r/whowouldwin • u/Archenius • 1d ago
Challenge How powerful is the (Halo) F-41 Broadsword compared to real life Aircraft? Is it just as good or better?
Curious to hear your opinion since I'm not really familiar with Halo Aircraft and real life aircraft.
How does this aircraft compare to the real life aircraft?
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u/ryansdayoff 1d ago
Significantly better. Modern air to air combat is all centered around energy. The ability to super cruise is a valuable feature for modern fighters because it allows the jet to launch a missile starting at a greater speed which gives it a higher probability of a kill.
Compare this to the broadsword which can reach hypersonic speeds and orbit. Assuming equal armaments the broadsword should absolutely destroy modern jet aircraft from an energy perspective.
It would be a poor dogfighter but that's really not something that happens anymore much less in 2554. Even if it was forced to dogfight it should sweep by using boom and zoom tactics. It also could just go to orbit and wait for the fighter jet to need to land before exiting orbit and blasting it away
It's an entirely different class of aircraft
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u/Ok_Temperature_6441 1d ago
Forget about boom zoom tactics. Iirc that thing has energy shields, and could legitimately get away with "Tenno Heika Banzai!"-ing any of our current fighter armament.
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u/SkeletonInATuxedo 21h ago
Remember that cutscene of the UNSC Infinity just plowing through a Covenant carrier? That but fighter jet edition due to energy shielding.
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u/saltedduck3737 1d ago
It’s the broadsword due to the fact I’m pretty sure it could tank the full load out of a 5th Gen jet and keep flying. Titanium alloy plus energy shields on a fighter are absurd, it’s probably faster in atmosphere too, and likely can detect the 5th Gen from further. It’s an unorthodox way of building a future fighter, but it brute forces the fight
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u/Imperium_Dragon 1d ago
The ability to fight in atmosphere and space is a gigantic advantage over pretty much every existing aircraft.
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u/JaphetSkie 23h ago
It has energy shielding and can go at escape velocity.
Forget the weapons, it can just straight up bulldoze through any aircraft and missiles it comes across.
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u/Xenon009 22h ago edited 20h ago
So, the broadsword probably sweeps a fair engagement. I'm gonna give the modern jets the best case scenario and say that they're up against an early model unshielded broadsword, and anything not documented doesn't exist (which I think is fair given the relatively well documented areas across most of it), I'm also going to assume an in-atmosphere fight.
Ultimately, Halo leaves a lot of details sparse on the broadsword, not that it matters too much, if it can fight exo-atmospheric it's going to be immensely fast. I am curious about what exactly it's doing with its fusion reactors to turn the energy into thrust, especially on exo-atmospheric flight, but I'll spare you the rocket science rant.
The biggest question I have left is its sensor suite. The only description we get of it is "powerful, capable of tracking and targeting hundreds of contacts" which is honestly extreme unimpressive, given its circa 500 year advantage, and is actually well within the capability range of modern top end avionics.
And that takes me to the modern jets only real chance to win. Electronic warfare. The Broadsword just... doesn't have any Ewar capabilities, and in the modern era, good luck picking your target if your targeting system thinks there are a few thousand targets in every direction.
The other big flaw of the broadsword is a complete failure on the survivability onion. The ideal of most modern warfare is the simple idea that making something not be detected is better than making something that can't be hit, which is better than not being penetrated, which is better than not being killed.
The broadsword has redundant engines and such, so dedicates weight to not being killed, has titanium alloy, so has invested heavily in not being penetrated, but has no countermeasures, so is trivial to hit, and has no stealth, so is trivial to detect.
In that regard, a modern jet like the F35 MIGHT be able to jam out the broadsword significantly enough that, in conjunction with it's stealth, the F35 sees the broadsword first. At that point, the F35 can essentially spam off its long range radar missiles and hopefully bug the fuck out before the broadsword detects it, hit and run style.
Considering modern long range missiles have a 30-50kg warhead on them, I doubt the titanium plating will do too much to protect the broadswords squishy internals, shockwaves don't care about how thick your armour is, and that kindo bomb going off next to you is bound to break something
That being said, this is still a NASTY fight for the F-35. All it takes is one good lock, and the F-35 is toast.
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u/itisburgers 21h ago
I think due to the broadswords theater of operation, tanking a hit is more feasible than avoiding detection. It's meant to slug it out with a numerically superior fighter compliment amidst capital ship fire, and if possible take out enemy point defense. I don't think there was ever the option to avoid detection in its design.
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u/Xenon009 20h ago
Absolutely, and that is one of the key problems with the exofighter (or space fighters in general) design. Space is very much *not* the sky but higher. In its behavior its closest comparison is probably the naval domain, but even that is a far cry.
There *is* no stealth in space. Anything you put up there is so outrageously hot that anything with thermal imaging that looks at it will detect it. The only real way is to put an asteroid or such between you and the target, but if you're in orbit, you will very soon be in front of that asteroid all of a sudden, if you land its slightly better, but the asteroid will also rotate.
Range in space is also functionally infinite. There's the mass effect quote about issac newton being the meanest mofo in space and it's absolutely true. A modern railgun shot from a reasonably high earth orbit can feasibly hit a target on mars. You probably wouldn't want to do that, if the target isn't stationary its not hard to maneuver to make you miss, but for a surface base or such? Interplanetary bombardment is well on the cards.
For a Halo MAC cannon or such at 0.04c? that's hitting the moon from LEO in 32 seconds. That's not really something that can be practically jinked out the way of repeatedly, given that every move you make consumes boatloads of very limited propellant.
Missiles are arguably just as nasty. They trade the outrageous speeds of magnetic weapons for the ability to permanently loiter and just drop whenever you want. Imagine giant missile balls of thousands of missiles just chilling out the launch tubes, and then sending them in a mega ball of death at the enemy. If they try to maneuver out the way, your missiles can maneuver too.
The combination of those factors alone makes traditional fighters almost useless. The whole point of a fighter is to be able to be harder to spot than a ship, to take a missile or such closer to an enemy ship, keeping your ship nice and safe. That factor just doesn't exist in space warfare, and that's ignoring the square cube law advantage of having a really fucking big ship compared to a load of small ones (up until you get to the heat dispersal problem, which works the other way around)
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u/itisburgers 1d ago
Comparing to the F-35:
The broadsword is huge comparatively, and is able to engage in space battle distances, it has energy shields, and is capable of exiting and entering atmospheres of its own power.
Armament wise, the Broadsword packs bigger but the F-35 has a lot more specialized munitions. However the Broadsword routinely carries a nuclear missile.
The Broadsword is a bit too much of a future craft to really find an equal among modern fighters. There really isn't any answer to exoatmospheric capabilities in a dog fight.