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Connor MacLeod wrote:Unless we're talking insanely different extremes (like fighting underwater or high altitudes) I doubt it's going to make that much of a difference.

Given that Space Marines come from and fight throughout the galaxy over, where atmospheres would have unique compositions and climates could be unlike anything on earth, it could make a big difference.

But in any case, you can't calculate a muzzle velocity in Mach - you have to measure it absolutely, then convert. Given the very few contexts in which knowing a projectile's velocity in terms of Mach is more useful than knowing it in terms of your preferred "distance per time" unit, doing it almost certainly means that the person responsible doesn't have much idea what the frak they're talking about.

Anyway, my ultimate point is, never can a velocity that has been stated in Mach be considered "accurate", because it's an inherently inaccurate unit. "Mach 9" is about as a good measure of velocity as "a half hour walk" is of distance. Both are a ratio with an unknown quantity (the speed of sound or average walking pace respectively) that destroys their precision.

Even if the las hit were to cauterize on impact - the area that it cauterized got caught in the steam explosion, and probably isn't part of the body any more. So on the bright side, your initial wound isn't bleeding, but on the downside, its no longer your biggest concern.

im2randomghgh wrote:That much heat and energy would have no problem causing horrific unbalance to your metabolism, and blowing off arms is just icing.

Just how energetic do you think these weapons are, exactly? And how re they transmitting the energy to the target?

And the burns aren't superficial. Lexicanum describes lasguns as making a small explosion on impact.

Which can mean any number of things. 'explosion' does not by definition mean 'detonating explosive' or anything like. Nor does an explosion neccesarily. And the level of burn severity will depend on a.) energy involved and b.) penetraiton of the radiation involved. Most lasers in fact make lousy thermal weapons because they lack penetration (Barring something on the X-ray/gamma ray spectrum.) Particle beams on the other hand are highly penetrating.

Hell you can actually make a series of 'small' explosions with a laser that create wounds that actually duplicate gunfire with about the same magnitude of energy. Those are EFFICIENT lasers. By contrast killing by burns with lasers means affecting a rather large surface area (EG the entire torso, etc.) and eve nthen its not a very rapid kill mechanism (at least, not as fast as we see in novels and fluff.) described here

And punching holes in people doesn't do much damage, unless it is either a huge hole, or somewhere vital. That is why armour piercing rounds do such poor damage to the actual target, and why hollow point round and any round designed to fracture on impact to increase damage will cause ghastly damages to the actual target but fail hilariously against armour.

Hollowpoints are not fragmenting rounds. Hollowpoints are designed to deform on impact to increase the diameter of the bullet and hence the hole made.



here and here you have fragmenting rounds. And then there is always the chance that rounds might tumble in the wound, especially if they glance off bone. Heck, striking bone has a good chance of creating additional shrapnel in the target depending on where you hit and with that.

this link has some more examples of wound profiles from differeing kinds of weapons. It's kinda fascinating in a gruesome way.

Notice how I said Hollow points and fracturing rounds? Not that Hollow points fracture?

And bullets that punch clean holes through targets are not that deadly. This is what you don't seem to be realizing. I would much, much rather be hit by an armour piercing round than a 5.56x45mm NATO round.

And did I SAY detonating explosive? No? Then why are you talking about it?

And then reason laser make good thermal weapons is the continuous beam they can/do produce.

Some fuel for the flame.
1. Leman Russ' gun.
Well, Sturmtiger gun had 3x calibre of M1A2's gun. And most probably could one-shot M1A2 at up to 6 km...if achieved hit or near miss. In terms of siege artillery that cannon-launcher was masterpiece...but as AT weapon it's ridiculous. Also - obsolete WW2 tanks (not french/japanese ) also can kill M1A2...if M1s crew will give them a chance.
More on-topic - imho M1A2's M256 is more akin to Vanquisher cannon than to standart Battle Canon.

2. Bringin' down the house
Well, some countries have very specific infantry weapon, thermobaric RPGs. Russia did have Rys' and Shmel', USA had SMAW(marine-only?). And that's weapon most of IG commanders would kill for (of course in case of Tyranids they'd prefer TOS-1 with TZM-Ts and several strategically placed ammunition stockpiles)

3.Also 'bout las weapons
iirc on SpaceBattles forums people arrived to conclusion that it's not as powerful as many think (via comparing lasgun stats to numerous WH40 gunpowder weapons) and main bonus over modern counterparts is logistics/ammo quantity per engagement.

3.Also 'bout las weapons
iirc on SpaceBattles forums people arrived to conclusion that it's not as powerful as many think (via comparing lasgun stats to numerous WH40 gunpowder weapons) and main bonus over modern counterparts is logistics/ammo quantity per engagement.

There aren't really any non-orky psychic flintlock weapons, and the autogun only falls into lasgun category because a 1 point difference in strength is massive in 40k. 1 str is the difference between a 4m tall Daemon Prince and a kroot. They actually have orks and humans as the same strength, which is ridiculous.

Well the imperium supposedly forgot all of the arcane technology and I guess that the weapons they use in M41 are probably a lot better than modern fire arms but its hard to tell seeing all we really know about a bolt guns power is that it is Range: 24" (about 150-200ft) Strength: 4 and AP: 5. Oh, and it can rapid fire, but at what speed? How powerful is S4? And what would AP be in Nowadays? I guess we can't really tell for sure.

On the whole they're less powerful, although alot flashier and messier. In the game bolters have an effective range of 24 inches, which is something like 100 feet. An M16 has an effective range of over 500 meters. The most powerful man-portable anti-tank weapon in the Imperium, the meltagun, has an effective range of something like 30 feet and about a 50% chance of killing its target. We have man-portable weapons today that have closer to a 90% effective kill-rate from distances of half a mile and more. Someone will say that the imperium has cyclonic torpedoes and such that can destroy a whole planet, but we've been able to do that with fusion bombs since the 1950s. We don't have anything like the life eater virus, but then we don't conduct alot of bio weapons research either. Given the state of genetic research at the moment, we could probably manufacture viruses like we do missiles within a generation, if we pursued it. Just as a final illustration, the Tau are the most technologically advanced race in the game, and their distinguishing weapon is a marker light. We had laser-guided missiles in Vietnam. 40k weapons technology is basically medi eval. Which is my favorite thing about the background

This thread again?

Space Marines have basically what you'd expect an army to have. Just turned up to 11. Thousand. As many have stated, the bolter is a pretty big RPG that is used as an assault rifle.

GreatGunz wrote:In the game bolters have an effective range of 24 inches, which is something like 100 feet.

Ugh. No, because GW have always been clear on the fact they've scaled down the weapon ranges for the sake of them actually making a meaningful difference on a practically sized table. The 40k RPGs (which, although now in the hands of FFG, were originally Black Industries) give effective ranges roughly the same as modern firearms.

We have man-portable weapons today that have closer to a 90% effective kill-rate from distances of half a mile and more.

Against old passive systems, maybe - but versus modern reactive armour and active counter-measures, I think that's pretty optimistic.
Also, kill ratios are entirely dependent on the ratio between arms and armour. While your assumptions might be correct if 41st millennium armour were equivalent to modern armour, it is portrayed as much tougher.

In any case, game rules are NOT a good indicator of the fluff, as they're abstracted systems designed for playability and game balance (as much as GW has any), and accurate representations of the fluff come, at best, second.

Someone will say that the imperium has cyclonic torpedoes and such that can destroy a whole planet, but we've been able to do that with fusion bombs since the 1950s.

We could rid the planet of most life with fusion bombs plural. A cyclonic torpedo singular will boil the oceans, incinerate the atmosphere and basically turn the planet into a ball of rock - or, if they're not feeling nice that day, there are variants that will do the full Death Star act and shatter the planet.

Since when did we have usuable fusion tech?

Fusion bombs are also called "hydrogen" or "thermonuclear" bombs. They were the second generation of nuclear weapons developed in the early 50s by members of the same team that developed the original nuclear weapons used at the end of the second world war. While we can use fusion chain reactions to blow something up, what we can't do (yet) is harness those reactions sustainably to generate energy without blowing up the fuel.

http://www.worsleyschool.net/science/files/nuclear/bomb.html

We can't do the deathstar thing with current technology, but imho that's more a matter of will than of capacity. There's no use for such a weapon, so it hasn't been invented. The level of destruction which we can cause with the current arsenal of weapons is already outrageously out of proportion to any practical military objective. I think that if we really set our minds to it, we could figure out a way to, say, blow up the moon. But why would we want to? Totally scorching the surface of a planet ammounts to the same thing, and we can already do that. Whether we do it with 1 big bomb or 1,000 smaller ones is really just a technical detail, imho.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Since when did we have usuable fusion tech?

Fusion is easy for Bombs, much harder for a controlled reaction in a Nuclear Reactor.



You basically use a Fission reaction to ram a hunk of Plutonium into another hunk at speeds/temps so high that it causes Fusion.

The 2nd bomb dropped in WW2 was a Fusion bomb IIRC, the first was a Fission bomb. We literally had Fission bombs be the cutting edge for only a few days.

iGuy91 wrote:
You gotta keep in mind, 40k is a heroic fantasy, with world-war I tactics.

At least as far as infantry are concerned, it's more like 1700's tactics- having a roughly equal balance between ranged and CC weapons. And while the weapons don't really fire in a slow turn-based style, the 40K rules does make it appear as- "Volley fire, present! Aim! Fire!"......."oh bloody hell we're down to using bayonets now..."

im2randomghgh wrote:Notice how I said Hollow points and fracturing rounds? Not that Hollow points fracture?

I did now. you're correct that I missed that earlier, and I apologize.

And bullets that punch clean holes through targets are not that deadly. This is what you don't seem to be realizing. I would much, much rather be hit by an armour piercing round than a 5.56x45mm NATO round.

It depends on where they hit though, doesn't it? More to the point, what are we defining as 'small' and 'large', exactly?

And did I SAY detonating explosive? No? Then why are you talking about it?

Fine, what sort of explosion were you picturing exactly?

And then reason laser make good thermal weapons is the continuous beam they can/do produce.

So how are you picturing these hypothetical heat ray lasers killing people then?

The lasgun does its damage by heating the target for a period of time with the laser. It is a very short length of time and the beam is fairly powerful.

However the actual damage is comperable to a modern firearm, although it does damage in a different way then a conventional bullet. Heat requires a very different type of body armor then a solid slug, although any type of covering will absorb and mitigate the damage of a lasgun.

The lasgun wasn't designed for its killing power, which is only similer to a solid slug weapon, but rather was built to be a logistical dream weapon. It practically eliminates the supply demands of a firearm with only replacement parts being needed. Heck, it would probably be seen as worth it even if killing power was sacrificed.

GreatGunz wrote:Whether we do it with 1 big bomb or 1,000 smaller ones is really just a technical detail, imho.

It's a great deal more than technical when talking about the power of those warheads.

Grey Templar wrote:The 2nd bomb dropped in WW2 was a Fusion bomb IIRC, the first was a Fission bomb.

No, both were fission. The hydrogen bomb wasn't developed until 1951. It takes a lot longer than the single day between the two bombings to be able to develop, build and use a new form of weapon.

Also, you're mistaken as to how fusion weapons work. There's a reason why fusion weapons are known as hydrogen bombs, and it isn't because they work on plutonium.

Meh, whatever.

and there are similarities between Gun type fission bombs and Hydrogen bombs. Thats why I was confused.


and yeah, it really is a technical detail. a few big bombs vs a bunch of smaller ones ends up with the same result and they operate similarly enough in that both result in the release of nuclear energy. Ones just more vigorous then the other.

Yep. It's the end result that matters. 40k tech is messier and more intimidating but, as far as the weapons goes, imho a good deal behind modern technology. I mean they're still killing each other with swords and axes for gods sake. How advanced can they be?

Swords and Axes can be a viable option if armor technology is superior to ranged tech.


At the end of the middle ages there was practically nothing that could take a knight down at range. Even the first gunpowder weapons often did little more then dent the armor.

In 40k, Space Marine armor is superior to the weapons technology(anything that does ignore their armor isn't common enough to make it obsolete)


Thats why they are hitting each other with swords, because the power field technology is the only thing that reliably hacks through armor. Its much easier to hit weak points up close then from far away.

You don't see the IG charging into combat because their weapons are better at range then close combat.


Space Marines however are killing machines and their armor offers relative invulnerability except against their own kind. As such they do both. They charge into melee when its more advantageous and shoot at range when its not.


Orks do melee because they like crumping and have the numbers to overwhealm ranged superiority.

Dark Eldar likewise want to feel the pain and suffering up close.

Daemons, see above.

Nids, they arn't so much fighting you as collecting dinner.


Close quarters combat also makes sense in the cramped passages of space ships. Ranged weapons give too much risk of causing a vaccum leak on the ship and the space makes guns awkward.

And close combat is MUCH more common then people think on the modern battlefield. If your fighting in a city going house to house. you turn a corner and your enemies right there. A knife or riflebut is going to be a far quicker to react with then aiming your rifle. And if your enemy has body armor that is only vulnerable at select spots you will have far greater success pulling a knife out and jabbing at the weak spots then trying to aim for them while he's shooting/stabbing back.

I thought caliber measurement was something to do with barrel diameter to length ratio? I worked on the 5" gun in the US Navy, and it was only a 50cal.

40K has war machines called Titans. Somehow I've always imagined that there isn't much we have that could bring one of those down.

Autocannons bring down void shields... we have automatic cannon with much higher rates of fire mounted on various kinds of aircraft. I imagine a tactical nuke would finish it off after that.

There is a difference between whats possable in game and what the fluff says.

I highly doubt you'll find an example of Voids getting brought down by Autocannon fire.



Titans are way toned down so they can reasonably fit into an Appoc game.

and even then, in game an Autocannon only has a 1/3 chance of bringing the void down onces its hit.

well the gameplay is all I really know. I dont play the RPGs or read alot of the fiction. It seems like a tactical nuke would wipe out the smaller titans easily even without the autocannon, tbh. Or you could use cruise missiles or whatever. A titan would probably be pretty strong against a conventional land force that tried to fight it head on, but just a big target against a combat air wing or a carrier battlegroup or something like that. There's just no limit to how destructive modern weaponry can get, other than the calculations of military planners about how destructive they need to be.

Other then being easy to hit we really can't say what effect modern weapons would have.



Sure, we could probably hurt it but we can't look at this in a vaccum.


Warhound Titans operate in pairs as part of a larger invasion force. The main battle line would be full of Reavers and Warlord Titans, not to mention the waves of Imperial Guard and LRBTs. There is also the air cover of the Imperial Navy, Thunderbolt fighters and Marauder bombers.

Not to mention the orbital bombardments that precede the invasion.

GreatGunz wrote:well the gameplay is all I really know. I dont play the RPGs or read alot of the fiction. It seems like a tactical nuke would wipe out the smaller titans easily even without the autocannon, tbh. Or you could use cruise missiles or whatever. A titan would probably be pretty strong against a conventional land force that tried to fight it head on, but just a big target against a combat air wing or a carrier battlegroup or something like that. There's just no limit to how destructive modern weaponry can get, other than the calculations of military planners about how destructive they need to be.

So you're... basically arguing from a point of ignorance, then?

The tabletop game is abstract in the extreme, meant to be balanced, in relation to itself, so that Player A with one army can play against Player B's army and have at least a chance to win, regardless of what armies they choose.

In the fluff, however, a single squad of Space Marines will conquer entire armies. A Company will crush entire worlds. A Chapter will claim vast swaths of the galaxy in the name of the God-Emperor, leaving nothing but the smoldering corpses of the foe in their wake. A Titan on the battlefield destroys entire battalions with a burst of its mega-bolter, and ignores anything that isn't another Titan or specially-designed tanks designed for Titan-killing. Your stubbers, heavy bolters, autocannons and everything else in this class cause as much damage to the Void Shields as the falling rain. That is to say, none at all. Against infantry targets, light armored vehicles and most tanks, the Titan might not even shoot them, it just crushes it underfoot. A tactical nuke might drop the Void Shield(s). Might. Might not. You won't get another chance. Against other weapons, such as missiles and aircraft, the Titan is equipped with scores of point-defense and turret weapons, coupled with advanced auspex and targeting systems, to defend the God-Machine against such threats. Aircraft do not easily fly through walls of explosive shell and armor-melting lasers... not to mention the matter-destroying properties of the Void Shields around the Titan itself.

Certain Naval ships of the Imperium possess enough firepower to glass a planet. The bulk of Naval vessels require several of their number to mass fire in order to incinerate the planet, but this is doable in many cases. Of course, certain types of planets are more resilient to this kind of attack than others, depending on the makeup of their atmosphere and terrain. We... don't really have anything at all to compare to that. Even our ability to destroy the planet with nuclear fire is entirely theoretical.

Now, the modern assault rifle might compare with an Imperial autogun in pretty much every way. The latter is basically a carbon copy inspired by the former. However, we have nothing IRL that really equates to stuff like carapace armor, cameoline cloaks, mesh armor, or plasma-forged adamantine. The modern sniper rifles are nice... but pale in comparison to the Exitus Rifles carried by assassins of the Vindicare which are often used to snipe, and kill, tanks. The lasgun is basically a high-tech assault rifle, and is a superior weapon from a logistics standpoint, because a handful of magazines will last you, effectively, forever, so long as you can plug them in, toss them into a fire, or leave them out in the sun. Its ballistic effectiveness is on par with a modern assault weapon, firing rapid pulses of high-energy light that possess large amounts of both kinetic and thermal energy. They also seem to have some kind of mass, as lasguns in 40K have recoil.

We have no modern melee weapon that can allow a man to tear a tank apart with his hands. The Imperium has Power-Fists and Power-Claws. We have nothing in the modern world remotely comparable to Tactical Dreadnought armor. For that matter, we don't have Power Armor, either.

Psienesis wrote:

GreatGunz wrote:well the gameplay is all I really know. I dont play the RPGs or read alot of the fiction. It seems like a tactical nuke would wipe out the smaller titans easily even without the autocannon, tbh. Or you could use cruise missiles or whatever. A titan would probably be pretty strong against a conventional land force that tried to fight it head on, but just a big target against a combat air wing or a carrier battlegroup or something like that. There's just no limit to how destructive modern weaponry can get, other than the calculations of military planners about how destructive they need to be.

So you're... basically arguing from a point of ignorance, then?

Nope
Look, 40k is a game. I play the game. I offered an opinion about something completely hypothetical and completely irrelevant. I have no idea why that warrants your hostility.

Psienesis wrote:The tabletop game is abstract in the extreme, meant to be balanced, in relation to itself, so that Player A with one army can play against Player B's army and have at least a chance to win, regardless of what armies they choose.

In the fluff, however, a single squad of Space Marines will conquer entire armies. A Company will crush entire worlds. A Chapter will claim vast swaths of the galaxy in the name of the God-Emperor, leaving nothing but the smoldering corpses of the foe in their wake. A Titan on the battlefield destroys entire battalions with a burst of its mega-bolter, and ignores anything that isn't another Titan or specially-designed tanks designed for Titan-killing. Your stubbers, heavy bolters, autocannons and everything else in this class cause as much damage to the Void Shields as the falling rain. That is to say, none at all. Against infantry targets, light armored vehicles and most tanks, the Titan might not even shoot them, it just crushes it underfoot. A tactical nuke might drop the Void Shield(s). Might. Might not. You won't get another chance. Against other weapons, such as missiles and aircraft, the Titan is equipped with scores of point-defense and turret weapons, coupled with advanced auspex and targeting systems, to defend the God-Machine against such threats. Aircraft do not easily fly through walls of explosive shell and armor-melting lasers... not to mention the matter-destroying properties of the Void Shields around the Titan itself.

Certain Naval ships of the Imperium possess enough firepower to glass a planet. The bulk of Naval vessels require several of their number to mass fire in order to incinerate the planet, but this is doable in many cases. Of course, certain types of planets are more resilient to this kind of attack than others, depending on the makeup of their atmosphere and terrain. We... don't really have anything at all to compare to that. Even our ability to destroy the planet with nuclear fire is entirely theoretical.

Now, the modern assault rifle might compare with an Imperial autogun in pretty much every way. The latter is basically a carbon copy inspired by the former. However, we have nothing IRL that really equates to stuff like carapace armor, cameoline cloaks, mesh armor, or plasma-forged adamantine. The modern sniper rifles are nice... but pale in comparison to the Exitus Rifles carried by assassins of the Vindicare which are often used to snipe, and kill, tanks. The lasgun is basically a high-tech assault rifle, and is a superior weapon from a logistics standpoint, because a handful of magazines will last you, effectively, forever, so long as you can plug them in, toss them into a fire, or leave them out in the sun. Its ballistic effectiveness is on par with a modern assault weapon, firing rapid pulses of high-energy light that possess large amounts of both kinetic and thermal energy. They also seem to have some kind of mass, as lasguns in 40K have recoil.

We have no modern melee weapon that can allow a man to tear a tank apart with his hands. The Imperium has Power-Fists and Power-Claws. We have nothing in the modern world remotely comparable to Tactical Dreadnought armor. For that matter, we don't have Power Armor, either.

Well put, you wrote everything that was in my head that I wouldn't have written. You really have to abstract 40K to think about it IRL. How can a Titan walk with that poorly designed robot bipedalism? It's 38,000 years in the future is how. Reading the books really puts things into perspective. I don't know why it never occured to me to poke fun at the notion of 20 Space Marines being called in to handle 50 Orks, That video game Space Marine did a good job of representing their power.

The Geneva Convention is a joke, the same people who uphold it violate it. Guantanamo, Hiroshima, Dresden, Vietnam, the Great Tokyo Air Raid. And many more. I won't deny the holocaust. I won't deny the atrocities of my Japanese Empire. But neither will I agree that the United States and it's allies are saints either. It all boils down to that the winners are right, and the losers get nothing at all.

GreatGunz wrote:

Psienesis wrote:

GreatGunz wrote:well the gameplay is all I really know. I dont play the RPGs or read alot of the fiction. It seems like a tactical nuke would wipe out the smaller titans easily even without the autocannon, tbh. Or you could use cruise missiles or whatever. A titan would probably be pretty strong against a conventional land force that tried to fight it head on, but just a big target against a combat air wing or a carrier battlegroup or something like that. There's just no limit to how destructive modern weaponry can get, other than the calculations of military planners about how destructive they need to be.

So you're... basically arguing from a point of ignorance, then?

Nope
Look, 40k is a game. I play the game. I offered an opinion about something completely hypothetical and completely irrelevant. I have no idea why that warrants your hostility.

He's not being hostile, he's saying that your argument is invalid because you have no fluff backing.


In fluff arguments, which this is one, you must use the fluff. The game mechanics have to be left out because they are severe abstractions made for the sake of having a playable game.

On the Table top you can have a force of 40ish space marines vs 150ish Orks. They are roughly equal to each other in terms of power.

However, in the fluff, if 40 space marines faced off against 150 orks the orks would get totally decimated. 40 space marines plus support gear would easily take out a few thousand orks.

In addition the game severly abstracts the ranges measured and there isn't even a consistant ratio of distance.