...The covenant also have plasma torpedoes, If I recall....
Plasma torpedoes?! Well, I'd imagine those would be just as efficient anti-bomber weapons (compared to the GTM-55) as anit-cap ship missiles.
Plasma Torpedos are the main anti-ship weapons of the Covenant. They are HIGHLY DEADLY plasma weapons, that can enter through the front of a UNSC Destroyer, cut right through the ship and come out again at the other end. Furthermore, they are guided, and as such, barely ever miss. The only times Plasma Torpedos have missed is when they encounter somthing else (Upper atmosphere of a gas giant, Debris from exploded structures, other covenant ships that strayed in the way, etc). To be precise, they are death to almost all ships, only covenant weapons thsat are more deadly is the Covenant Energy Projector (beam weapon) but thats a very rare weapon, not installed on most covvie ships.
nukes
Battle of Onyx:
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Onyx
towards the end of Battlegroup Starlingrad section: "As the Covenant closed to engage and entered the field the HORNETs were detonated, destroying all but four of the remaining Covenant warships"
Those were because the Covenant ships still had their shields down due to the fact they just exited slipspace and also due to the fact that they weren't engaged in battle, so they wouldn't have their shields raised. Also remember that it took over a dozen nuclear devices to achieve that much destruction, as well as the fact that all the covenant ships were probably close enough to be under the mercy of multiple nuclear explosions going off at once.nukes
Battle of Sigma Octanus IV (not QUITE as effective as i thought it was):
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Sigma_Octanus_IV
Opening Actions section: "the nuclear warhead deployed earlier, was detonated, completely draining the shields on the two frigates"
Frigates are even smaller than Cruisers in the Halo universe, meaning that they probably can't handle a nuke like Cruisers can.
Shiva nukes havehad varying performance rates, seems to depend mostly on the warhead. Some covvie cap-ships can loose all their shielding from a nuke at close range, other times they can justs shrug it off. However, a nuke detonateing WITHIN a ships shields is lethal to pretty much ANY covvie ship
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Shiva-class_Nuclear_MissileI keep reading that HALO craft fly at clicks per hour. My question is, Is there any sort of proof behind that? I mean, look at the BSG: Re-Imagined series. Out of all the episodes that I've seen (...which, to be honest, isn't a whole lot...), I've only seen one episode where you could see through the cockpit of a Viper and it look VERY similar to FS combat. For all we know, dogfighting in HALO may be the same in some sense.
The various novels mention speeds quite often. HOWEVER, they don't mention actural top speeds of ships or anything like tht, as in space, there is no top speed (Except maybe .99 light speed). Battles can often happen over HUGE areas, such as the space between a planet and a moon, MAC rounds travel at over 100,000km/s and can still take a minute or so to reach a target, Plasma torpedos take a fair while to reach targets. Also, for ships that xcan cover such a vast distance, they will also close in very close, so close that in an insant, 2 ships can crash toogether so fast that they vaporise.
Of course, in Halo Wars, the Spirit of Fire engages a covvie ship, but that fight is so close together they aren't useing standard cap ship weapons, they seem to be useing close in weapons and troops.