Ok so I'm posting another huge blog but this time instead of the ending, this will be about space combat and the galaxies fight against the Reapers. Again all my own opinions, but a lot will be info that has credence due to the fact that I've gathered as much information from codex sources and other pieces of infromation.
Strength ration of ships in descending order
This is predominatley my interpretations of spaceship combat strength based on current info.
Dreadnoughts: Huge powerful warships that are around the length of 1 kilometer in length with their main gun taking around 80% of that length. It takes 2 Dreadnoughts to place a Reaper capital ship under threat; 3 to severly weaken it and possibly damage it; 4 results in its death.
Carriers: These are the size of dreadnoughts however they replace their main gun for hanger space meaning their firepower is no where near as powerful. Their offensive firepower is more equal to a light cruiser. However their defensive fire power would be high with their need to keep enemy frigates and fighters away. It is not possible to appropriatley ratio a carrier to a cruiser or dreadnought.
Cruisers: Large heavy ships that are "the bloody infantry of fleets". With this in mind including their length (half a kilometer), I'd say that on average four - eight cruisers are equal to a single dreadnought so therefore it should take 16 - 24 heavy cruisers to effectively destroy a Reaper capital ship.
Frigates: Small to medium sized warships that are fast, maneuvarable and swift. They have weaker firepower but are effective screeners for fleets against fighters and fly through the battlefield in knife fight formation, harrasing and destroying weakened ships. On average it is assumed 6 - 10 frigates are equal to the fire power of a single cruiser, there fore it is assumed that 48 - 240 frigates to take down a single Reaper capital ship. This is a huge range of effectiveness but this takes into acount a huge variety of possibilites.
Fighters: These are used against enemy warships, smothering their defences in disruptor torpedos. A group of fighters or one cruiser is said to be capable of destroying a single destoryer.
Interceptors: These craft are ideal at destroying enemy fighters nad enemy interceptors. They keep the skies clear. It is not known how effective they are against a Reaper ship but they are capable of one on one with enemy occuli which posses both phasers (interceptors) and beams (fighters).
Fleet numbers
At the time of the First Contact War the Systems Alliance Navy composed of around 200 ships. Each fleet is now suspected of composing of the same number giving the Alliance Navy a grand total of around 1600 ships.
The Turian gleets are thought to posses a fleet that rivals the the humans. This gives credence to the reasoning behind the fact the Turian fleet posses of a total of 2000 ships.
The Asari fleet is smaller in size than both these fleets giving reason to suspect a navy of around 1000 ships.
The Salarian fleet is even smaller than the Asari composed of roughly 600 - 800 ships.
The minor species fleets if gathered all together could possibly number around 1000.
The Citadel fleet is seperate to any of the other species fleet. According to the codex the citadel fleet is able to secure all of citadel space giving its fleet number high numerical expecatancy. My estimates are around 2000-3000.
The Quarian fleet though large (around 50,000 ships) are not all of military standard. Estimated effective military strength vehicles are around several thousand (2000-3000).
The Geth have had time to focus solely on building infrastructure and fleets. The Perseus veil is said to house around 5000-10000 Geth warships.
There are an unknown number of Batarian warships however it is suspected to be fairly effective (around 1000 ships).
Terminus systems are a bunch of lawless planets with little allegiance to anyone. If pressed hard enough they could ally with each other creating a possible threat to anyone who invades (possible fleet numbers, around 700).
The Reapers have had the advantage of a massive amount of cycles to create a supremely huge fleet. It is said that one species is chosen to construct Sovereign class Reapers. Millions of organisms are needed to construct just one. On average it is suspected that at least several dozen could be constructed each cycle to supplement loses and maybe even improve fleet strength if the cycle wasn't very effective at being able to destroy many Reapers. Destroyers make up the bulk of the Reaper fleets, giving rise to the belief that there are huge amounts of them. Suspected Reaper numbers are several hundered Sovereign class Reapers, possibly around 400-500. Suspected Reaper destroyer numbers are around 5000-7000.
All these numbers are speculation but have considerable credence due to a multitude of factors, mathematics and codex law.
Battles
There are a number of small conflicts throughout the Reaper war and colossal battles of titanic proportions. The codex exclaims that Reapers were able to be defeated though at a higher cost, it was still possible to defeat pockets of Reapers or even a battle group, if tactics and numbers were masterful.
The Great Battles are, battle for Palaven, Battle for the initial defence of Earth, Battle of Rannoch, Battle of Thessia, Battle of the Citadel during the Reaper invasion, the final Battle for Earth and the Galaxy.
These are just the biggest battles but their were numerous skirmishes and moderatly sized battles all over the cosmos.
I want to add again that these are all my own thoughts and ideas. Non of this is true or false until proven otherwise. It was my interpretation of all the codex entries, gameplay and cutscenes. I interpreted those features as what I would expect and that the Reapers aren't as unstoppable and invunerable as some people say. Yes Sovereign took significant firepower to destroy and it wasn't even the fleet that overcame his shields but he was elected to be the vanguard so he must have been considerably powerful to be given such a task; perhaps more so then an ordinary Reaper. Harbinger is unquestionably the oldest and most powerful however.
Anyway, I hope whoever reads this enjoys this. It might be incorporated into the mod for damage numbers and statistics. Leave a comment and tell me what you think. I'd love to hear other peoples opinions.
I will be updating this blog later on to include tactics used in battle as well as specfic features of battle and I will also be including Reaper weapon strengths as well. However I'm very tired and can't think properly at the moment.
