These class of ships were designed to replace the aging and expensive Halcyon class cruisers and to that extent were designed with cost in mind. They are the largest class of warships built by
human hands that served in the Human-Covenant conflict. They were very heavily armored and were one of the few class of ships in the UNSC navy that could survive a direct hit from a
Plasma torpedo. it is worth noting that the UNSC listed Cruisers as their heaviest tonnage of ships, whereas the Covenant used Carriers as their largest ships.
Specifications
- Length - 1192 meters
- Mass - 100,000 tons
- Hull - Titanium- A battle plate
Armament
- 1 Magnetic Accelerator Cannon
- Multiple Archer missile pods
- 50mm guns for Point defense
Engine
- Engine unit(s) - Deutirum Core Reactor
- Slipspace Drive - One Shaw-fujikawa Translight Engine
- Velocity in slipspace - 2.1 lightyear/day
Complement
- Longsword- class interceptor fighters
- Pelican Dropships
- Marines and ODST's
- HEVs
Number of ships in active duty- Fewer than 20 during Pre-Halo
It is worth nothing that at although these were the largest ships in the human fleet it was significant smaller than the biggest ships in the covenant navy; the
Supercarrier and the more numerous
Assault Carrier. In fact, the marathon class cruisers at a length of about .7 miles were 5 times smaller than the Super carriers of the Covenant navy. Due to their importance and meager numbers these ships were almost exclusively used to defend the Inner colonies. However, due to the Covenant's superiority over the UNSC both in terms of technology and numbers, engagements involving these ships did not go too well. At the onset of
Halo 1, only a few of these ships remained as most of them had been lost in the defense of
reach and other inner colonies. In fact it is mentioned in the book Fall of Reach that only twenty cruisers remained in the UNSC fleet
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