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 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).
[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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You were saying?
Modern weaponry is fairly impressive, but are simply better than anything we could ever/will ever throughout the course of history create. They are rapid firing weapons that cause as much damage to human bodies as .50cal rounds, and fire at several hundred rounds per minute, and have variable power settings, and great range, and you don't need to compensate for gravity or the Coriolis effect, and they are the wet dreams of logistics departments everywhere.
And that is the single worst weapon in the entire setting.
A railgun/Lascannon would have demolished the building in the video in a heartbeat.
Grey Templar wrote:I like how it says the soldiers are just "wasting" their ammo uselessly.
Someone hasn't heard of covering fire or windows methinks
Well it did nothing...and covering fire without having a reason to (covering an advance etc.) is a waste, plus their intention was to collapse the building/kill it's occupants which failed completely.
I think people are making a slight error with their arguments/rants/opinions on this thread... Most people are trying to compare 40k weapons to modern weapons when the question is comparison in power, not their uses such as the lasgun being the IG main battle rifle or the bolter being the main battle rifle of the SM so they're equivalent to the M16 or the SA85 or AK47... It's the firepower that's being asked about.
im2randomghgh wrote:A railgun/Lascannon would have demolished the building in the video in a heartbeat.
Not a chance. They suffer the same issue of only a very narrow area of effect as the guy was talking about with HEAT rounds. Sure, they'd put the projectile/laser clean through the building, but they wouldn't bring it down. A sub-munition round would be more effective versus the occupants, but still not capable of dropping the building. Buildings are tough, and no matter how capable of punching through walls your gun may be, a few missing or holed walls won't collapse a building.
As for that guy asking about things like phosporous and flamethrowers... I think he's forgotten about some things called the "Geneva Convention" and "war crimes".
Also, he heavily overestimates the risk factor of artillery. You can be hugely accurate with artillery, no real risk to the surrounding area - at least, not more than having a squad of troops spraying bullets everywhere in the hope of killing something.
This would be much easier to resolve it you took weapons on a case-by-case basis and restricted it to man portable (or ground based, at least) weapons. Without some standards or structure for the discussion this can degenerate into a multi-page argument on lasguns alone (lasguns are just like an assault rifle! no they're not they're heat rays/30mm cannon!) I don't even want to think about bolters...
im2randomghgh wrote:A railgun/Lascannon would have demolished the building in the video in a heartbeat.
Not a chance. They suffer the same issue of only a very narrow area of effect as the guy was talking about with HEAT rounds. Sure, they'd put the projectile/laser clean through the building, but they wouldn't bring it down. A sub-munition round would be more effective versus the occupants, but still not capable of dropping the building. Buildings are tough, and no matter how capable of punching through walls your gun may be, a few missing or holed walls won't collapse a building.
As for that guy asking about things like phosporous and flamethrowers... I think he's forgotten about some things called the "Geneva Convention" and "war crimes". Also, he heavily overestimates the risk factor of artillery. You can be hugely accurate with artillery, no real risk to the surrounding area - at least, not more than having a squad of troops spraying bullets everywhere in the hope of killing something.
I take it you are not very familiar with railguns? Impact from them affects a massive area and has the force of a tomahawk missile.
They are hilariously destructive. And the lascannon would punch through the barricade it hits, kill anything directly behind it and blast a hole through the back of the house. A few shots from that will either have the targets at the windows to avoid the cover-ignoring lascannon, have them fried, or, after enough shots, compromise the structural integrity of the target building.
Notice the plasma forming around the projectile in the picture? Notice how the railgun is igniting the air behind it?
Yeah, a Railgun will demolish a building. Lascannon not so much.
a Lascannon is simply a beam of focused energy. It will burn a good sized hole through the building and maybe set it on fire, but it won't immediatly cause massive structural damage. It would need to be specifically aimed at the structural supports.
Grey Templar wrote:Yeah, a Railgun will demolish a building. Lascannon not so much.
a Lascannon is simply a beam of focused energy. It will burn a good sized hole through the building and maybe set it on fire, but it won't immediatly cause massive structural damage. It would need to be specifically aimed at the structural supports.
"or, after enough hits..."
that's what I said. If the building looks like swiss cheese after, it's probably not going to be the most stable thing in the world.
Id say they are quite a bit ahead of us... But one thing to remember is weapons are made to cater for soldiers needs. If we had the ability to mass produce super soldiers then im sure a super gun for the super soldiers wouldnt be far behind it..
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.
You were saying?
Modern weaponry is fairly impressive, but are simply better than anything we could ever/will ever throughout the course of history create. They are rapid firing weapons that cause as much damage to human bodies as .50cal rounds, and fire at several hundred rounds per minute, and have variable power settings, and great range, and you don't need to compensate for gravity or the Coriolis effect, and they are the wet dreams of logistics departments everywhere.
And that is the single worst weapon in the entire setting.
A railgun/Lascannon would have demolished the building in the video in a heartbeat.
Not entirely sure what the point of that video was, nothing in the 40k lore says a lascannon or railgun would have done anything different than just punch a hole in it either. A lascannon isn't an energy blast, it'd make a very neat burnhole through a wall most likely just like the Javelin was described as doing. Likewise, neither is a railgun going to do much different, in fact, railguns are very much described as making neat little holes straight through armor. Not seeing how it'd be so much different than what that video is talking about. The Navy railguns you are referencing are firing *far* larger projectiles than what the Hammerhead is described as utilizing, designed to be mounted as the main gun on a warship massing several thousands of tons.
Also keep in mind, a structure that is relatively open or that has already been subjected to blast effect is subsequently much less affected as there is somewhere for the energy of the blast to escape to on subsequent hits since the first blast blew it open already, resulting in far less damage on subsequent hits than the first one inflicted. A ruined rock/concrete house isn't a great example, especially as those weapons were, as noted, generally not designed to demolish such structures.
Grey Templar wrote:Yeah, a Railgun will demolish a building. Lascannon not so much.
a Lascannon is simply a beam of focused energy. It will burn a good sized hole through the building and maybe set it on fire, but it won't immediatly cause massive structural damage. It would need to be specifically aimed at the structural supports.
Depends on the composition of the structure being hit and the temperature of the beam. Could evaporate trapped moisture quickly enough to shock it.
King Pariah wrote: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.
it has technologically regressed and the adeptus mechanicus and the imperial faith are holding back the rate of advancement .
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.
It surpasses it now. After all, their best fighters actually try to attack you with pointy sticks...
The HEAT rounds and conventional 7.62 and 5.56 rounds wouldn't do crap. But that Bradley's 25mm cannon is completely capable of penetrating and then airbursting munitions inside the building.
CxOrillion wrote:The HEAT rounds and conventional 7.62 and 5.56 rounds wouldn't do crap. But that Bradley's 25mm cannon is completely capable of penetrating and then airbursting munitions inside the building.
Isn't that the vehicle from the video? The one that did nothing?
Outside of space tech we have them beat.
-Attack aircraft and bombers are faster with better weapons and payload. Our bombers can drop munitions on target and from dozens of miles away (JDAM) or laser guided munitions.
-We have SAMs from should launched to trailer sized. The best the imperium has is something out of WWII.
-We have satellites, small and large drones for intelligence and targeting. They, er don’t.
-Even though they have access to artillery they resort to massed charge tactics (Abnett) or 16th century siege tactics (Storm of Iron).
-Titans are targets.
-Leman vs. a Challenger I mean come on really?
im2randomghgh wrote:I take it you are not very familiar with railguns? Impact from them affects a massive area and has the force of a tomahawk missile.
I am entirely familiar with railguns. Unconventional ballistics is another hobby of mine, and I know a number of others with the same interest ranging between amateur to US defence contractors, many of whom actually build and use railguns.
The railgun in the picture is not igniting the air (which is an entirely chemically ridiculous concept), what you see there is the remnants of what used to be the eponymous rails. The electrical currents the gun needs in order to work are actually so vast as to vaporising and ionise part of the gun. It's one of the primary problems with railguns as a technology - they need rebuilding every few shots.
In any case, while railguns are capable of dramatically exceeding the velocities possible with conventional combustion based fire-arms - which are limited by the specific energy of the propellant, and thus the speed of sound of the combustion products is the limiting factor in how fast the propellant can expand and thus push the projectile - they are still projectile weapons with a narrow area of effect. They'll go through whatever's in the way, and while there might be some casualties or fatalities from debris (contrary to what has been said above, the shockwave is not going to be fatal), they do not have any real area of effect, which is what you need to clear or destroy a building.
A few shots from that will either have the targets at the windows to avoid the cover-ignoring lascannon, have them fried, or after enough shots, compromise the structural integrity of the target building.
Regarding the first part - Nope, better behind cover where only the lascannon can hit by guessing where you are than at the windows where everyone can hit knowing where you are.
Regarding the second part - There's only a minimal chance of hitting, you're not about to kill any meaningful number with potshots.
Regarding the last part, go watch Top Gear's demolition challenge (here and here). See how much damage they're doing to those buildings without them falling down, then consider how little damage a lascannon that's poking a narrow, focused hole through a building is going to do. Like I said, buildings are tough. And those weren't even anywhere as near heavily built.
Grey Templar wrote:To be fair, the Geneva conventions are the biggest joke ever.
Whether or not you agree with them, they are still in existence and those weapons cannot be used without breaching international law. That, ultimately, is the answer to where the flamethrowers are.
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.
You were saying?
Modern weaponry is fairly impressive, but are simply better than anything we could ever/will ever throughout the course of history create. They are rapid firing weapons that cause as much damage to human bodies as .50cal rounds, and fire at several hundred rounds per minute, and have variable power settings, and great range, and you don't need to compensate for gravity or the Coriolis effect, and they are the wet dreams of logistics departments everywhere.
And that is the single worst weapon in the entire setting.
A railgun/Lascannon would have demolished the building in the video in a heartbeat.
Not entirely sure what the point of that video was, nothing in the 40k lore says a lascannon or railgun would have done anything different than just punch a hole in it either. A lascannon isn't an energy blast, it'd make a very neat burnhole through a wall most likely just like the Javelin was described as doing. Likewise, neither is a railgun going to do much different, in fact, railguns are very much described as making neat little holes straight through armor. Not seeing how it'd be so much different than what that video is talking about. The Navy railguns you are referencing are firing *far* larger projectiles than what the Hammerhead is described as utilizing, designed to be mounted as the main gun on a warship massing several thousands of tons.
Also keep in mind, a structure that is relatively open or that has already been subjected to blast effect is subsequently much less affected as there is somewhere for the energy of the blast to escape to on subsequent hits since the first blast blew it open already, resulting in far less damage on subsequent hits than the first one inflicted. A ruined rock/concrete house isn't a great example, especially as those weapons were, as noted, generally not designed to demolish such structures.
The navy railgun fires much smaller rounds actually, since they do not have the magical infinity energy generators the tau have. They also fire slower (~mach7 compared to tau mach 9) and a single railgun shot would completely wreck the whole building. Lascannons would pierce all the way through the concrete, whereas the javelin got several inches only. The lascannon would kill whoever was standing behind the cover, either forcing them get roasted or go to the window, away from the cover-smashing lascannon.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grey Templar wrote:To be fair, the Geneva conventions are the biggest joke ever.
The very idea behind them is absurd, to think that people's actions during war can be regulated.
War should be as horrible as possable, that way it is seen as a last resort.
That is the single silliest, most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, throughout my entire life.
Death by fire is amongst the single most painful ways physically possible to die, they are a horrible abomination that should never have been used.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
I am entirely familiar with railguns. Unconventional ballistics is another hobby of mine, and I know a number of others with the same interest ranging between amateur to US defence contractors, many of whom actually build and use railguns.
The railgun in the picture is not igniting the air (which is an entirely chemically ridiculous concept), what you see there is the remnants of what used to be the eponymous rails. The electrical currents the gun needs in order to work are actually so vast as to vaporising and ionise part of the gun. It's one of the primary problems with railguns as a technology - they need rebuilding every few shots.
In any case, while railguns are capable of dramatically exceeding the velocities possible with conventional combustion based fire-arms - which are limited by the specific energy of the propellant, and thus the speed of sound of the combustion products is the limiting factor in how fast the propellant can expand and thus push the projectile - they are still projectile weapons with a narrow area of effect. They'll go through whatever's in the way, and while there might be some casualties or fatalities from debris (contrary to what has been said above, the shockwave is not going to be fatal), they do not have any real area of effect, which is what you need to clear or destroy a building.
It is a hobby of mine too.
And you are wrong.
While the overheating of the rails is a serious issue in railgun development, this is not what is causing the plume of plasma in the photograph.
You can clearly see that this round has not just left the barrel, it has already impacted on the preset paper target, which has combusted. Not the rails.
If you watch the videos of the test fire, you will see that plasma does not form during the launch of the projectile, but after the impact.
And a railgun would have NO PROBLEM demolishing a building.
Death by fire is amongst the single most painful ways physically possible to die,
Yeah, so?
they are a horrible abomination that should never have been used.
Why?
They are incredibly effective weapons.
War isn't supposed to be pretty or nice, its silly to make it so with things like treaties and international law. Laws are useless if there is noone with the power to enforce it, hence why International law is a complete waste of time. And NATO doesn't count because their soldiers arn't allowed to shoot anyone *
Frazzled wrote:Outside of space tech we have them beat.
Ha, on a one to one basis maybe. One 10 man Imperial Guard squad versus one 10 man US marine squad is a pretty even fight, though the marines likely have the edge thanks to their a superior ability to think independently without someone higher up feeding them the plans.
-Attack aircraft and bombers are faster with better weapons and payload. Our bombers can drop munitions on target and from dozens of miles away (JDAM) or laser guided munitions.
Other than the faster, better weapons and the payload part being pulled from god knows where, you might be right, if it weren't for the fact these supposedly inferior aircraft are armoured more like a tank than a chinese fortune cookie, have no need for land based airstrips due to the virtue of launching from orbit, and their unlimited range as a result
-We have SAMs from should launched to trailer sized. The best the imperium has is something out of WWII.
Is it less effective though? Not sure. Besides, how effect will SAM's truly be against such heavily armoured targets.
-We have satellites, small and large drones for intelligence and targeting. They, er don’t.
We'll have no satellites if the Imperium arrives. As for drones, well, they require airstrips and have a minimum range. A spaceship has no such limitations, neither do any Imperial aircraft which can be used for the same effect.
-Even though they have access to artillery they resort to massed charge tactics (Abnett) or 16th century siege tactics (Storm of Iron).
Highly generalized. If we wouldn't resort to a pitched battle, neither would the Imperium. Not that we'd have the same coordinated defense people like to fantasize about, you know, having no satellites or long range radar capability within a few days.
-Titans are targets.
Stupidly armoured and defended, with the capability of leveling cities in a short amount of time. Plus, they're meant to be giant bullet sponges, I'm sure a Titan princeps would be fairly happy having so much firepower ping off his void shields so the countless Russes and Guard below remain unharmed.
-Leman vs. a Challenger I mean come on really?
What kind? Vanquisher, Punisher, Demolisher? There are Russes for every situation. Even then, how about ten of them against every Abrams?
God I love these threads. Facts and numbers mean nothing, just the kind of discussion I like the best.
Death by fire is amongst the single most painful ways physically possible to die,
Yeah, so?
they are a horrible abomination that should never have been used.
Why?
They are incredibly effective weapons.
War isn't supposed to be pretty or nice, its silly to make it so with things like treaties and international law. Laws are useless if there is noone with the power to enforce it, hence why International law is a complete waste of time. And NATO doesn't count because their soldiers arn't allowed to shoot anyone *
*yes, over dramatized I know.
Nato IS allowed to shoot people who use mustard gas, bio weapons, nukes and flamethrowers.
Do you actually think war is pretty without those things? That is sick, twisted and not a little bit worrying. Also, flamethrowers can quite easily kill their operators.
Anyways, by your logic you should be allowed to murder every civilian you see, rape and disembowel their women, take trophies from the bodies of fallen enemies and crucify people, torture and battlefield necrophilia should be okay, burn entire nations to the ground and raze the whole world so that your nation can rebuild a world all their own.
Because that would make it horrible.
Beyond being silly, this idea is incredibly, incredibly childish.
TBH I can't see you being old enough to drive even
Death by fire is amongst the single most painful ways physically possible to die,
Yeah, so?
they are a horrible abomination that should never have been used.
Why?
They are incredibly effective weapons.
War isn't supposed to be pretty or nice, its silly to make it so with things like treaties and international law. Laws are useless if there is noone with the power to enforce it, hence why International law is a complete waste of time. And NATO doesn't count because their soldiers arn't allowed to shoot anyone *
*yes, over dramatized I know.
Nato IS allowed to shoot people who use mustard gas, bio weapons, nukes and flamethrowers.
Do you actually think war is pretty without those things? That is sick, twisted and not a little bit worrying. Also, flamethrowers can quite easily kill their operators.
Anyways, by your logic you should be allowed to murder every civilian you see, rape and disembowel their women, take trophies from the bodies of fallen enemies and crucify people, torture and battlefield necrophilia should be okay, burn entire nations to the ground and raze the whole world so that your nation can rebuild a world all their own.
Because that would make it horrible.
Beyond being silly, this idea is incredibly, incredibly childish.
TBH I can't see you being old enough to drive even
Someone is unfamiliar with empathy.
I'm just saying that war is war. people die one way or another, there shouldn't be rules on how you do it.
And laws cannot be applied to someone if they are beyond your jurisdiction. If you have no power to enforce a law then it is a useless one.
You resort to a personal attack to get your point accross? And you say I'm being childish?
That's a joke post, right im2randomhghg? I don't think I've ever seen someone straw man another poster quite as badly as that. Even then, I don't think I've ever seen anyone be so condescending and arrogant at the same time.
im2randomghgh wrote:You can clearly see that this round has not just left the barrel, it has already impacted on the preset paper target, which has combusted.
There is combustion on impact, but this is entirely different to suggesting the projectile has ignited the air. Hypersonic velocities are capable of ionising air, but this is not in anyway comparable to suggesting the air has actually combusted.
"Set the air on fire" is cool prose to put into sci-fi, but it's chemically entirely wrong. The projectile itself might combust due to extreme friction from high velocity (and the air would oxidise that), but there's nothing in the air itself to burn.
As for your claimed chronology, the synchronised time codes (which are from the cameras, not post-production) don't agree with you. Impact with the paper target is at roughly 53.236, the picture as you have posted it is marked as 53.231. The wall visible in that shot is also a rather closer match to being the other side of the one we can see from the angle behind the railgun than the beam the paper target is supported from.
Sorry, but the image you gave is prior to impact with the target.
Alternatively, watch the video from two years later, where there's much less ambiguity about camera angles. The test impact occurs in the square building, but there is clearly plasma in the video of the launch (in the round tunnel).
And a railgun would have NO PROBLEM demolishing a building.
Uppercase text does not evidence make. Put a hole straight through a building, yes. Destroying it is an entirely different matter. The Rheinmetall 120mm tank gun could happily put a high velocity APDSFS round through both sides (and everything in between) of most buildings, but it takes a lot more than holing a few walls to causing structural collapse.
The railgun is indeed more energetic than the Rheinmetall, but the thing with terminal ballistics is that higher impact speeds reduce the deformation of a target material on impact. The impact lasts less time, so there's less time for the forces to transfer to and accelerate the surrounding area on the target. This is why bullets will frequently punch a neat hole through glass but a slower projectile will shatter it.
So a railgun might actually be less effective at damaging (as opposed to puncturing) walls, because the higher MV would reduce the damage to the surrounding area of wall.
In any case, one testament to the toughness of buildings is September 11th. A heavily laden 767 at over 500 miles an hour is over ten times more energetic than the US navy's railgun (And that's only if we assume the 32 MJ figure is kinetic, rather than electrical - electrical stored energy is a common measurement for electromagnetic guns), and affected a much wider area than poking a neat hole through the building. Even then, it took tonnes of aviation fuel heating and weakening the structure for nearly an hour before the first tower came down. (No conspiracy theorists please.)
This is particularly true for a building with a steel or a concrete framework, when only destroying enough of the load bearing members would have any chance of collapsing the building. Putting holes through a few walls would be entirely useless in such a building. Given the relatively small portion of the building that is load-bearing, you'd have to be lucky to hit any important parts, let alone enough to bring the building down.
MarcoSkoll wrote:Even then, it took tonnes of aviation fuel heating and weakening the structure for nearly an hour before the first tower came down. (No conspiracy theorists please.)
I saw the man flying that plane, he had green scaly skin and eyes like a snake!
iproxtaco wrote:That's a joke post, right im2randomhghg? I don't think I've ever seen someone straw man another poster quite as badly as that. Even then, I don't think I've ever seen anyone be so condescending and arrogant at the same time.
The driving part was a joke.
The rest wasn't. Giving nations cart-blanche to do whatever the hell the want during wartime is a ridiculous idea. Not all the examples are temporary and small in scale like the flame-thrower: being aloud to drop nukes and anthrax at will would have much, much longer lasting effects.
iproxtaco wrote:That's a joke post, right im2randomhghg? I don't think I've ever seen someone straw man another poster quite as badly as that. Even then, I don't think I've ever seen anyone be so condescending and arrogant at the same time.
The driving part was a joke.
The rest wasn't. Giving nations cart-blanche to do whatever the hell the want during wartime is a ridiculous idea. Not all the examples are temporary and small in scale like the flame-thrower: being aloud to drop nukes and anthrax at will would have much, much longer lasting effects.
Yeah...poisoning the earth with toxic weapons wouldn't be very wise.
Now if it were in space on the other hand...
im2randomghgh wrote:You can clearly see that this round has not just left the barrel, it has already impacted on the preset paper target, which has combusted.
There is combustion on impact, but this is entirely different to suggesting the projectile has ignited the air. Hypersonic velocities are capable of ionising air, but this is not in anyway comparable to suggesting the air has actually combusted.
"Set the air on fire" is cool prose to put into sci-fi, but it's chemically entirely wrong. The projectile itself might combust due to extreme friction from high velocity (and the air would oxidise that), but there's nothing in the air itself to burn.
As for your claimed chronology, the synchronised time codes (which are from the cameras, not post-production) don't agree with you. Impact with the paper target is at roughly 53.236, the picture as you have posted it is marked as 53.231. The wall visible in that shot is also a rather closer match to being the other side of the one we can see from the angle behind the railgun than the beam the paper target is supported from.
Sorry, but the image you gave is prior to impact with the target.
Sorry if I communicated the ignition poorly (English isn't my native language) but the air oxidizing the flaming projectile is what I meant to say.
Also, I failed to notice the time stamps, I concede it was on launch rather than impact.
im2randomghgh wrote:
The navy railgun fires much smaller rounds actually, since they do not have the magical infinity energy generators the tau have.
The Hammerhead fire's relatively small rounds judging by the barrel's actual bore size, which is relatively small (doesn't need to be huge to punch holes in tanks, unlike the ship's railguns which are designed to destroy warships and bombard beaches). In fact it's specifically referred to as a "tiny projectile" in the current Tau codex.
They also fire slower (~mach7 compared to tau mach 9) and a single railgun shot would completely wreck the whole building.
Where are you getting that speed rating for the Tau railgun? I can't find it in either the 3E or 4E codex or in IA:3.
A railgun would only wreck the building if it impacted from some sort of ballistic trajectory that would impart it's energy into the ground most likely (and even then probably not unless its projectile is a lot larger than it appears, though of course I wouldn't want to be in the house), otherwise it'd likely just go straight through and out the other side,
Lascannons would pierce all the way through the concrete, whereas the javelin got several inches only.
A Lascannon is a long range crew served/vehicle mounted energy weapon, a Javelin is a shorter ranged weapon capable of being carried and operated by a single infantryman designed for use against armor plate(just needs to make a small hole to do it's job) at relatively close ranges next to tank guns and heavier AT missiles, and not concrete, it's not an HE rocket that'd blow apart concrete effectively, though it can do something obviously. Comparing the two is silly. Especially as a thick fog or smoke/dust in all reality would drastically decrease the effectiveness of a lascannon
The lascannon would kill whoever was standing behind the cover, either forcing them get roasted or go to the window, away from the cover-smashing lascannon.
So would a 75 year old 75mm field cannon, with an actual blast to boot!
iproxtaco wrote:That's a joke post, right im2randomhghg? I don't think I've ever seen someone straw man another poster quite as badly as that. Even then, I don't think I've ever seen anyone be so condescending and arrogant at the same time.
The driving part was a joke.
The rest wasn't. Giving nations cart-blanche to do whatever the hell the want during wartime is a ridiculous idea. Not all the examples are temporary and small in scale like the flame-thrower: being aloud to drop nukes and anthrax at will would have much, much longer lasting effects.
Yeah...poisoning the earth with toxic weapons wouldn't be very wise.
Now if it were in space on the other hand...
Um...so you are talking about having a modified version of the Geneva convention for spatial combat?
iproxtaco wrote:That's a joke post, right im2randomhghg? I don't think I've ever seen someone straw man another poster quite as badly as that. Even then, I don't think I've ever seen anyone be so condescending and arrogant at the same time.
The driving part was a joke.
The rest wasn't. Giving nations cart-blanche to do whatever the hell the want during wartime is a ridiculous idea. Not all the examples are temporary and small in scale like the flame-thrower: being aloud to drop nukes and anthrax at will would have much, much longer lasting effects.
Yeah...poisoning the earth with toxic weapons wouldn't be very wise.
Now if it were in space on the other hand...
Um...so you are talking about having a modified version of the Geneva convention for spatial combat?
...why?
I am sure that if we ever manage to explore and colonize other planets, the scale of conflict would be much greater than it is today. This would, of course, mean nastier weaponry.
Of course, this is assuming that a crap-sack scenario will take place.
im2randomghgh wrote:
The navy railgun fires much smaller rounds actually, since they do not have the magical infinity energy generators the tau have.
The Hammerhead fire's relatively small rounds judging by the barrel's actual bore size, which is relatively small (doesn't need to be huge to punch holes in tanks, unlike the ship's railguns which are designed to destroy warships and bombard beaches). In fact it's specifically referred to as a "tiny projectile" in the current Tau codex.
They also fire slower (~mach7 compared to tau mach 9) and a single railgun shot would completely wreck the whole building.
Where are you getting that speed rating for the Tau railgun? I can't find it in either the 3E or 4E codex or in IA:3.
A railgun would only wreck the building if it impacted from some sort of ballistic trajectory that would impart it's energy into the ground most likely (and even then probably not unless its projectile is a lot larger than it appears, though of course I wouldn't want to be in the house), otherwise it'd likely just go straight through and out the other side,
Lascannons would pierce all the way through the concrete, whereas the javelin got several inches only.
A Lascannon is a long range crew served/vehicle mounted energy weapon, a Javelin is a shorter ranged weapon capable of being carried and operated by a single infantryman designed for use against armor plate(just needs to make a small hole to do it's job) at relatively close ranges next to tank guns and heavier AT missiles, and not concrete, it's not an HE rocket that'd blow apart concrete effectively, though it can do something obviously. Comparing the two is silly. Especially as a thick fog or smoke/dust in all reality would drastically decrease the effectiveness of a lascannon
The lascannon would kill whoever was standing behind the cover, either forcing them get roasted or go to the window, away from the cover-smashing lascannon.
So would a 75 year old 75mm field cannon, with an actual blast to boot!
For bombardment, the navy would be using a special munition that break apart above it's target, giving it a wide area of effect (saw a simulation of it on youtube once, but can't find it now).
And there was brief mention of the speed in Savage Scars, Sarik estimated it moved at mach9 or so which, given the sensors in his helm, is likely accurate.
And of course it would use ballistic trajectory, why wouldn't it? Otherwise you really are wasting the massive amounts of electricity necessary.
And lol I love how you are talking down at the lascannon because it is less portable than the Javelin, and then bring a 75mm field cannon into it
Automatically Appended Next Post:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:
im2randomghgh wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:
im2randomghgh wrote:
iproxtaco wrote:That's a joke post, right im2randomhghg? I don't think I've ever seen someone straw man another poster quite as badly as that. Even then, I don't think I've ever seen anyone be so condescending and arrogant at the same time.
The driving part was a joke.
The rest wasn't. Giving nations cart-blanche to do whatever the hell the want during wartime is a ridiculous idea. Not all the examples are temporary and small in scale like the flame-thrower: being aloud to drop nukes and anthrax at will would have much, much longer lasting effects.
Yeah...poisoning the earth with toxic weapons wouldn't be very wise.
Now if it were in space on the other hand...
Um...so you are talking about having a modified version of the Geneva convention for spatial combat?
...why?
I am sure that if we ever manage to explore and colonize other planets, the scale of conflict would be much greater than it is today. This would, of course, mean nastier weaponry.
Of course, this is assuming that a crap-sack scenario will take place.
I highly doubt humanity will ever have any extra-terrestrial colonies other than maybe one on the moon. Mars is nearly ideal as a planet, very similar to earth, and yet it still suffers from a thin atmosphere, 900 km/h winds, low oxygen content, most of it is too cold for human life (not all of it though, it occasionally get above 0C near the equator)
im2randomghgh wrote:
For bombardment, the navy would be using a special munition that break apart above it's target, giving it a wide area of effect (saw a simulation of it on youtube once, but can't find it now).
A heavy solid projectile can also do the job just fine, though granted I don't know much more on the specifics of what sort of projectiles they are planning or testing.
And there was brief mention of the speed in Savage Scars, Sarik estimated it moved at mach9 or so which, given the sensors in his helm, is likely accurate.
I find myself wondering when Space Marines got in-built sensors that register supersonic speeds of individual projectiles in the heat of battle Oh Black Library...
And of course it would use ballistic trajectory, why wouldn't it? Otherwise you really are wasting the massive amounts of electricity necessary.
Depends on what you're shooting at and where. If it's a direct LoS target you just want to put a hole in like a warship, or it's a close range target, probably not.
And lol I love how you are talking down at the lascannon because it is less portable than the Javelin, and then bring a 75mm field cannon into it
Because the 75mm field cannon is a much better comparison to the Lascannon, requiring a crew of 2 or 3 to transport and operate for use against targets at long range.
im2randomghgh wrote:
For bombardment, the navy would be using a special munition that break apart above it's target, giving it a wide area of effect (saw a simulation of it on youtube once, but can't find it now).
A heavy solid projectile can also do the job just fine, though granted I don't know much more on the specifics of what sort of projectiles they are planning or testing.
And there was brief mention of the speed in Savage Scars, Sarik estimated it moved at mach9 or so which, given the sensors in his helm, is likely accurate.
I find myself wondering when Space Marines got in-built sensors that register supersonic speeds of individual projectiles in the heat of battle Oh Black Library...
And of course it would use ballistic trajectory, why wouldn't it? Otherwise you really are wasting the massive amounts of electricity necessary.
Depends on what you're shooting at and where. If it's a direct LoS target you just want to put a hole in like a warship, or it's a close range target, probably not.
And lol I love how you are talking down at the lascannon because it is less portable than the Javelin, and then bring a 75mm field cannon into it
Because the 75mm field cannon is a much better comparison to the Lascannon, requiring a crew of 2 or 3 to transport and operate for use against targets at long range.
1. Solid round wouldn't have the area of effect necessary for bombardment, because the electric and maintenance costs of a railgun means they can't afford to shoot a precision weapon at a large, open area.
2. BL is always good for a chuckle.
3. If you are using a railgun at close range, you have already lost in terms of maneuver warfare. The same way sniper weapon systems aren't worth gak in a CQB.
4. Well in Hell Night, Legends of the Space Marines, Trooper Genk manages the Lascannon on his own, and it seems as it his partner is merely a spotter. Meaning it could be handled by a single trooper without much difficulty. Also, lascannons are significantly smaller than 75mm cannons.
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.
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.
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.
Lol just saying there aren't to many weapons that one CAN'T fire standing, he also isn't ten feet behind where he started. Given he could have meant an automatic 50 but those were never meant to be shot standing XD
The rifle weighs a ton man lol I found a ton of vids where guys shot it standing =) it's all about the person. Also, with boltguns you have a superhuman holding them with servo assisted armor. =)
Technically a laser (or any beam weapon) can cause damage beyond the point of impact simply by delivering sufficient amounts of energy in a sufficient amount of time and in a sufficiently small area in order to simulate a HE detonation - much in the same way doomsday asteroid impacts and nuclear explosions can simulate.
Also lasers (RL lasers anyhow) work pretty badly as drilling heat rays because of their relatively poor penetration (unless you use something like x-rays or gamma rays, which is another issue entirely.) Heck if you're going to compare lasweapons to an autogun the lasgun is actually going to be *worse* in some respects because of cauterization - the target won't bleed out and inflicitng highly localized (and superficial) burns is not going to kill very efficiently compared to blowing holes in people. Whereas if your lasgun is a slicing beam weapon it may actually be MORE effective than a projectile weapon (how effective is an enemy going to be if you slice his head or legs off or bisect him at the torso?)
im2randomghgh wrote:And there was brief mention of the speed in Savage Scars, Sarik estimated it moved at mach9 or so which, given the sensors in his helm, is likely accurate.
Or rather inaccurate, as Mach numbers are pretty useless as a measure of actual velocity.
The speed of sound varies quite heavily (very roughly, about half a m/s per degree C at normal-ish temperatures). As such, a velocity of 3200 m/s would be roughly Mach 9 if it were 40 Celsius, but Mach 10 if it were -20 Celsius.
On Earth alone, Mach 9 could cover a range of actual velocities over 800 m/s between high and low. Take into account the different atmospheric composition (which also changes air density) on other planets, that widens even further.
In truth, there are very few contexts in which Mach numbers can be used as a serious measure of velocity where the speaker should not be then be subsequently slapped one for doing so. Fluid flow over an aircraft's fuselage is such a subject. The detonation mechanics of an explosive is another. Projectile velocity is most certainly not.
If your'e being technical yes mach can vary becuase speed of sound is material dependent (in water its 1.5 km/s) but in a more colloquial sense its likely meaning speed of sound in air. If it bugs ya that much think of it as a translation relative to english and earth - we know they use alot of earth-baesd conventions for time and such (time, metrics, distances, whatever.)
And for the record it was something like 6-8 times the speed of sound (in air). Deathwatch (Mark of the Xenos I think) had it at 6-10 x the speed of sound (or I may have it backawards - savage scars had it at 6-10x and DW had it at 6-8x).
I'm also pretty sure that tau railguns are described as hypervelocity before (I know they've been described as hypersonic in IA3 if not elsewhere.) which fits with that estimate as well.
Connor MacLeod wrote:If your'e being technical yes mach can vary becuase speed of sound is material dependent (in water its 1.5 km/s)
I'm not being "technical", I'm being accurate. Yes, while it's material dependent, I was talking merely about air (or its non-Terran equivalents).
The problem is that the speed of sound in air varies very heavily (primarily with temperature). Yes, it's typically taken to be about 340 m/s (its approximate value at RTP), but global climate differences mean that in different parts of the world, the speed of sound can range between less than 280 m/s and over 360 m/s.
Yes, Mach 9 would typically mean nine times the speed of sound in air, but there is no fixed speed of sound in air. As such, using Mach number as an indicator of velocity is like trying to build a cabinet using an elastic tape measure - good for a laugh, but not much else.
iproxtaco wrote:That's a joke post, right im2randomhghg? I don't think I've ever seen someone straw man another poster quite as badly as that. Even then, I don't think I've ever seen anyone be so condescending and arrogant at the same time.
The driving part was a joke.
The rest wasn't. Giving nations cart-blanche to do whatever the hell the want during wartime is a ridiculous idea. Not all the examples are temporary and small in scale like the flame-thrower: being aloud to drop nukes and anthrax at will would have much, much longer lasting effects.
Which is why I think you're straw-maning the argument.
Grey Templar isn't arguing, and neither am I for that matter, that things like chemical weapons and flamethrowers are OK to use. He's saying that war is war, people will die regardless of the method. Having a bunch of basically unenforceable international laws is relatively pointless unless it concerns a nation where the consequences actually matter, like the UK and US, who both have pretty strong stances on these kinds of things, will face the fallout from their citizenship and other western countries. However, if the government of a country rules without that, the laws don't mean anything, and thus the only way to enforce them is easily corruptible and potentially causes more harm that it's worth.
Look, my comments on the Geneva Convention seem to have derailed this.
Our personal agreements or disagreements with international laws are not at all relevant to the subject at hand - the only relevance those laws have to the actual discussion is that the weapons used by our armed forces are potentially not as formidable as they could be where they not thus restricted.
With that in mind, kindly keep your opinions on how pleasant you think our mutual murder of each other should be to yourselves.
To settle the railgun argument it actually says in the lore that the railgun punched a hole through a Leman Russ, which means it could not demolish a building.
Well a tank is built quite differently from a building.
A railgun could certaintly bring down a building, eventually. If it was aimed at structural supports and stuff. But yeah, the chance of a single railgun shot(not submunitions) taking down a building is quite slim.
Okay, let's nail this. The Geneva Convention exists as a means of protecting those who are not, or are no longer, taking part in the hostilities. This means civilians, wounded soldiers, non-combatants (such as medical staff) & Prisoners of War. It defines areas such as interrogation (name, rank, number), treatment of PoWs & civilians, allowing non-combatant staff to do their job (religious & medical staff basically) and even be paid for it - interestingly it states that medical staff should not be detained under any circumstance so that they may continue to do their work.
When you're talking about prohibited weapons you're talking about the Hague Conventions, notably the 1929 one which centred around biological & chemical weapons.
redkommando wrote:I honestly thought the Bolter would be more like this:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzio_Sniper_Rifle_20mm
The boltgun has more power, alot more.
No, I wouldn't agree. Bolter rounds are shown as being very squat and thus a lot less massive than the 20x102mm bullet - my personal estimate puts them, at least after the expenditure of propellant, at about 50 grams (about half). The 20mm is also packing one hell of a velocity at over 1,000 m/s. A bolt, after burn, might roughly match that, but I'd also guess less again.
With the 20mm round likely having a similar or greater velocity to a bolt, as well as being considerably more massive (i.e. more kinetic energy and more explosive), I'd say that the bolter would fall short of the AP-HE variants of 20mm Vulcan ammunition.
But 20mm Vulcan is VERY nasty, so that's far from saying bolters are pansies.
@Sparks_Havelock: Whoops. But still - NOT the topic of conversation.
MarcoSkoll wrote:
I'm not being "technical", I'm being accurate. Yes, while it's material dependent, I was talking merely about air (or its non-Terran equivalents).
The problem is that the speed of sound in air varies very heavily (primarily with temperature). Yes, it's typically taken to be about 340 m/s (its approximate value at RTP), but global climate differences mean that in different parts of the world, the speed of sound can range between less than 280 m/s and over 360 m/s.
Yes, Mach 9 would typically mean nine times the speed of sound in air, but there is no fixed speed of sound in air. As such, using Mach number as an indicator of velocity is like trying to build a cabinet using an elastic tape measure - good for a laugh, but not much else.
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. By the standards of most 40K numbers, a 10-20% difference is not significant when you consider things like (for example) titan sizes which can range from 10 metres to several km, or starships that have battleships (or other warships) that can range from a mile long to tens of km long. Hell cruisers even in an 'accurate' range will be from hundreds of metres to 8 km (and thats not including the Gordon Rennie 30 km typo from Wolf Pack.)
the lasgun is actually going to be *worse* in some respects because of cauterization - the target won't bleed out and inflicitng highly localized (and superficial) burns is not going to kill very efficiently compared to blowing holes in people.
That much heat and energy would have no problem causing horrific unbalance to your metabolism, and blowing off arms is just icing.
And the burns aren't superficial. Lexicanum describes lasguns as making a small explosion on impact.
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.
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
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 40kRPGs (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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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: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.
The lasgun would be superior to a modern assault rifle in that it's accuracy is flawless (it shoots light, therefore massive range & near-instant hits, with wind having no effect), while it's more reliable due to lack of bullet casings, residue in barrels etc. That's what hard science dictates and therefore the only thing about the Lasgun that we know nearly for sure, but with 40k physics (or lack thereof) even that's arguable.
TrollPie wrote:The lasgun would be superior to a modern assault rifle in that it's accuracy is flawless (it shoots light, therefore massive range & near-instant hits, with wind having no effect), while it's more reliable due to lack of bullet casings, residue in barrels etc. That's what hard science dictates and therefore the only thing about the Lasgun that we know nearly for sure, but with 40k physics (or lack thereof) even that's arguable.
Except that lasguns have recoil, have a limited range, and miss plenty of times.
The weapon can get clogged with dirt in dusty/windy environments.
Accuracy, IMO, is going to be a wash because it is very rare that engagements take place at the maximum ranges of weapons. Many modern weapons have very long effective ranges but very few engagements take place at maximum range because of terrain. The difference between accuracy and flight time of projectiles is going to be insignificant at the distances most engagements take place at.
Even though I have never seen it modeled on a 40K mini, except for one, I am sure the AK 47 will still be around and fully functional in the grim and dark future where there is only war.
martin74 wrote:Even though I have never seen it modeled on a 40K mini, except for one, I am sure the AK 47 will still be around and fully functional in the grim and dark future where there is only war.
I doubt it. It will most likely be a relic.
However, there might be an auto gun that looks like it...but AK39000 sounds odd.
martin74 wrote:Even though I have never seen it modeled on a 40K mini, except for one, I am sure the AK 47 will still be around and fully functional in the grim and dark future where there is only war.
Yes. This. Though it will probably still be used by guys who can't shoot strait
They're in the Vraks rules. A standard ordinary real-world firearm is called an autogun, and it's basically a lasgun with no AP value. So lasguns are slightly better.
Technically we already had "bolters" shooting rocket powered bullets.
The Gyrojet gun was most likely the inspiration for the bolters. And yes, technically there would be very little initial recoil. This thing predated warhammer by some 20 yrs which means that it was around during the proper time frame to influence the concepts.
(strangely enough http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_bullet might see a revival of "bolters" down the road, most of these bullets are at least the size of 12G shotgun slugs though)
im2randomghgh wrote:I take it you are not very familiar with railguns?
im2randomghgh wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:Yeah, a Railgun will demolish a building. Lascannon not so much.
a Lascannon is simply a beam of focused energy. It will burn a good sized hole through the building and maybe set it on fire, but it won't immediatly cause massive structural damage. It would need to be specifically aimed at the structural supports.
"or, after enough hits..."
that's what I said. If the building looks like swiss cheese after, it's probably not going to be the most stable thing in the world.
*
) also can kill M1A2...if M1s crew will give them a chance.