Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Although weapons such as the lasgun are some of the worst weapons in the game, they are extremely powerful compared to normal infantry firearms today. I understand that the same also applies for the flak jacket. Does anyone have any other comparisons to make?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the bolt gun is like a rapid firing RPG.

The lasgun is roughly equivalent to a modern assault rifle, only cheaper and more effective in protracted combat. Whilst some may say "It tears arms off when it hits!" it is probably just a higher caliber assault rifle.
Boltgun is analogous to a 20mm grenade launcher only with a slight armor penetration capability and you know, gyrojets.

AegisFate wrote:The lasgun is roughly equivalent to a modern assault rifle, only cheaper and more effective in protracted combat. Whilst some may say "It tears arms off when it hits!" it is probably just a higher caliber assault rifle.
Boltgun is analogous to a 20mm grenade launcher only with a slight armor penetration capability and you know, gyrojets.

Can't be. That would mean that our own weapon technology surpasses the 40K weapon technology during the next 100 years.

Well how advance can you honestly make a firearm that shoots solid rounds? A bolter has some advance ammo and upgrades like the combi weapons and I am sure they are 1000 times more durable then what we have today. but in all honesty you can't expect them to be blowing buildings down and shooting through tanks. they have a limit/need to the soldier. not to mention the soldier who is using it is more important then the raw firepower of the weapon.

I would assume Imperial guard weapons can be compared to what we have today. the whole point is arming millions of them costs a ton so the weapons they are are cheap and effective. and I can imagine their armor being close to ours.

though I know the las guns can be modified to fire much more penetrating shots like the hotshot lasgun. and that in itself I am sure makes it better then what we have today for the standard soldier.

I'll just leave that here. Cyclonic Torpedoes are way beyond anything we can conceive of today.

I thought the boltgun was supposed to fire explosive rounds at 76 caliber? Considering a Barrett 50 Cal is the most powerful "anti-material" (sniper) rifle designed to shoot through thick armour plating kinda makes a boltgun look like a really sophisticated bit of kit for a grunt to use!

And by the way, you have to be lying down to fire a Barrett 50 cal so games like CoD:MW are lying to you, no way you could fire one standing up because you'd be on the floor 10 feet behind you so to fire a 76 cal gun stood up, either the gun or the soulds would have to have great technology to counter the recoil.

shiftystylin wrote:I thought the boltgun was supposed to fire explosive rounds at 76 caliber? Considering a Barrett 50 Cal is the most powerful "anti-material" (sniper) rifle designed to shoot through thick armour plating kinda makes a boltgun look like a really sophisticated bit of kit for a grunt to use!

And by the way, you have to be lying down to fire a Barrett 50 cal so games like CoD:MW are lying to you, no way you could fire one standing up because you'd be on the floor 10 feet behind you so to fire a 76 cal gun stood up, either the gun or the soulds would have to have great technology to counter the recoil.

Well, theres a variant of the barret 50cal that's shoulder mounted which could be fired standing up...

Lasguns are capable of blowing arms off and can cause the moisture in your body to instantly vaporize, causing a localized explosion.

Unfortunantly the damage is almost entirely heat based and as such is fairly easy to protect against.

The lasgun also cauterizes the wound, which means that a wound will only kill if it fries vital organs. You won't bleed to death if you get hit by a lasgun.

The end result is something of similer effectivness to our modern firearms, although more accurate and with unlimited ammo.

lasguns can be super charged to give them more penetrating power, however the additional damage that is done to raw flesh is small enough to be negligable.


Bolters fire .75 caliber rocket propelled explosive rounds that gain killing power the longer the range. They have armor piercing tips which allows them to even be able to damage weak spots on vehicles(Military grade vehicles mind you) and pierce all but the toughest body armor.

it has no real equivilent in our modern arsenal. It combines multiple ideas into a single weapon system creating a completely new type of weapon.

Weve had this discussion before in various ways. It all ends with 40k weapons are more powerful due to their being described by people who know nothing about real weapons. And drawing strict parallels between certain weapons very rarely works.
A boltgun is, in use, an assault/battle rifle, but in practicallity is somewhere between a grenade launcher and a 25mm autocannon.

A lasgun is described as being more powerful than a modern assault rifle, it can apparently "remove an unarmoured limb". Apparently the heat generated by the lasgun on the moisture in the body is meant to result in "explosive" effects (although I highly doubt this).

Flak armour is made of futuristic polymers an compounds (which obviously are far easier to mass produce in the future) and is thus stronger than most modern body armour (although i assume not hugely so).

Heres a full description of how a bolter works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnHyEhS1lSM

[rant]
Considering that you've only gone into imperial weapons, I think that we need to look at some of the less conventional tech. Basically any hand-held Tau or Necron gun would be superior to our tech today. And has anyone considered the boxing gloves that can tear apart tanks? And anything with the word plasma or melta in it's name is probably going to be pretty overpowered by today's standards.
[/rant]

IG lasguns are more powerful than todays standard assult rifle, A lasgun can penetrate Terminator armour which is the best power armour in the Imperium of Man.
Cyclonic Torpedoes are insanly powerful incinerating all atoms in its way.

Mikster

A bolter is roughly the same str as a .50 cal heavy machine gun, only with better penatration. Flak armor is strong enough to allow a guardsman to survive a hit from a .50 cal hmg.

Lasguns are both thermal and kinetic. The inital wound will most likely cauterize, but the hydrostatic shock will usually cause internal bleeding. (i believe Gaunts Ghosts) Also lasguns will remove limbs at higher power settings, at the cost of battery life. Or at lower setting act like an assualt rifle, with extended battery life. (gaunts ghosts and the ultramarines omnibus)

Lasguns won't be causing any kinetic damage. The only kinetic damage could be from the moisture being vaporized and causing a shock wave, but I doubt it would be enough for Hydrostatic shock.

To compare, you would need a comparison weapon. You can't compare a boxing glove that tears tanks apart with modern boxing gloves because there is no comparison. IG weapons are similar to what we're using today.

The strength of a lasgun differs depending on the source. For instance the Warhammer 40k wiki states that
"...and potentially even piercing the Power Armour of a Space Marine (but usually only through a vulnerable spot in the armour)"
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Lasgun

Modern day lasers are to that standard. There is even a plane mounted laser in development to melt through tank armour but the problem is the energy source. Batteries today are awful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And a photon cannot carry kinetic energy otherwise the universe wouldn't work as we observe it to work. Only a ballistic would achieve internal haemorrhaging.

I don't believe a modern day flak jacket could withstand a modern day .50 cal machine gun as the .50 cal was designed to immobilise vehicles by puncturing the engine which it does with ease. If a .50 cal can puncture through 1 and 1/2 inch solid cast iron, minimum, infantry don't stand a chance.

Yeah, .50 cals are practically the kiss of death for the modern day soldier. Large projectile with an armor piercing tip.

If it hits center mass you are dead, and even if you have some body armor it can't penetrate you will still have some major damage(broken ribs, internal bleeding...)

The part on flak come from using the tabletop stats, a heavy stubber is str 4 ap 6 and its susposed to be equal to a .50 cal hmg. I know its not 100% accurate but it can give realitive data.

And direct energy weapons use kinetic energy. http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-DEW-HEL-Analysis.html

AegisFate wrote:The lasgun is roughly equivalent to a modern assault rifle, only cheaper and more effective in protracted combat. Whilst some may say "It tears arms off when it hits!" it is probably just a higher caliber assault rifle.
Boltgun is analogous to a 20mm grenade launcher only with a slight armor penetration capability and you know, gyrojets.

If you want to blow an arm off, you need .50cal

And bolter is not like a grenade launcher. It is like rockets, and in the fluff they have excellent penetration what with the diamondite tip.

They would be the best vehicle hunting weapon ever! Rapid fire-penetrate-detonates inside vehicle, killing crew.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:The part on flak come from using the tabletop stats, a heavy stubber is str 4 ap 6 and its susposed to be equal to a .50 cal hmg. I know its not 100% accurate but it can give realitive data.

And direct energy weapons use kinetic energy. http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-DEW-HEL-Analysis.html

It is the ATL you'll want to read about, not this. This is for ICBM killing, whereas the ATL can destroy tanks and infantry easily. And it can engage 100 targets at once, and is silent and invisible.

Of course lasguns seem to be more like star wars blasters. So they can be both thermal and kinetic.

shiftystylin wrote:To compare, you would need a comparison weapon. You can't compare a boxing glove that tears tanks apart with modern boxing gloves because there is no comparison. IG weapons are similar to what we're using today.

The strength of a lasgun differs depending on the source. For instance the Warhammer 40k wiki states that
"...and potentially even piercing the Power Armour of a Space Marine (but usually only through a vulnerable spot in the armour)"
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Lasgun

Modern day lasers are to that standard. There is even a plane mounted laser in development to melt through tank armour but the problem is the energy source. Batteries today are awful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And a photon cannot carry kinetic energy otherwise the universe wouldn't work as we observe it to work. Only a ballistic would achieve internal haemorrhaging.

I don't believe a modern day flak jacket could withstand a modern day .50 cal machine gun as the .50 cal was designed to immobilise vehicles by puncturing the engine which it does with ease. If a .50 cal can puncture through 1 and 1/2 inch solid cast iron, minimum, infantry don't stand a chance.

Well for one thing warhammer40k.wikia.com is god awful and either use lexicanum or quote directly in the future.

For another, modern laser cannot do that because the only one that can is the ATL, and it is still a prototype, and it weighs 40,000 pounds.

And lasguns are ridiculously powerful. In most sci-fi universes they'd be war-changing god weapons of death. The standard, arm-exploding setting has more than 100 shots per power cells (clip) or closer to 150.

butteredtoast wrote: Although weapons such as the lasgun are some of the worst weapons in the game, they are extremely powerful compared to normal infantry firearms today. I understand that the same also applies for the flak jacket. Does anyone have any other comparisons to make?

Lasguns have been directly equated to basically being roughly equivalent to modern assault rifles, likewise Flak armor often being roughly equivalent to everything from 1960's flak jackets to modern heavy bullet proof armor. In all honesty, in many ways, 40k weaponry is often actually rather pitiful next to modern weaponry.

As I pointed out in another thread, modern MBT's can hit a moving 2m by 2m target while themselves moving at highway speed over 2km away with roughly 90% success rates and firing every 5-8 seconds, and penetrate over 1000mm of hardened steel plate. In 40k, only the Eldar could accomplish such a feat by the way most of the fluff is written.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the bolt gun is like a rapid firing RPG.

This is often grossly mis-interpreted. They fire very small rockets, each shot isn't equivalent to something like an RPG-7 rocket, but closer to that of a heavy machine gun.


Keep this in mind, 40k is really more Fantasy in Space based on stuff from the mid 1980's, it's not anything approaching realistic Sci-Fi.

Most weapons are similar in the vein of projectile weapons. Ts necron weapons I find scary.

The synaptic disintegrator for example.... Destroys tissue at the cellular level. There's nothing like that around....

40k tanks can fire anti-tank sponsons, as well as pintle mounts, as well as heavier weapons on their turrets (40k MBT has around a 220mm battle cannon, sometimes twin linked, more than twice the size of an M1A1 Abrams Tank. They also possess much, much, MUCH more armor, due to the sheer size difference)

You gotta keep in mind, 40k is a heroic fantasy, with world-war I tactics.

Bolters would be devestating against modern day forces, as would lasguns, however, our weaponry would still be harmful to their 40k counterparts

shiftystylin wrote:I thought the boltgun was supposed to fire explosive rounds at 76 caliber? Considering a Barrett 50 Cal is the most powerful "anti-material" (sniper) rifle designed to shoot through thick armour plating kinda makes a boltgun look like a really sophisticated bit of kit for a grunt to use!

Considering AMR:s the 50 cal is actually small.
For an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXcF_dWvuq8&feature=related

shiftystylin wrote:
And by the way, you have to be lying down to fire a Barrett 50 cal so games like CoD:MW are lying to you, no way you could fire one standing up because you'd be on the floor 10 feet behind you so to fire a 76 cal gun stood up, either the gun or the soulds would have to have great technology to counter the recoil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyjo5BObCPE
Ever heard of muzzle breaks? Not to mention all the other ways to reduce recoil and shaking.

You guys do realise that we are currently capable of producing an 7,62x51 calibered assault rifle that has zero recoil and hits an man sized target at 1200 meters?
Newest claymores have an better AP than 30-06 AP rounds and newest HEAT mines penetrate over 1000mm of HB500 steel what is more than enough for every MBT currently in use despite of anti HEAT armour.

And 40K Happens 38,000 years in the future. A shot from an bolter should be more effective than an 120mm HEAT grenade.

Wh40k as a whole is basically a medieval society, clinging on to weapons such as the titans and also very grim and very dark.

im2randomghgh wrote:
If you want to blow an arm off, you need .50cal

Actually Win.308 with proper bullets ( That are forbidden by the Geneva convention. ) is enough. An human arm is not really much more sturdy than an leg of an elk.

And it all depends on the fluff you read.

As someone said above, it's fantasy in space. The truth is that where humans will be technologically in the 41st millenium is unknown. Current predictions in technology state that between 2030 and 2050 we'll obtain biological immortality and by 2050 the singularity event will occur where in machines become self aware and we witness a technological explosion unlike any other man has witnessed yet. So in reality, the imperium tech in 40k is probably more like 2040 AD. Sorry to bust your bubble folks.

All I know is that if Tyranid like weapons were around I would just quit, no way in hell I would want to fight anything that shot another thing that tried to kill me, electrical Beatles to brain eating worms wtf? lol

I think that beats an assault riffle of today just by sheer freak factor.

shiftystylin wrote:And by the way, you have to be lying down to fire a Barrett 50 cal

If you want to fire it accurately, yes. But as Safor has linked, if you just want to fire it, no.

so to fire a 76 cal gun stood up, either the gun or the soulds would have to have great technology to counter the recoil.

This is complete calibre myth.

A 12 gauge shotgun is .73 calibre, but won't put you on your butt. Taken to more absurd extremes, a paintball gun is .68. It's not just about calibre, it's about projectile mass and velocity, propellant mass and velocity, as well as firearm mass. (Muzzle brakes - not "breaks" as some people have been posting - affect overall propellant velocity by slowing and redirecting propellant sideways and backwards). A bolter won't have the 900 m/s muzzle velocity of a Barrett (also, as a lot of it is explosive, a lot less dense than lead, the projectile won't be as proportionally heavy either.)

Also, "great technology to counter the recoil" is exactly what the bolter's dual stage projectile is. The rocket motor is completely recoilless, so only the initial "kick" counts for the recoil. Yes, I imagine that initial kick is quite a lot in order to ensure that the bolt has decent point blank velocity, but not enough to floor someone. Also, many bolter wielders wear power armour - also recoil countering technology.