During the Fall of Reach, Longswords were frequently deployed to harass Covenant capital ships. While their guns were often insufficient to punch through the energy shields of larger vessels, squadrons could deliver devastating payloads of missiles or nuclear weapons to overwhelm point defenses.
The Longsword is the — an aging but brutally effective design that refuses to retire. It lacks the sleekness of Covenant craft or the shields of later UNSC fighters, but its raw power, nuclear payload, and titanium armor made it the backbone of humanity’s space forces for over a century. halo longsword