For all of its tactical and strategic ingenuity, the Covenant has always held the advantage in its genocidal war against humanity in two key areas - technological superiority, and numerical superiority. On the ground, the UNSC Army, Air Force and Marine Corps can offset the sheer numbers the Covenant can field against them, and have occasionally been able to rally would-be defeats into unlikely but important victories. But in the battle for orbital supremacy, the UNSC Navy has been unable to hold the Covenant off for more than a few weeks at most, and the UNSC's only available tactic has been to evacuate a planets populace as rapidly as possible before the orbital perimeter falls apart and the orbital bombardment commences. Even then, it is a rare case when a colony has been fully evacuate
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| - For all of its tactical and strategic ingenuity, the Covenant has always held the advantage in its genocidal war against humanity in two key areas - technological superiority, and numerical superiority. On the ground, the UNSC Army, Air Force and Marine Corps can offset the sheer numbers the Covenant can field against them, and have occasionally been able to rally would-be defeats into unlikely but important victories. But in the battle for orbital supremacy, the UNSC Navy has been unable to hold the Covenant off for more than a few weeks at most, and the UNSC's only available tactic has been to evacuate a planets populace as rapidly as possible before the orbital perimeter falls apart and the orbital bombardment commences. Even then, it is a rare case when a colony has been fully evacuate
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| side
| - United Nations Space Command
- The Flood
- Covenant Empire
- Labyrinth Forerunner Constructs
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| Casual
| - Total
- Estimated to be in the thousands
- {?} Data enavailable for confirmation
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| Date
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| Name
| - Battle of Minorca, Operation: HOT GATES
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| Result
| - Destruction of the planet, UNSC victory
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| Forces
| - *UNSC Navy
**UNSC 30th Fleet
**14th Naval Air Wing
**248th Naval Air Wing
*UNSC Marine Corps
**506th ODST Force Reconnaissance Battalion
**26th Marine Expeditionary Force
**88th Marine Expeditionary Force
**117th Marine Expeditionary Force
*UNSC Army
**18th Infantry Division
**442nd Infantry Division
**92nd Air Cavalry Division
**77th Cavalry Division
**306th Armoured Division
**125th Armoured Division
*UNSC Air Force
**90th Air Force
- Virtually unlimited, assimilated Forerunner, Covenant and human forces
- Thousands of Constructor, Sentinel, Protector, Guardian and Enforcer multirole constructs
- *Fleet of Enlightened Benevolence
**Kr'Rana Legion
**Vor'thraga Legion
**Jel'takarn Legion
**Ozhtuqra Legion
**Vesh'taka Legion
**Molthursa Legion
**Vandashera Legion
**Olthran Warrior Creche
**R'runu Warrior Creche
**Zhezhak Warrior Creche
*Savage Embrace
**Thetis Jiralhanae Clan
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| Place
| - Minorca, Alpha Canis Minoris star system
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| Conflict
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| abstract
| - For all of its tactical and strategic ingenuity, the Covenant has always held the advantage in its genocidal war against humanity in two key areas - technological superiority, and numerical superiority. On the ground, the UNSC Army, Air Force and Marine Corps can offset the sheer numbers the Covenant can field against them, and have occasionally been able to rally would-be defeats into unlikely but important victories. But in the battle for orbital supremacy, the UNSC Navy has been unable to hold the Covenant off for more than a few weeks at most, and the UNSC's only available tactic has been to evacuate a planets populace as rapidly as possible before the orbital perimeter falls apart and the orbital bombardment commences. Even then, it is a rare case when a colony has been fully evacuated - in 80% of cases, the destruction process has already begun during the evacuation. It is a depressing statistic that more lives have been lost during this phase than during planetary invasion and occupation. Given all of these facts, Operation: HOT GATES seems not so much an exception to the rule as a god-given miracle. Set at Minorca, the UNSC's second colony in the Alpha Canis Minoris system, the Minorcan Campaign as it has also come to be known endured for more than a year, with UNSC forces dealing overwhelmingly disproportionate casualties to the Covenant in both orbital and atmospheric theatres by a careful and ingenious use of local astrographical features and flaws in Covenant designs to utterly devastate the enemy, tying up their resources and personnel for more than a year, and investing the enemy in an inherently unwinnable campaign. By its end, the confirmed kill count for the UNSC was in the tens of thousands, with the destruction of half a dozen entire legions and almost the entire Fleet of Enlightened Benevolence with the loss of only around a dozen warships and a few thousand ground personnel. The planets destruction by NOVA warhead is likely to have dealt further devastating losses on the Covenant, perhaps the single most devastating battle of the entire war after the mutually devastating Reach campaign. Personnel from the Minorca theatre would bolster the defences of Earth after the fall of Reach, and play a vital role in the later stages of the Human-Covenant War.
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