At last, we come to a pivotal moment in “Crossover Battles”: our first battle between capital ships from different universes. Today, we will be featuring the Executor from Star Wars facing off against the UNSC Infinity from Halo. Who will come out victorious in this clash of star-faring titans?
But first, in order to see who will win, we need to talk about their stats.
Contestant 1: Executor
In this corner of space, we have the Executor!
The Executor was the lead ship of the Executor-class star dreadnoughts. She served as Darth Vader’s personal flagship over her service life. Many sources have described her as a “super star destroyer”. The Imperial Navy commissioned her from Kuat Drive Yards. The Executor was destroyed during the Battle of Endor, when an A-wing interceptor piloted by Arvel Crynyd performed a suicide attack into her bridge. This caused her to fall into the 2nd Death Star’s gravity well and collide with the battlestation. She subsequently blew up, killing all aboard.
The Executor measured 19 km long in total. This made her nearly the size of Manhattan Island, but with a fraction of the population. Manhattan boasts a population of 1.6 million, while the Executor‘s crew numbered at a “mere” 280 thousand. Granted, she did carry provisions for 6 years, so that could be part of it.
The Executor’s main armament consisted of over 5000 turbolaser and ion cannon batteries. Her secondary armament consisted of a combination of 250 heavy concussion missile batteries, and 40 tractor beam projectors. She carried 2 shield generators, plus numerous shield projectors. The generators themselves were powered by the output of a medium-sized star.
Finally, the Executor could hold up to 144 TIE Series of starfighters of various models. In addition, 200 miscellaneous small support ships like shuttles could be held in the hangars along with the TIE fighters.
Contestant 2: Infinity
In the other corner of space: the UNSC Infinity!
The UNSC Infinity is the lead ship of the Infinity-class supercarriers. 2 ships of this class were planned, but as of 2558, only the Infinity herself is complete. The Infinity serves as the flagship of the UEG Navy, and has seen extensive service in the post-H-C War era.
Canon sources state that the Infinity is 5694 m long, 833m wide, and 1041 m tall.
However, Halo has always had a problem with the scale of its ships. Most of the ships should be 2.65 times larger than they are listed. A correctly scaled Infinity should be 15.1 km long, 2.2 km wide, and 2.7 km tall. I give credit to Installation00 for bringing this to my attention. You can find a link to his video on the subject here and below:
The Infinity is very heavily armed despite not being built as a warship. Her primary weapons are 4 forward-firing CR-03, Series 8 MAC cannons on the bow, and 350 M42 Archer missile pods. Secondary weapons are 250 M75 Rapier missile pods, and tertiary weapons are 500 M96 Howler missile pods. Point defense is provided by 830 M965 point defense guns, in addition to numerous M85 AA guns and M97 guided missile launchers. 10 Mark 2551 Portable MACs are located all along the ship as well. The Infinity‘s shields are Forerunner shield generators, and are powerful enough that even ramming a RCS-class armored cruiser didn’t bring it down.
Finally, the Infinity‘s hangars could hold up to 10 frigates plus 150 Broadsword fighters or Pelican dropships. This gives her an entire fleet to play with.
The Battle
In the immortal words of Michael Buffer:
We must assume that the crews of both ships and all fighter pilots are equally skilled for fairness’s sake. For this battle, we will also not include the ships and fighters both ship carry in their hangars in order to make this fight be about the ships themselves only. Plus, if we include the 10 frigates in the Infinity‘s hangars, the fight would be too much in favor of her. A fleet will always have a massive advantage over any single ship.
In terms of location, space is the only realistic scenario here since. Trying to fight in atmosphere would be far too clumsy for both ships. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t have some variety here. Therefore, the battle is divided into 2 scenarios: deep space, and orbitals.
In addition, the rules will be that space will actually work as space. Hard sci-fi rules apply here. None of that soft sci-fi nonsense we see in both Star Wars and Halo.
Scenario 1: Deep Space
In space, no one can hear you scream. Also, no one can possibly miss seeing you. Line of sight goes everywhere to infinity and beyond, and neither ship have any stealth systems to speak of. What we have here, boys and girls, is a bare-knuckles brawl IN SPACE!
At these ranges, the Executor‘s massed turbolaser and ion cannon batteries are mostly useless. Even travelling at light speed, those weapons can’t have an effective range of more than 10 light-seconds. No matter how accurate her fire control is, turbolaser and ion cannon bolts can’t follow their targets mid-flight. Any opponent being engaged at greater than 10 light-seconds would be able to dodge all incoming fire. The same would apply to the Infinity‘s MAC cannons, only they’d have an even shorter effective range due to travelling far slower than the speed of light.
Therefore, any long-ranged attacks would have to be performed by missiles, and this is where the Infinity shines. She has a total of 1100 missile launchers compared to the Executor‘s 250 missile launchers, giving the Infinity greater firepower here. Assuming that Star Wars shields are unable to intercept missiles like in the game Empire at War, this would mean that the Infinity could batter down the Executor with massed missile fire, rendering the Executor combat-ineffective by turning her into a battered hulk with no operational weapons left to fight with.
And since the Infinity is smaller than the Executor, even when scaled up, the Infinity would be able to consistently outmaneuver the Executor. If the Infinity doesn’t want to get close to turbolaser/MAC range, she won’t.
Thus, I give victory to the Infinity in this round. Although it’s worth nothing that she won’t escape unscathed. Massed concussion missile fire would still heavily damage the Infinity, and she will need a trip to a repair dock before fighting any further battles.
Scenario 2: Planetary Orbit
Fighting in a planet’s orbit is the space equivalent of fighting in cover. It’s not just that the planet would block weapons fire, but also sensors. If your ship disappears over the horizon, the enemy ship can’t track you. At the same time though, you can’t track the enemy ship, so it can be a double-edged sword in a battle. Oddly enough, this makes it submarine combat IN SPACE! With a few differences.
Since the planet limits sensor range, missiles are much less useful. Missiles that can’t see their target are near-useless. They just become overly expensive cannon shells.
With Infinity‘s long range fire advantage gone, the fight becomes much more even. Both ships must now resort to shooting at each other with their non-missile weapons.
The Executor has the advantage now, due to her having far more turbolaser and ion cannon batteries than the Infinity has MACs and point defense cannons. Yes, if Star Wars shields are unable to intercept mass driver fire like in Empire at War, then the Infinity would be able to bypass the Executor‘s shields. The problem though is that 5000+ turbolasers and ion cannons outgun less than 1000 mass driver guns. The Executor would be able to overwhelm the Infinity‘s shields and destroy her before the Infinity could do the same to the Executor.
As in the previous battle though, the fight wouldn’t leave Executor untouched. All of those mass driver rounds pummeling the super star destroyer would wreck her surface. The MAC rounds punching deep into her would destroy critical systems too. The Executor would definitely need to return to a shipyard after this. No more chasing after Rebel fleets for this warship until she gets fixed up.
Conclusion
In open space, the Infinity would win. In a planet’s orbit though, the Executor would win. I have to add though that no matter which ship wins, the loser will still be very heavily damaged. The winner wouldn’t have won so much as she didn’t lose. Basically: 2 ships go in, and half a ship comes back out.
Finally, EckhartsLadder has done a video or two that are very similar to my matchup, and I highly recommend you check them out:
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