth.

[Lord Stark]

Can you add sources to some of this please? Not to say i don't believe you, but i want as much information about the UNSC as possible for a side project.

Now thats aside: Nice topic, i enjoy speculative threads.

By 2000 warships do they mean vessels of the line? Or all vessels?

I think 10,000 people per vessel is a bit high, however if they were all phoenix class colony vessels that would make sense. But i suppose you could cram more in up to your sugested number of 20,000 if many of them stayed outside of cryo tubes. Because as you know it would be a logistical nightmare to feed 10,000 people a day, yet alone give them other things such as sanitation.

but to speculate that they all be phoenix class is WAY TO HIGH, i would say there could be at the most 5000 of any such vessel class.

Not to mention merchant vessels may also include other types of equipment and such.

 

The way i see the battle of Earth is that after the first assault on new mombassa, all UNSC ships, military, and merchant alike, raced back to Sol. And fought an attritional battle where military vessels would engage the covenant, whilst the merchant vessels make landfall and drop troops off at earth then cart off civilians back to the colonies. Meanwhile the colonies are probably conscripting troops  to send them back to earth.

A single Covenant capital ship (CCS-class) is capable of 'glassing' approximately one acre of a planet's sruface after an average of fifteen seconds of sustained fire. 

 

Earth, one of the smaller planets inhabited by our creators, has one hundred and thirty billion acres of surface area. Thus, assuming the Covenant possesses a number of ships equal to that of the UNSC, and assuming that all of those ships are capable of generating and discharging the required power non-stop for the duration of the process, it would necessitate the combined efforts of their ships in total for a minimum of 30.3801 years to 'glass' the entire surface of Earth.

 

(1.3E+11 acres * 15 seconds)/[number of ships] = 30.38 years

 

[number of ships] = (1.3E+11 acres * 15 seconds)/30.38 years.

 

[number of ships] = 2000 ships.

 

So 2,000 ships of the line.  I'd imagine they'd be in cryotubes.  And 10,000-20,000 isn't that far off if you consider a cruise ship today can hold 6,000+ people.  and a UNSC frigate is larger than that.  Merchant vessels the size of UNSC cruisers wouldn't really be much of an offshoot.  The colonies wouldn't really need to conscript troops to send them to Earth, it'd be a waste to import troops at that point in the war.  By 2552 the majority of humanity's population was likely on Earth considering the 23 billion+ casualties in the colonies and that there are only around a dozen inner colonies left the ones that the Covenant bypassed to get to Reach. All of them likely have around 500 million people (Reach their largest had 750 million).  So yeah.  The ratio for ships was computed based on 

 

http://shippingresea...e-in-the-world/

 

~55,000 merchant vessels.

 

and the wikipedia article which states there are roughly 3300 military ships in the world. 

[SPECTRE]

A single Covenant capital ship (CCS-class) is capable of 'glassing' approximately one acre of a planet's sruface after an average of fifteen seconds of sustained fire. 

 

Earth, one of the smaller planets inhabited by our creators, has one hundred and thirty billion acres of surface area. Thus, assuming the Covenant possesses a number of ships equal to that of the UNSC, and assuming that all of those ships are capable of generating and discharging the required power non-stop for the duration of the process, it would necessitate the combined efforts of their ships in total for a minimum of 30.3801 years to 'glass' the entire surface of Earth.

 

(1.3E+11 acres * 15 seconds)/[number of ships] = 30.38 years

 

[number of ships] = (1.3E+11 acres * 15 seconds)/30.38 years.

 

[number of ships] = 2000 ships.

 

So 2,000 ships of the line.  I'd imagine they'd be in cryotubes.  And 10,000-20,000 isn't that far off if you consider a cruise ship today can hold 6,000+ people.  and a UNSC frigate is larger than that.  Merchant vessels the size of UNSC cruisers wouldn't really be much of an offshoot.  The colonies wouldn't really need to conscript troops to send them to Earth, it'd be a waste to import troops at that point in the war.  By 2552 the majority of humanity's population was likely on Earth considering the 23 billion+ casualties in the colonies and that there are only around a dozen inner colonies left the ones that the Covenant bypassed to get to Reach. All of them likely have around 500 million people (Reach their largest had 750 million).  So yeah.  The ratio for ships was computed based on 

 

http://shippingresea...e-in-the-world/

 

~55,000 merchant vessels.

 

and the wikipedia article which states there are roughly 3300 military ships in the world. 

Ahh yes the Ai forum thing! thats the most interesting source of any.

You fail to take into account the larger a vessel gets the bigger the engineering equipment needs to be. At least the whole section rear of the bridge  on a UNSC frigate (besides the rear hangar) is dedicated to engineering. the upper pylon/shark nose is dedicated to the MAC gun, the two side hangars are hangers, and the lower pylon shark nose, has an FTL drive in it. There is very little room for comfort on a warship.

I don't see what the current global numbers have anything to do with the Unsc navy. You fail to take into account Space is much larger than a planet. And is 3 dimensional, so requires more patrols, despite its emptiness.

[Defender0]

i think you forgot to account for the hundreds of colonies that the covenant did NOT find during the war...

[SPECTRE]

i think you forgot to account for the hundreds of colonies that the covenant did NOT find during the war...

This.

I had a list of at least 67 colonies. that excludes outposts and stuff.

[Unikraken]

I think the estimate of merchant vessels is a really low, but safe number. Given the huge swath of territory the UNSC colonized and the time it took to move goods to and fro I'd personally hazard a guess at about 100,000 merchant vessels. Before you say "but the ratio!", you have to keep in mind that UNSC warships, even corvettes and frigates, are mountains more effective at what they do than anything we've got today and can respond so much faster to potential piracy and so on. A single archer missile was designed to cripple even warships.

 

Also, I love this thread.

[SPECTRE]

I think the estimate of merchant vessels is a really low, but safe number. Given the huge swath of territory the UNSC colonized and the time it took to move goods to and fro I'd personally hazard a guess at about 100,000 merchant vessels. Before you say "but the ratio!", you have to keep in mind that UNSC warships, even corvettes and frigates, are mountains more effective at what they do than anything we've got today and can respond so much faster to potential piracy and so on. A single archer missile was designed to cripple even warships.

 

Also, I love this thread.

 

Not sure, the UNSC can either be bigger or smaller than it actually is by a very large amount. Also considering ships don't have to stop off in systems, but bypass them there may be leass merchant vessels than stated.

Also some smaller merchant vessels range from 50 to 100 m. rather than the 2500M giants stated.

Estimates for the range of the UNSC run from a few lightyears, with the odd outpost further out, with some far reached estimates reaching out to 500 Light years. I personally believe the UNSC inhibits a sphere of influence a little under 90 Ly, with a few outposts out at 128 (madrigal).

Epsilon indi is a little under 12 Ly and is considered the furthest colony as of 2525. But its not unthinkable that colonisation happened further down the orion arm towards the edge of the galaxy during the war.

 

My personal estimate of the UNSc fleet size is from 500 to up to a couple of thousand, from Carrier down to the size of destroyer. I choose not to use frigates, as the UNSC seems to heavily rely on the frigates from simple patrols down to resupplying military outposts. So an estimate on frigates could run into thousands.

[SternuS]

My personal estimate of the UNSc fleet size is from 500 to up to a couple of thousand, from Carrier down to the size of destroyer. I choose not to use frigates, as the UNSC seems to heavily rely on the frigates from simple patrols down to resupplying military outposts. So an estimate on frigates could run into thousands.

500 warships? Nah, impossible. I'd stay on the thousands. Without the frigates.

[SPECTRE]

500 warships? Nah, impossible. I'd stay on the thousands. Without the frigates.

Thousands would be pretty extensive. And like i said would be dependent on the true size of the UNSC.

[Crisiss]

500 warships? Nah, impossible. I'd stay on the thousands. Without the frigates.

This is pre-war amounts I believe.

During the war and post-war the numbers would be MUCH higher. The loss of like half of the colonies was never even described or written about.

[SPECTRE]

This is pre-war amounts I believe.

During the war and post-war the numbers would be MUCH higher. The loss of like half of the colonies was never even described or written about.

Actually you may be wrong, the pre war account May include frigates.

Also considering 150 ships at reach was considered 90% of the force deployment.

And the battles of reach and Earth really did take their tolls, they were final stands after all.

[Crisiss]

Actually you may be wrong, the pre war account May include frigates.
Also considering 150 ships at reach was considered 90% of the force deployment.
And the battles of reach and Earth really did take their tolls, they were final stands after all.

90% of the force in Eridani I think. Again, we have no idea about the hundreds of other battles that might have happened that would add up to huge losses. The war went on for like 28 years. We have probably covered maybe 10 of those years total.

[SPECTRE]

90% of the force in Eridani I think. Again, we have no idea about the hundreds of other battles that might have happened that would add up to huge losses. The war went on for like 28 years. We have probably covered maybe 10 of those years total.

Ah thats a good point, it could go either way.

[Zero]

I don't see why 1000 warships is a huge stretch. Assuming the UNSC had all these merchant vessels, they would be a huge trading powerhouse capable of sustaining their fleets. From 2525 to 2531 the UNSC completely overhauled their entire navy, refitting ships with MACs and way more archers. Most ships at the time of the war either had one MAC or didn't have any - the Marathon was all new tech and the only thing new about it was its capability to fire two MACs. After the invasion, all UNSC warships that didn't have a MAC were either decommissioned and replaced or had refits. That's a lot of ships to refit in 6 years, given that the UNSC was also being partially steam rolled by the Covenant.

[KhevaKins]

The current warship to merchant vessel in the world currently is roughly 1:17.  We know the UNSC had roughly 2000 warships at the start of the war.

If 2000 were the actually size of humanities fleet as soon as the Covvies arrived and the UNSC saw how devastating their ships were they would devote everything to building new ships, which would inflate humanities fleet numbers, even with all the ships we were losing.

Also, besides the innies, humanity had been at relative peace for close to 300 years. That would leave plenty of time for the UEG to build a huge merchant fleet, way bigger than anything today since they would have to connect all the colonies.

[Zero]

The only problem with this theory is that according to Contact Harvest a lot of the merchant fleet was automated.

[Adrien Victus]

The only problem with this theory is that according to Contact Harvest a lot of the merchant fleet was automated.

Cargo space for huge industrial equipment or anything else really can be converted into living space for civvies. They wouldn't exactly need to be pretty, just get the job done.

[KhevaKins]

The only problem with this theory is that according to Contact Harvest a lot of the merchant fleet was automated.

Why is that a problem? If anything wouldn't that increase the size of the merchant fleet, seeing as the ships wouldn't need crews.

[Zero]

In contact harvest they had to use Eva suits winch meant no artificial gravity or life support. The UNSC would have to refit majority of their merchant fleet to accommodate evacuations and such.sorry I'm at work, I would elaborate but I feel this point is a pretty good one.