I’d like to get your views on the “fluff” of the lasgun in service with the Imperial Guard.
Now, the reason for this line-of-thought is to try and calm my OCD-type craziness when it comes to firearms; you see, in real life I’m an avid firearms shooter, collector and reloader, I belong to a rifle club, I’ve shot target since I was 17, and some of the first books I ever read as a young teen were firearm reference or technical books.
The problem is that when I come across any firearm, either in real life, or in fiction, I have to immediately try and find out as much as possible about it; as sad as that sounds.
Which brings us to the lasgun… Now, I’ve given this a lot of thought, really ever since I became familiar with WH40K.
Ok, so, despite all the different patterns and models out there every lasgun works the same; they’re either single-shot, or select-fire shoulder-fired weapons that shoot a coherent beam of light.
Now, onto the subject, now as much as I like Direct Energy Weaponry my person views is that the lasgun holds absolutely no benefit over a convention, ballistic “hard round” firearm.
When a target is hit by a conventional bullet, all of that bullet’s kinetic energy is transferred to the target, either by the bullet tumbling, or flattening, or fragmenting. That’s what causes the damage to the target; As well as the bullet travelling through you and shredding everything, a bullet will cause a shock-wave that flatters organs and generally does un-nice things to you. Blood loss is a big issue, too.
Now, If a target is hit by a coherent beam of light, all I can think that would happen is that a neat hole would be burned through the target, with no kinetic transfer of energy. The wound would be cauterised, so there’s no blood loss. Ok, the target would feel a tad worse for wear, but unless a vital organ is hit I assume the target would get back up and carry on.
What give a bullet its range is its parabolic trajectory, you can arch a bullet to reach distance targets, but as a lasbeam is a beam of light, I assume you’re limited to direct-fire; granted not really an issue with most modern fire-fights taking place at 100 metres distant, with 300 being the max, but one can still argue a ballistic rifle out-ranges a lasgun.
A lasbeam could theoretically be reflected away from the target by a suitably reflective service, assuming that surface can first sustain being hit by a coherent beam of light and heat.
Also, I assume rain or fog would affect the beam’s coherency.
Firing at night is likely to blind all soldiers armed with it. Granted a red beam would help, as the red spectrum doesn’t affect your night vision. Black Library does have numerous novels that states lasguns shoot white, blue, purple, and orange beams, depending on the author.
It would be impossible to hide your position for as soon as you start firing the target(s) can trace your lasbeam back to you.
I’ve always thought that a suitable EMP blast would knock-out all las-technology, too.
I realise that the idea behind the lasgun is that it’s a super-cheap, and super-reliable weapon for the trillions of soldiers serving in the Imperium, but I just guess that the Imperium wouldn’t trade in a conventional ballistic rifle for a direct-energy one that doesn’t offer any benefits other the former; regardless of cost.
Anyway, the above is just my personal thoughts on the idea.
A lasgun seems to be equal, or marginally inferior, to an Autogun in most circumstances. However, it does have a couple of advantages:
Logistics. Once you have a lasgun powerpack, you can recharge it by leaving it in the sun. So that's a hell of a lot less ammo the Munitorium needs to bus out to you.
Lack of moving parts means that the things just don't break.
Damage wisse, the las bolt has been stated to be a pulse rather than continuous beam, which vapourises a small area of the target explosively rather than boring a hole straight through them.
I've never really considered the colour. X-ray would be a good choice :-)
The one advantage the humble Las-gun has over its Auto and Stubber gun friends is logistics.
Think about the amount of brass that you would have to ship and resupply a Guard force that would number a million men strong. That's a headache to make, store, ship, store and get to the front lines.
Say a Guardsmen will carry about five reloads into combat with him. With Auto or Stubber rounds that's about say 150 rounds. With Las-guns you are looking at about 150 to 500 shots (depending on power setting, make and model), plus when your out of sparks in the cells they can be recharged with ease via the solar converter or in desperate times an open fire.
Just one thing: direct energy weapons (like lasers) vaporize and don't burn. And don't forget that you are just a big sack of water, and you probably know what happens with water when it gots lots of heat...
Yes, I guess the logistics side of things has a huge benefit over shipping physical, ballistic ammunition. Though, the Guard does field a lot of stubbers, autoguns, and bolters. So they clearly have the capacity to make, store and ship them, no?
Damage wisse, the las bolt has been stated to be a pulse rather than continuous beam, which vapourises a small area of the target explosively rather than boring a hole straight through them.
I've never really considered the colour. X-ray would be a good choice :-)
I just took that from the computer games, in the Dawn of War series the lasguns shoot a beam, granted it's a "snap"-beam that's there and gone in the blink of an eye; unlike the one-second, continuous beams of, say, StarTrek.
Some novels make reference to beams, and one I've read mentions the lasgun beams, when all being fired in a fire-fight, are likened to the crossing threads of a spider's web
As for energy transfer; while it's true that a ballistic weapon transfers the energy, via the bullet, by kinetic energy it does still loose energy along the way as it has to force it's way through the atmosphere, so stopping power of such a weapon does drop off with distance.
The Lasgun, like any laser (as I think of it) uses a different method of energy transfer. Not by kinetic energy but light and then heat energy. This can be just as deadly.
As mentioned above, I have read that the Lasgun is supposed to produce an explosion on the target rather than just burn or cut.
As for range; Light being light the range of a Las-weapon should be infinite. But obviously for game mechanics all weapons are given a range to keep things balanced. And in reality, whilst light will continue to infinity it will disperse and (depending on wavelength) will be absorbed or scattered by passing through matter (gasses, liquids, solids and plasma) and so will also loose killing power over distance.
So rain and fog would possibly affect a las beam, but it would also affect a bullet, but probably (assuming a suitably large power behind both) would only affect either of them by the smallest of margins.
As for the colour of the beam, that opens alot of possabilities...
It's an interesting point you make about firing at night, a bright "Hollywood" laser beam would certainly dazzle the user and give away his position. However, whatever the colour / wavelength of light used you wouldn't actually see the beam unless there is something there to scatter it like particles suspended in the air (which is likely on a battlefield I'll give you).
Also reflecting the beam is also interesting as that also depends on the wavelength and the effeciency of the reflective surface, as you mentioned, to dissapate the heat.
Wavelength would also dictate what sort of damage you could do, as UV light is of a higher energy that visible light, but can be absorbed by water quite strongly (rain and fog problems maybe) but also is strongly absorbed by the body (being mostly water) so high potential for damage, it is also invisible (to the human eye at least) so good for night fighting etc... Whereas IR light is not strongly absorbed by the body, is of a lower energy than visible light but is also invisble and is more associated with heat-ray type weapons...
Maybe Lasguns as tunable in the wavelength used so as to produce the greatest possible damage depending on the target...
Fluff wise, at least from Necromunda, las weapons are hugely reliable (if you had to make an ammo check you passed it on a roll of 2+, autoguns passed on a 4+ and bolters on a 6). Given that the Imperial Guard recruit from worlds that can be anywhere from Stone Age equivalent to highly industrial worlds this is important as it cuts down the time spent training recruits to feed into the meat grinder. Also as previously mentioned the logistics of using a universal ammunition source for a main infantry weapon when supplying a force of billions, and the power packs are easily recharged in the field.
As for distance and its impact on a las shot I remember this was mentioned in the 2nd Edition Wargear book, laspistols suffered a to-hit penalty for firing at long range.
As for its impact on living tissue I believe that it has been described as explosively vapourising the area hit, but that there is often cauterization of the wound so little damage is caused by blood loss.
The lasgun has one major advantage over a conventional weapon. It has self-recharging ammo.
This cuts down the amount of space you have to devote to ammunition supplies in your supply chain. The soldiers can charge their weaponry with portable generators right where the action is. They can even, as a last resort, use fire or direct exposure to light to charge their weaponry.
If you got that with a slight drop in killing power the gun would be viable. As it is, the gun is the equal of a conventional bullet weapon. Making it superior overall.
Lasguns are much cheaper than conventional firearms. In one of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, it talks about his soldiers holding the energy cells over a fire to try and get every little bit of energy they can out of the cells. You obviously can't do that with a cartridge round, can you.
Lasguns are also very simple, because there are much fewer moving parts compared to a conventional rifle.
Even though they do shoot short beams, it's probably to prevent the lasround from losing all its energy along the way, or it's to help the guardsman see where he's shooting, instead of clicking the trigger and the damage happen without him seeing it hit the target.
Also, the way I've understood it, while a lasgun shot COULD be deflected with a simple mirror (Or very polished Necron), the reason it doesn't is because even though the light will get reflected at first, the energy will scorch an area enough to prevent it from scattering the energy, which reinforces the idea in the paragraph above.
Another major advantage of the lasgun is that light travels alot faster than a bullet so you are more likly to hit your target also you would not need to worry about bullet drop/wind when firing with lasguns.
IIRC, most lasers are ether diodes or gas tubes that dictate what wave lengths it emits so i don't think its possible to change it unless you switch out the enter "firing mech" at least with modern day tech. (but what am i a laser technician? lol(im not but iv dabbled)
Another pro for the lasgun is with potential training time.
from what i understand there is no recoil so a guardsman only needs to point and shoot.
Lasgun fluff differs a lot between sources, especially where details such as the colour of their beam is concerned or what you can do with them. Something that almost all sources can agree on, however, is the logistics advantage, which is extremely important for an army as vast as the Imperial Guard, with regiments operating many light years from the world where they were originally raised and where they received their equipment.
Even where you have an industry in place, the lack of standardisation across Imperial culture means that bullets will be all sorts of shaped and calibers. However, most Imperial worlds have some sort of energy production, which means the Tech-Adepts merely need to find a way to bridge the gap between the local generatorium and the army's recharge stations ("This looks like an old M36 Tesla-pattern socket. Adept Frenk, fetch me the Mark VI adapter!").
An autogun in comparison is almost like a showpiece or collector's item. Sure, it may use special ammunition and make that nice "dakkadakka" sound that will make people really notice you, but if you ever run out of a steady supply you're going to have a really bad time as that fancy Alcher Mk II Justicar autocarbine suddenly turns into an expensive metal club. Plus, lasguns chargepacks tend to hold more shots than an autogun magazine holds bullets, and some few patterns of lasguns like the fabled Triplex even have a charge slider where you can turn up damage-per-shot with nothing but a simple flick of your finger.
Regarding the effects of las rounds on flesh, the 6E 40k rulebook addendum has an interesting piece of fluff that makes lasgun wounds sound like a real nasty thing.
One thing I cannot make my mind up on is recoil. Would a las-weapon have any? I mean, you're shooting light, even if its practicals are coherent it's still light. There's no resistance to anything to produce recoil; unless the generation of a coherent light beam generates a slight push, maybe. Even then, though, it's probably recoil likened to a convention rifle chambered for 5.56x45mm... hardly noticeable.
Tower75 wrote:One thing I cannot make my mind up on is recoil. Would a las-weapon have any? I mean, you're shooting light, even if its practicals are coherent it's still light. There's no resistance to anything to produce recoil; unless the generation of a coherent light beam generates a slight push, maybe.
I think only a few Black Library books have ever mentioned las weapon recoil - but the slight push you mentioned already delivers a possible answer. Heat makes stuff expand, and this includes the air inside the barrel, whose only way out is to the front.
1. The ever present ammo situation. There are trillions of guardsmen out there. And the materials to make bullet's, are not in abundance, as they have ot be used to cater for everything in the imperium. Trillions of guardsmen, would mean trillions upon trillions of bullet's being produced, and if that can be avoided by giving them rechargable, even solar rechargable guns, it means that guardsmen can be outfitted cheaply, and more reliably, they need far fewer supplies.
2. Guardsmen, are treated worse, than modern day soldiers. Most modern day soldiers, are outfitted fairly well, with appropriate gear and such. But the imperium knows well, that guardsmen's real strength, lies in their numbers, not their weaponry.
3. Simplicity. A lasgun, has no recoil, so while yes, it needs to hit a precise target to wound, there is no recoil to throw off a shot.
4. It's not just guns, that has advanced in the 41st milinnium. Armour, plays a huge part, and most armour in the universe at large at this time, is immune to the kind's of bullet's that a guardsman, could effectively use. Even guardsman armour, could stand up to a modern day assault rifle, and without the peircing power of a lasgun, a ballistic assault rifle, would have almnost certainly no effect against enemies with any form of modern armour (So, anything but orks, maybe tyranids) I mean, think about it, a bolter is less an assault rifle, and more a miniature repeating rocket launcher, bolter rounds are huge, and explode on contact, because that's what you need to get through armour in this age. That, or a laser.
5. Laser weapons, in our own timeline, while inefficient, and unable to be miniaturised, have a range, of miles. A laser loses very little energy in transit like a bullet will. However, we know for a fact, that lasguns, have limited range. I suggest, therefore, that perhaps, the lasgun's "Beam" actually widens the further it travels, so at it's ideal range (24 inches tabletop, not sure what that equates to truescale) I imagine the beam would make a hole between the size of an apple, and a cd, in the enemy, and beyond that range, the shot is too weak, and will merely leave a large burnmark on armour. Even if it cauterizes, if that shot gets through, you would be boned.
A lot of this is theory and speculation, but that's how I imagine it myself.
I'm going to address the issue of cauterisation. I'm a nurse on laser eye surgery teams, and the lasers we use do not cauterise. They vaporise, there is no thermal damage to surrounding tissue. Hence no cauterisation, just full of holes.
At a lower level of intensity lasers can caue immense thermal damage, but then it itself would not matter if it cauterised or not, its the severe thermal damage that debilitates.
There is an additional argument that a ballistic laser would not cauterize a wound but would, instead, super-heat the water in the surrounding tissue, causing it to blow out in bloody, steaming chunks, thus increasing wound-shock and lethality of the injury.
As far as recoil goes... depends on who you're reading. Many BL novels (notably Gaunt's Ghosts) depict the soldiers firing lasguns having to compensate for recoil, both the hotshot sniper rifles and the standard line rifle. In both cases, the recoil is fairly stiff. Larkin (unit sniper in GG) bruises his shoulder with his hotshot rifle once or twice, and a civilian child who seizes a fallen soldier's lasgun is nearly knocked over when he fires it. The latter is partially due to improper holding of the weapon... but, still, you can fire an M16 one-handed without too much difficulty, less so the lasgun.
Maintenance of the weapon is also much simpler. Clean the lens, clear the barrel of carbon scoring, keep the trigger and/or firing stud free of debris and you're good to go. Put a light coat of oil on the metal externals to ward away rust, say a prayer to the Emperor, and you're done. Fewer parts to lose and fewer parts to fail in the field. Plus, if a part of the lasgun should fail, another rifle from your unit is readily to hand, just take it from that dead soldier's weapon, he's not using it any more. Of course, you will probably need battalion-level support (ie, Techpriests) to install it... but that's no different than a slug-thrower.
Psienesis wrote:Larkin (unit sniper in GG) bruises his shoulder with his hotshot rifle once or twice, and a civilian child who seizes a fallen soldier's lasgun is nearly knocked over when he fires it. The latter is partially due to improper holding of the weapon... but, still, you can fire an M16 one-handed without too much difficulty, less so the lasgun.
Okay, that's just ...
Lack of consistency is one thing, but I'd really like to know what the author was thinking when he came up with that idea. A little bit of science in science-fiction is not a bad thing!
the lasgun is designed with a recoil replicator, to make soldiers respect the weapon, and not shoot it from inproper places, it uses half of the weapon individual shot power but is worth it to look cool.
One thing I cannot make my mind up on is recoil. Would a las-weapon have any? I mean, you're shooting light, even if its practicals are coherent it's still light. There's no resistance to anything to produce recoil; unless the generation of a coherent light beam generates a slight push, maybe. Even then, though, it's probably recoil likened to a convention rifle chambered for 5.56x45mm... hardly noticeable.
We have lasers right now based upon using compressed gas as part of the firing process. Wikipedia cites using a combustion chamber in at least one. Given this, I do not find recoil that hard to believe.
Also note the references in that page: United States Patent 4099142 : Condensed explosive gas dynamic laser.
That gets me excited. Not in the naughty way though.
The lasgun is actually probably the perfect weapon for the IG who frequently are sent to act as an anvil for up to a 1000 years until space marine chapters can be mobilized. It is not uncommon for an IG regiment to be left in a constant warfare state and then forgotten while the high lords of terra lose the paper work.
This brings the lasgun whose outer shell can be made of anything from plastic to metal(no need for any strength to funnel force in the barrel as the energy is funneled through optics). The entire gun has 1 moving part(trigger) and a clip. With the entire necessary maintenance would be cleaning the lens and the clip slide. Not to mention the recharge issue which when looked at for IG would equate out to 1 000 000 guardsmen per planetary conflict shooting 30+ bullets per min year round with a supply train that could get redirected by the warp. Notice that spaz marines bring their production facilities with them. IG could probably use an entire planets mass across the iom with a single year of fighting.
The Lasgun is the 40k AK-47 cheap, reliable, and stupid simple, but accurate
Can't really call its ammo system a clip, or a mag, its more of a rechargeable battery, so Cell would be a better term, and a awesome way to support troops in the field, be funny to model some astartes that have been on campaign away from standard supplies to be using lasguns .
One of the few actually high tech / low tech solutions I enjoyed about 40k weaponry.
I have always imagined them as not being any real color at all, just a flash of white that burns into your retinas as an after image. You never ever "see" the shot.
If you look closely, Stormtrooper armour hit by a blaster bolt in the movies should have a smoking scorchmark, as do the surroundings that catch a few shots. One might argue this is just because of the physical fireworks that were used for the FX, but it fits the technical details of the weapon nicely.
Watch the Trooper at 1:45 get shot in the chest:
That being said, it's still a bad comparison. Star Wars blasters are actually plasma-based weapons, as they operate with supercharged Tibanna-gas propelled by a magnetic coupler.
/nerd
As for 40k lasgun colours, so far I have seen the colours blue (Final Liberation, FFG cover art), red (Dawn of War) and yellow (GW cover art) in official material. If you want, it can be colourless just as much - although I will point out that some sources note how the long las has a "flash suppressor" to better conceal the sniper.
Does anyone else think it odd how in all the years 40K's been around no GW book has had a detailed, technical drawing of a lasgun's workings?
I guess it's so they're not tied-down to any one perticular idea when it comes to how they work. They can just go; it depends on the pattern and model, and ultimately your own imagination.
Well, we've had a bolter cross-section in the 3E rulebook, a Marine power armour one in Rogue Trader, and iirc they've also put out a Landraider one in a White Dwarf (showing that its "Machine Spirit" is actually a human brain hardwired into the vehicle).
I think a lasgun one would have just been a matter of time - except that during the last years, GW seems to have changed their direction a bit in this regard, moving away from fluff details and leaving more things open for interpretation, perhaps in part to leave more room for the fans to make up their own minds, in part to minimise contradictions between GW books and licensed sources (so that the latter mostly contradict each other rather than studio material)?
I mean, I just noticed how we've been fed less and less hard numbers (SoB membership, Marine power armour injury prevention chance, IG regiment sizes, ...) and facts with every Codex ... although the 6E rulebook looks like a welcome change of pace, "resurrecting" much old fluff from around 2E. Maybe they have reconsidered?
Lasgun fluff has changed a bit over time, too. They used to be single shot only - which given the accuracy is fair enough - with a rate of fire a bit below 30 rounds/minute. Which as someone (Scott-S6, I think) pointed out to me is significantly slower than you can pull a trigger. In some ways this makes it a dreadful weapon.
Now some Lasgun varients, Necromunda pattern certainly, can go over to full auto and act more like a modern assault rifle than a Boxer-Henry...
Lynata wrote: Well, we've had a bolter cross-section in the 3E rulebook, a Marine power armour one in Rogue Trader, and iirc they've also put out a Landraider one in a White Dwarf (showing that its "Machine Spirit" is actually a human brain hardwired into the vehicle).
I think a lasgun one would have just been a matter of time - except that during the last years, GW seems to have changed their direction a bit in this regard, moving away from fluff details and leaving more things open for interpretation, perhaps in part to leave more room for the fans to make up their own minds, in part to minimise contradictions between GW books and licensed sources (so that the latter mostly contradict each other rather than studio material)?
I mean, I just noticed how we've been fed less and less hard numbers (SoB membership, Marine power armour injury prevention chance, IG regiment sizes, ...) and facts with every Codex ... although the 6E rulebook looks like a welcome change of pace, "resurrecting" much old fluff from around 2E. Maybe they have reconsidered?
More likely is that GW is more akin to a force of nature than anything resembling a sensical company.
Graphite wrote: Lasgun fluff has changed a bit over time, too. They used to be single shot only - which given the accuracy is fair enough - with a rate of fire a bit below 30 rounds/minute. Which as someone (Scott-S6, I think) pointed out to me is significantly slower than you can pull a trigger. In some ways this makes it a dreadful weapon.
Now some Lasgun varients, Necromunda pattern certainly, can go over to full auto and act more like a modern assault rifle than a Boxer-Henry...
I think that can be explained by saying that one shot every two seconds is due to the shot being 'supercharged' and will deal much more damage, but if it fires fully automatically then each shot will have less stopping power.
Can't really call its ammo system a clip, or a mag, its more of a rechargeable battery, so Cell would be a better term, and a awesome way to support troops in the field, be funny to model some astartes that have been on campaign away from standard supplies to be using lasguns .
As a complete nerd I ordered the Munitorum dice set from GW last year. This dice set actually comes inside a Lasgun "clip".
It says:
LASGUN POWER PACK
CAPACITY: 97-166 DISCHARGES
RANGE RATING: 19 MEGATHULES*
DEPARTMENTO MUNITORUM ISSUE
ORIGIN: MARS *CONFIRM COMPATIBILITY WITH TECHPRIEST PRIOR TO USING THIS POWER PACK
It doesn't really say anything (howmuch is a megathule, anyone know?), but does confirm the adjustable wavelength/power setting thing.
Well ... there's nothing to "confirm" as, true to 40k fluff from multiple sources, all the books tell something different, depending on the author that wrote them.
Looking at the Inquisitor rules and the newest Guard Codex, for example, the power setting is unique to the Triplex - likewise, the increased rate of fire of a Necromunda-pattern lasgun does not affect the damage output per shot (compared to the standard Mars-pattern rifle) but merely how fast the charge pack is drained.
Just pick whatever you think is coolest, or whichever origin of fluff you generally prefer.
TheLionOfTheForest wrote:The starwars blasters leave a scorch mark but no hole.
Because they didn't dare strap explosives to the actors chest that blew a hole in the armour? Please.
The blasts blow chunks outta the walls and make snow explode - and people wouldn't die if the shot would just leave a scorch mark, that's enough for me.
BlaxicanX wrote:More likely is that GW is more akin to a force of nature than anything resembling a sensical company.
They also have single shot "laslocks" that operate like bolt action rifles. Worrying about consistency from GW is just going to leave you shaking your head.
Remember when bolter shells had "a deuterium tipped core"? Thats hydrogen with an extra neutron, aka the 2nd lightest element in existence. They're really terrible with numbers to be honest.
Grey Templar wrote:Its the same stats given by the Munitorium Manuel so it is what GW itself says lasgun powerpacks operate at.
Black Library books are not exactly "GW says [...]" ...
... although I do recall having read about the 19 megathules in some rulebook or Codex, too. Probably one of the few things never contradicted anywhere, likely just because no other author bothered to come up with something else just for the heck of it.
DutchKillsRambo wrote:They also have single shot "laslocks" that operate like bolt action rifles. Worrying about consistency from GW is just going to leave you shaking your head.
Remember when bolter shells had "a deuterium tipped core"? Thats hydrogen with an extra neutron, aka the 2nd lightest element in existence. They're really terrible with numbers to be honest.
I think the deuterium thing (and actually it was "depleted deuterium core" - the tip is diamantine) never changed, at least in Codex fluff. I've heard fan-explanations ranging from "condensed ice would have a huge density" to "in the 41st millennium this actually means something different than today", but I guess it's safe to say that the original author just screwed up.
One-shot laslocks on the other hand I could see no problem with. You could say that one battery = one shot, for example, so that you need to "reload" for every blast? This is no consistency issue at all, given that GW fluff itself mentions a certain variety in las weapons as far as details are concerned. Consistency becomes a problem as soon as licensed products claim that specific patterns do something else or that lasguns shouldn't be able to punch through Marine armour etc.
Anyway, a laser is a beam of light, StarWars blasters are plasma weapons, as they project a magnetised bolt, not a laser.
I must admit, one thing I hate is the inconsistency in Black Library. In some novels you can't punch through Astartes armour with anything smaller then a shaped charge missile; so it's highly unlikely a lasgun would do anything, and in some novels you can shoot off chunks of power armour with a stub pistol, and one shot from a bolter.
Flak armour seems to do naff-all, too. Why do they even wear it, lol. Anti-shrapnel, maybe?
Exactly.. Blast damage. But it will help against some crude balistic weapons..... like lasguns.
Guard Flak will do a job against most small arms they will encounter, but when you start going up against Eldar, Bolters etc Then the poor old guardsmens in way above his head.
Laslocks power the laser emission by consuming a chemical charge and converting the energy into pulsed focused light.
Lasguns can cause burns because the focusing mechanism may not be correctly calibrated, causing the beam to be slightly out of focus and scorching the surrounding area with a much lower power pulse, while still having enough energy in the target area to cause the material to vaporize.
Lasguns have limited range in atmosphere due to absorption and deflection of energy due to dust and gasses between the target and emitter. Extremely long range lasers in use today measure and compensate for these atmospheric effects in order to achieve the range. Lasguns generally don't have a complex machine spirit and secondary lasers to perform said adjustments.
Reflective coatings to defeat laser based weapons would have to be spotless to be effective. Look at all those dirty IG tanks, and ask yourself if any army in the 40k universe could keep things clean enough?
Las weapons are lighter, carry more ammo, are far more reliable, don't require compensation for bullet drop, wind or time in flight, and have equivalent damage to conventional slug guns.
Why would you ever take a slug thrower over a lasgun?
Also, just a theory: Lasguns beam would just be a harmless, low power laser pointer to allow those untrained guardsmen to better get their weapons on target, followed by a millisecond invisible pulse or series of pulses at the end that delivers all the energy at once.
This allows the internal computer to get the range, focus correctly, dump more energy into a single damaging shot, and preserve battery power from missed rounds. All without any need for the operator to think about it or even understand how it works.
Although, if a guardsmen did understand it he could pick up a few grox burgers with some well timed lasgun tricks
TheLionOfTheForest wrote:If they are more akin to plasma weaponry, then again they would melt a hole right through a storm trooper.
No, that would depend upon the exact temperature of the plasma and the size of the bolt, possibly amongst other factors. I mean, police is field-testing a plasma-based stun gun in the real world, and the pulsed energy projectile weapon in development also mentions "exploding plasma" as part of its stun effects. Might be overkill if it melts the target, although it would surely push crime rate down.
Tower75 wrote:Flak armour seems to do naff-all, too. Why do they even wear it, lol. Anti-shrapnel, maybe?
It could be intended more against various native cultures and their low-tech weapons rather than what the Imperium fields. Part of the grim darkness in the 41st millennium is that weapons technology is much more destructive than armour technology is protective, as (at least in GW's fluff) even a Marine's power armour only offers a ~15% chance of preventing injury from a "mere" lasgun.
By itself, IG flak is actually supposed to be fairly good and made from advanced materials (from what I recall in the Wargear book and RT description; I can look up the quote in case you're interested) ... it's just that it doesn't offer much against the impressive armaments that the Emperor's enemies bring to the table in your average game of 40k. This is what leads so many people to talk about "cardboard armour and flashlights", when it's really just a question of what you are comparing it to.
I just had another thought about the observed colour of the las beam.
It could just be secondary/tertiary/etc... harmonics of the laser pulse. These come from the way the laser light is produced but the laser output can be tuned using a crystal and/or optics to select the preferable harmonic.
For example a Neodymium:YAG laser produces light at wavelengths 1064nm (InfraRed), 532nm (Green), 355nm (UltraViolet) and 266nm (also UV) and any one of these can be selected using optics, but you'll usually get some of the other wavelengths leaking through as well, unless you have really good optics (which we didin't have on the one I used, so it always looked quite green even though we selected for UV).
So even though the Las beam may be UV, for example, the colour may just be a harmonic leaking through the optics and it doesn't take much of a change in the wavelength to go from blue (~400nm) to green (~500nm) to red (~600nm).
TheLionOfTheForest wrote:If they are more akin to plasma weaponry, then again they would melt a hole right through a storm trooper.
No, that would depend upon the exact temperature of the plasma and the size of the bolt, possibly amongst other factors. I mean, police is field-testing a plasma-based stun gun in the real world, and the pulsed energy projectile weapon in development also mentions "exploding plasma" as part of its stun effects. Might be overkill if it melts the target, although it would surely push crime rate down.
Set your Tasers from stun to kill!
Anyway I knew I had some kind of Lasgun break down somewhere and I found it in The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, dont ask me why I own it. So I hope its ok I post this pic here... its not a high quality scan just a shot from my camera phone.
Some data from the book:
19 Megathule range.
weighs 2.3 Kg
Single or auto fire
220 shots per minute
has low and high power settings
Low setting makes a whining sound
High setting makes a cracking sound
"you can drop it, hit it, use it as a club or submerge it, and it will keep on working..."
"It is an instrument of mankind's divinity, the bringer of death to his foes, whose howling blast is a prayer to the Emperor's retribution"
Sure, why not? It provides a handy forward grip, as well as a firm stabilizing point for bracing the weapon when behind low cover and firing up at an enemy (who is on a hill, in the upper stories of a building, etc).
Lasguns come in every imaginable shape and design, much like our own modern military rifles and sub-machineguns. All depends on the pattern and its planet of origin.
I like how not shaving is listed under signs of Chaos corruption.
TheLionOfTheForest wrote:The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, dont ask me why I own it
Bah - I have it (and the Munitorum Manual) as well. The usual inconsistencies of 40k fluff aside, these books are just a plain good read and I'd recommend them both to anyone who likes the setting.
... actually I have two Primers, even. The original first edition, and then the Damocles Gulf one with added Tau lulz and naval decompression procedures. At least this way I won't get shot if I ever lose one.
You know I saw it in the NYC GW store and thought it looked cool. Asked my parents to pick it up for me for Xmas a year or two back. I had no clue the damn thing cost around $80 new.
Okay. I think I just ordered it from Amazon or Black Library back then.
Sheesh!
Anyways, good purchase. Aside from having to grin a lot at the contents themselves, I also really liked how they made it look sorta real, with the materials and everything.
Even the clip isn't necessarily to standard, as illustrated in one of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, the Munitorum having deployed about a bazillion Mark 3 power cells... but the Ghosts need Mark 5.
... or something along those lines. At any rate, the Ghosts were left desperately short of ammo due to a supply-chain clerical error.
Though it would also explain variable fire-patterns between different types of lasguns, possibly even up to and including the hellguns of the Storm Trooper battalion, which are powered not by cells but by a backpack power-source.
It could be that, say, the Type 3 cell allows for a more-concentrated blast of fire which provides increased lethality, but its in-built thermal regulator prevents burst or automatic fire, whereas the Type 5 offers reduced armor penetrating capabilities, but allows for staccato bursts or continuous, pulsed autofire until the cell is depleted.
TheLionOfTheForest wrote: You know I saw it in the NYC GW store and thought it looked cool. Asked my parents to pick it up for me for Xmas a year or two back. I had no clue the damn thing cost around $80 new.
Psienesis wrote:[...] the Storm Trooper battalion [...]
You mean the regiment? *scnr*
Psienesis wrote:It could be that, say, the Type 3 cell allows for a more-concentrated blast of fire which provides increased lethality, but its in-built thermal regulator prevents burst or automatic fire, whereas the Type 5 offers reduced armor penetrating capabilities, but allows for staccato bursts or continuous, pulsed autofire until the cell is depleted.
They're batteries - the only way they could differ is perhaps through the speed and "volume" by which they dispense the energy stored within; the weapon does all the rest. This also means that, or so I think, there is no actual sense in creating an artificial lack of standard just to achieve the effects you mentioned. If you want a stronger punch, the gun can have a capacitor which draws enough energy from the battery until it's ready. Same for auto-fire. Just use the best battery for all your rifles and you're set.
Why would we truly "need" special charge packs to explain variable fire-patterns? That's kind of like saying you "need" different batteries for a lamp that's always on and another which only blinks once every two seconds. They can have, but certainly it's not a requirement.
I get what you mean, and we cannot say that Abnett's idea is "wrong" ... but to me, the standardisation is too important an aspect of this weapon.
On a sidenote, something from the 3E rulebook - just in case anyone 's interested:
Hmm, reading it again, I never noticed the "single shot" bit. Fits to the Inquisitor rules, however - the Necromunda-pattern lasgun notes "single, semi (2/3)" rather than "full" like the multilaser ... which I guess means it just has a capacitor capable of faster recharge or something...
The 6th ed rulebook has an awesome fluff update in Appendix 1. It's on pg 406 in the middle of the page if you're interested. It describes in length the damage a lasrifle can cause, and how to treat their grizzly wounds....
Psienesis wrote: Though it would also explain variable fire-patterns between different types of lasguns, possibly even up to and including the hellguns of the Storm Trooper battalion, which are powered not by cells but by a backpack power-source.
It could be that, say, the Type 3 cell allows for a more-concentrated blast of fire which provides increased lethality, but its in-built thermal regulator prevents burst or automatic fire, whereas the Type 5 offers reduced armor penetrating capabilities, but allows for staccato bursts or continuous, pulsed autofire until the cell is depleted.
IIRC the main problem with the marks of las ammo was that the clip wouldn't fir into the slot for it or if it did they wouldn't stay in, either way in the end each Ghost had about three clips to storm the Blood Pact fortress
Psienesis wrote: Though it would also explain variable fire-patterns between different types of lasguns, possibly even up to and including the hellguns of the Storm Trooper battalion, which are powered not by cells but by a backpack power-source.
It could be that, say, the Type 3 cell allows for a more-concentrated blast of fire which provides increased lethality, but its in-built thermal regulator prevents burst or automatic fire, whereas the Type 5 offers reduced armor penetrating capabilities, but allows for staccato bursts or continuous, pulsed autofire until the cell is depleted.
IIRC the main problem with the marks of las ammo was that the clip wouldn't fir into the slot for it or if it did they wouldn't stay in, either way in the end each Ghost had about three clips to storm the Blood Pact fortress
That was the issue in the novel, yes, but I'm not so sure that it should be that surprising. When you are really only concerned with supply lines on a sector or sub-sector level, universal support for a range of weapons is pretty well assumed, but once you start mixing in units from other parts of the Imperium, who may be using weapons of different patterns, different Forge Worlds, etc. that's when you might run into problems. While a las-gun is a las-gun, there's just certain aspects to its design that might not be 100% compatible with other models. Shoot, even in our own world, 2 cellphones of similar models from the same manufacturer might not be able to share a battery.
One thing I'd like to see is the Guard field multilasers, or a machine gun-type of las weapon in lieu of autocannons and heavy bolters.
I don't mean mounted on vehicles, but as section and squad support weapons.
Tower75 wrote: One thing I'd like to see is the Guard field multilasers, or a machine gun-type of las weapon in lieu of autocannons and heavy bolters.
I don't mean mounted on vehicles, but as section and squad support weapons.
... I wonder if I can make one
are you saying as part of a heavy weapon squad because that would be quite cool, I think a squad of multi lasers would be quite cool, not that great in game but quite cool to model.
I think the problem with trying to have a man-portable multi-las is that its powercells are not rechargeable, so an IGHW team porting one would have to have an attached ammo train or a generator (rendering the unit Immobile) or be able to fire only once a game. This is why they attach multi-las weapon systems to vehicles, they can run it off the vehicle's power-plant (or dedicate the vehicle to transporting the generator, too).
So when a lasgun hits something it heats it up very quickly. we are made mostly of water. when water gets heated up very quickly it turns into steam... explosively (this is why you shouldn't throw water on a grease fire. the water will heat up so quickly that it will expand many times greater than it's original volume) So I think that the small explosion is a good description of what a lasgun would do to someone
I would figure though that it would be similar to a las cannon which only uses a back pack sized cel pack. i don't know the full fluff of the las cannon.
Lascannon descriptions probably depend on which book you're looking at, too, like all details in 40k.
For the multilaser, surprisingly the Inquisitor game does feature a portable one, slightly lighter than the heavy bolter. However, it also deals less damage, is less accurate and has less ammunition, though with a greater rate of fire.
I used to think that they'd only be vehicle-mounted, but I guess I will reconsider this position. Compared to the heavy bolter, though, they seem to be fairly crappy guns - a "one trick pony" best used for suppressing enemy infantry.
Abnett, despite otherwise being the single greatest author to write for the black library, consistently portrays lasguns in a manner akin to blasters in star wars, with shots being discrete slower-than-light bolts that often ricochet off walls and the like. Other fluff more or less unanimously portrays them as laser guns.
One thing thats always bugged me is the fact that people often say that lasguns have a recoil yet it shoots a beam of light so why does it? I mean does a flashlight have a recoil? No. Also they are acclaimed to be able to smash their target back and blow them of their feet. As they are essentially an uprated laser pointer i cant see how.
To get around this i have given my Khantonians small calibre mass accelerator weapons that utilise a magnetic force to hurl a needle of metal at incredible velocitys.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
watchamacarcess wrote:
Tower75 wrote: One thing I'd like to see is the Guard field multilasers, or a machine gun-type of las weapon in lieu of autocannons and heavy bolters.
I don't mean mounted on vehicles, but as section and squad support weapons.
... I wonder if I can make one
are you saying as part of a heavy weapon squad because that would be quite cool, I think a squad of multi lasers would be quite cool, not that great in game but quite cool to model.
This is a great idea. I mean we have lascannons and heavy bolters and the likes so why not multilasers. That has always bugged me.
Psienesis wrote:I think the problem with trying to have a man-portable multi-las is that its powercells are not rechargeable, so an IGHW team porting one would have to have an attached ammo train or a generator (rendering the unit Immobile) or be able to fire only once a game. This is why they attach multi-las weapon systems to vehicles, they can run it off the vehicle's power-plant (or dedicate the vehicle to transporting the generator, too).
I will refer you to the lascannon-the only difference is that the lascannons fire a single focussed blast where as the multilaser fires a flurry of low focus beams instead. both use a series of capacitors charged by an external powerpack. The only difference is that where as the lascannon discharges all the energy in a single focussed beam and then has to recharge the multilaser disharges the energy in pahases allowing the spent capacitors to recharge as the others are discharging.
Oh and if your talking of impractical sizes then take a look at the IG Heavy Weapon Teams lascannon-its fething ridicolus
master of ordinance wrote: One thing thats always bugged me is the fact that people often say that lasguns have a recoil yet it shoots a beam of light so why does it? I mean does a flashlight have a recoil? No. Also they are acclaimed to be able to smash their target back and blow them of their feet. As they are essentially an uprated laser pointer i cant see how.
Superheated air at the end of the gun causing something mimicking recoil, and a steam explosion or just a general flinching reaction when struck on the part of the target. Also bad/overly-dramatic writing for the second: real guns don't knock people backwards, they punch holes in them, tear up their innards, and cause hydrostatic shock.
Tower75 wrote: One thing I'd like to see is the Guard field multilasers, or a machine gun-type of las weapon in lieu of autocannons and heavy bolters.
I don't mean mounted on vehicles, but as section and squad support weapons.
... I wonder if I can make one
are you saying as part of a heavy weapon squad because that would be quite cool, I think a squad of multi lasers would be quite cool, not that great in game but quite cool to model.
Yup, that's what I meant. A Heavy-weapon-team weapon. A tripod, or bipod mounted multilaser. Of course, it would just be cosmetic, and for legality you'd treat it as, and use the stats for a heavy-bolter.
Psienesis wrote:I think the problem with trying to have a man-portable multi-las is that its powercells are not rechargeable, so an IGHW team porting one would have to have an attached ammo train or a generator (rendering the unit Immobile) or be able to fire only once a game. This is why they attach multi-las weapon systems to vehicles, they can run it off the vehicle's power-plant (or dedicate the vehicle to transporting the generator, too).
...I will refer you to the lascannon-the only difference is that the lascannons fire a single focussed blast where as the multilaser fires a flurry of low focus beams instead. both use a series of capacitors charged by an external powerpack. The only difference is that where as the lascannon discharges all the energy in a single focussed beam and then has to recharge the multilaser disharges the energy in pahases allowing the spent capacitors to recharge as the others are discharging.
Oh and if your talking of impractical sizes then take a look at the IG Heavy Weapon Teams lascannon-its fething ridicolus
I agree, would a mutilaser be any different to the Guard fielding man-portable lascannons?
The MP LasCannon fires a single shot of energy from a power-cell the size of a car battery. Heavy? Yes. Impractical? Yes. Rechargeable? No.
However, the MP Lascannon's primary function is for tank-sniping (or making sure one guy is really, really, *really* dead). It's a really crappy anti-infantry weapon, as it only fires in a straight line... step to the side and you don't get hit by it. A multi-las is intended to blanket an area in las fire, kinda like an assault cannon or a heavy bolter. While each shot of the multi-las is weaker than the concentrated beam of a lascannon, it strikes with dozens as opposed to one.
That said, for the Cannon, having 3 to 5 dudes lugging around this beast of a weapon and 2 batteries each is not so bad for its assigned role as a tank-killer. If there are more tanks, field more lascannon teams. For the Multi-Las, its role as an anti-infantry weapon requires a sustained fire rate, which is not feasible with 30 shots per clip that it empties in about a second, then requiring whatever rites and rituals are involved in reloading the damned thing. Even with a backpack power-pack, like the hellgun, you might get, what, three seconds of sustained fire? And now you need a new backpack. For an infantry-denial weapon, it simply makes more sense to set it up as an emplaced gun, attached to a generator, or into a vehicle, which provides a practically inexhaustible ammo supply, as well as protecting the crew and, more importantly, the weapon itself... at least until the enemy lascannon team sights in on you.
Psienesis wrote: The MP LasCannon fires a single shot of energy from a power-cell the size of a car battery. Heavy? Yes. Impractical? Yes. Rechargeable? No.
However, the MP Lascannon's primary function is for tank-sniping (or making sure one guy is really, really, *really* dead). It's a really crappy anti-infantry weapon, as it only fires in a straight line... step to the side and you don't get hit by it. A multi-las is intended to blanket an area in las fire, kinda like an assault cannon or a heavy bolter. While each shot of the multi-las is weaker than the concentrated beam of a lascannon, it strikes with dozens as opposed to one.
That said, for the Cannon, having 3 to 5 dudes lugging around this beast of a weapon and 2 batteries each is not so bad for its assigned role as a tank-killer. If there are more tanks, field more lascannon teams. For the Multi-Las, its role as an anti-infantry weapon requires a sustained fire rate, which is not feasible with 30 shots per clip that it empties in about a second, then requiring whatever rites and rituals are involved in reloading the damned thing. Even with a backpack power-pack, like the hellgun, you might get, what, three seconds of sustained fire? And now you need a new backpack. For an infantry-denial weapon, it simply makes more sense to set it up as an emplaced gun, attached to a generator, or into a vehicle, which provides a practically inexhaustible ammo supply, as well as protecting the crew and, more importantly, the weapon itself... at least until the enemy lascannon team sights in on you.
Why would a man-portable multilaser only have a three-second sustained-fire capability? That's quite a specific time.
Plus, I'm guessing that you'd fire it in bursts, like with all fully automatic weaponry in the military.
A 3 second burst does seem excessively short. I remember that the WWII British fighter planes would go up to defend the skies with only 12 -17 seconds worth of rounds to fire and that's very short.
Why would a man-portable multilaser only have a three-second sustained-fire capability? That's quite a specific time.
Well, a lot of those numbers are simply for illustrative purposes...
...but using the stat-line that Lynata posted above, it's got a clip capacity of 30, but cranks out 12 shots a "round" (however long that is). An M16A2 with a 30 round clip and burst fire, spitting 3 rounds as fast as you can squeeze the trigger can empty the magazine in about 5 seconds, and a multi-laser is designed to hose an area with las, as it's a suppression weapon. The old, fully-automatic M16 could empty its 30 round magazine in about 3 seconds... assuming it didn't jam (which was likely).
So with ROF 12, you've got 2.5 rounds of sustained fire. Given the abstract nature of time on the tabletop, you'd probably (rules-wise) get to use it 3 times, but, in reality, it'd be empty before the shooting phase was over on the first pull (given that people run a hundred meters in the same amount of time that everyone gets to shoot, fight, cast spells, teleport into the battle, etc).
Burst fire is not fully-automatic fire. While you're not trained to just hold the trigger down and spray with a GP machine gun, when faced with, say, a 50 man blob coming to kill you... that's what you're going to do. 7 to 9 round bursts are an ideal you're not going to attain when you suddenly find yourself in a world of gak. The multi-las (at least the MP version) offers a burst-fire setting, which is going to better-insure hits against a point target, but is fairly worthless for area-denial or suppression against large mobs, especially if said mob can shoot back at you.
Fair comment. But when I originally mentioned it, I was thinking of a man-portable mutilaser that had a heafty battery/power-cell mounted or connected to it. I'm thinking each one gives you a few hundred shots. Plus, why wouldn't it be rechargeable? Anyway, even if it's not, that wouldn't affect it on the battlefield. Anyway, it's all fuff.
But the main reason for short bursts on gpmgs is to prevent recoil knackering your aim and I suppose to reduce overheating. Assuming the multilaser has magical cooling abilities there is no problem with recoil. It would be the ultimate ambush weapon. Pre-program a fire pattern annd wait for a platoon to wander by before massacreing them in one fell swoop.
Tower75 wrote: Fair comment. But when I originally mentioned it, I was thinking of a man-portable mutilaser that had a heafty battery/power-cell mounted or connected to it. I'm thinking each one gives you a few hundred shots. Plus, why wouldn't it be rechargeable? Anyway, even if it's not, that wouldn't affect it on the battlefield. Anyway, it's all fuff.
It's not rechargeable because the fluff for lascannons says that their power-cells aren't rechargeable. That's all there is to that. In DH, the MP Lascannon packs 5 shots per cell, though each cell weighs in at something like 5kg a pop, so most characters don't hump many of them (the weapon itself weighs 50kg iirc)... but against a single target, it does an absolutely rude amount of damage.
For the multi-las, the backpack power-cell that normally powers hellguns and other battle-rifles might just not provide enough juice to support the withering rate of fire a the ML pumps out for very long. This could simply be a limitation of Imperial technology. Using the stats that Lynata provided, I'm assuming that its using a similar powercell as the MP Lascannon, which provides it a 30 shot capacity. Though I note that the Lascannon from Inquisitor is slightly weaker, a lot heavier, than the DH one, but has four times the ammo capacity. Hell, they probably are using the same battery in the ML as in the LC. If a backpack power supply can triple that to 90... well, you're better off, but not that much better off, given the number of rounds it spits out. If you compare it to a mini-gun, capable of 6000 rounds per minute, if all you can carry is 1000 rounds of ammo for it, you've only got 10 seconds of total firing time. You could scythe down an entire infantry company with it in those 10 seconds... but once you're dry, you're dry.
But the main reason for short bursts on gpmgs is to prevent recoil knackering your aim and I suppose to reduce overheating. Assuming the multilaser has magical cooling abilities there is no problem with recoil. It would be the ultimate ambush weapon. Pre-program a fire pattern annd wait for a platoon to wander by before massacreing them in one fell swoop.
Oh, indeed. With a sufficient supply of ammo, a multi-las is hell on wheels against massed infantry. Though las weapons do seem to have recoil for some reason. Space Magic, I assume.
Lasweapons (or any form of DEW) would be more useful at extreme ranges than projectile weapons. At close ranges, the situation is reversed.
As one Forumite has pointed out, light doesn't lose velocity. Coupled with its near instantaneous speed, a long range laser weapon should almost never miss. However, this doesn't make much difference at close range, as:
1) It is impossible to dodge a bullet anyway. It's possible to disrupt the firer's AIM, yes, but not to actually "see" a bullet incoming and move out of the way. As such, there's fairly minimal difference between firing a laser and firing a bullet, at ranges of less than 400 metres. It would matter if you're hitting moving targets a kilometer away though.
2) Lasers emit distinct flashes and, on occasion, a direct line to the firer's position. This is the worst conceivable weapon when launching an ambuscade, as the enemy will reposition faster. Again, irrelevant at long ranges (where you can't ambush anyway). You also lose the impact of sound, which can be useful on rookie troops.
All in, laser sniper rifles are a great idea. But for shock troops, lasers aren't the best choice.
3) One advantage of lasers is that you can vary the "impact area". You can widen the blast area to several metres, or narrow it to a specific point. That has nice applications on a huge battleship. On a small laser rifle, you're pretty much stuck with a beam that hits one small area. That's precise, but might lack stopping power (based on what you hit). There is also no stun or knockback, which amplifies the value of the enemy's body armour.
All this aside, other disadvantages of lasers are:
- Ceramite or ceramic based armours would turn them into a joke. The surface would simply burn away to absorb the laser's heat, and a guardsman would have to hit the same spot repeatedly to get any penetration (but hey, maybe that's why the AP sucks!)
- On a related note, lasers take time to "heat" a particular area and burn through it. Realistically, guardsmen would have to "train" their weapons on a particular spot for some time, especially when hitting a tank.
- Lasers always require line-of-sight. Then again, so do any non-ordnance weapons.
- Lasers are not actually more durable than a standard assault rifle. Yes, there are fewer moving parts. However, laser weaponry tends to involve a circuit board of some sort. An assault rifle (like an AK 47) is basically a bunch of springs. You can clobber someone with it, and it'll fire fine. But misalign the circuit on laser equipment, or get even one speck of dirt in it, and it may stop firing.
- You may not need "ammo", but you'll need to carry a bunch of coolant tubes; particularly in hot environments. The coolants would run out at a ridiculous speed, and you'd probably be carrying replacements as if they were ammo clips. Or at least, the poor engineseer would have to.
Tyranidfreek01 wrote:Ceramite or ceramic based armours would turn them into a joke. The surface would simply burn away to absorb the laser's heat, and a guardsman would have to hit the same spot repeatedly to get any penetration (but hey, maybe that's why the AP sucks!)
Naw, at least not as per the rules GW released for "Inquisitor". Ceramite provides a variable level of protection (1d6 points of additional damage negation, rolled each time a protected region is hit) against plasma, meltas and flamers. It doesn't confer any special protection against las weapons, although this trait is often coupled with ablative armour points, which would result in the coating still having an effect on incoming damage of any sort.
For example, Space Marine power armour is listed as having 3 points of ablative ceramite coating on the breastplate, which means that against the first hit, the armour would negate a total of 13 damage - and if the attack comes from a plasma, melta or flamer weapon, the ceramite would reduce the remaining damage even further. After this attack, however, the ablative ceramite is "used up" and the breastplate now has only 10 armour points, and stops being specially protected against any further attacks from flamer, plasma or melta weapons.
Unless of course the first attack only dealt 1 or 2 points of damage, thereby having 1-2 points of ablative ceramite remain in place.
Tyranidfreek01 wrote:On a related note, lasers take time to "heat" a particular area and burn through it. Realistically, guardsmen would have to "train" their weapons on a particular spot for some time, especially when hitting a tank.
That depends on how much energy/heat the pulse would "convey", and how fast. If a las round merely lasts a split-second but has an extreme intensity, then it would be perfectly sufficient to achieve something like the result described in (some) fluff.
I think another reason that hasn't been addressed for the lack of MP multilasers in the setting (discounting MULTILAZORS of course) is wonderfully inflexible doctrine. I recall the Multilaser being described in the 2nd ed wargear book as 'too reliant on vast power supplies to be man-portable' or something to the same effect. And points being made about sustained fire versus single shot are extremely valid.
A Chimera might have enough spare power storage to last for an 'average engagement', whatever that is, plus if it's got enough fuel it can gradually recharge its batteries, and it can always run away. The Guardsman on the ground, he's gotta lug those cells about in serious amounts, and anti-infantry weapons are always used more liberally than anti-vehicle. So a 30-shot supply for a MP Lascannon might be very useful - 90 shots per HWS, if you're facing more than 30 tanks with only 3 lascannons you're screwed anyway - while a multilaser in the same time might fire off 10000 shots, most of which will have little or no effect due to the relative elusiveness of human targets compared with AFV's.
Anyway I've wandered away from my original point, which is that it's quite likely the IG doesn't issue Multilasers to infantry fire teams because the IG has never issued Multilasers to infantry fire teams. There might be good reasons for that, there might not.
Oh, and to refer back to an earlier discussion of guardsmen flak armour - it's all about the blast. Tin helmets were introduced in WW1 because the highest proportion of injuries were from Artillery, and an appalling number were fatal head wounds. The fact that the Guard has standardised, widely available armor at least on a par with what first world infantry have today is, in fact, fantastic, and an incredible act of kindness on the part of the Munitorum, considering our ancestors walked into IG-like firepower in nothing more than a metal (non-bulletproof) hat.
Mind you, I suppose some Administratum pen-pusher simply totalled up the cost to the Imperium of all those warp-miles and man hours invested in training and shipping a guardsman to the front line, weighed against the potential benefit of universal flak armor and it's cost, and realised one can pack those vests in real tight in an admech transporter and save 0.0004% efficiency over the course of a single terran standard year in sub-sector angeles 9zC...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Additional: And the humble lasgun, she's all about logistics, as has been said beautifully above.
That is awesome. The article also states that they are integrating a multiple shot system and making it mobile. Sounds like a chimera which can pick if it fires 1 shot as a lascannon or the 3 shots as a multilaser. So cool! The link at the bottom of the article is pretty sick also http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18630622 talkin about laser guided bolts of lightning (plasma).
Seems like we're closing in on some cool 40k tech, I hope some guy isn't developing some kind of Skynet software somewhere.
Regarding Hellguns and Hot-shots, how does reloading works (because you have to reload them in Only War).
Personally I am assuming that the battery is simply too big to fit in the gun, so they put in a backpack, and when you're out of energy, you put in another rather large battery (in fact, the backpack might just carry all the spares, so you just switch them out).
I'd say that is a good rationalisation - at least the "another rather large battery" bit. Personally, I would not run with the backpack carrying "all the spares" as this makes the backpack kind of redundant. If the chargepacks are not that large you could just as well carry them on your belt, after all, or slot them directly into the gun.
I'm almost tempted to presume that "reloading" means replacing the entire backpack, but at the same time I could see it holding more than just the gun battery. Did not the minis have lamp packs or vox caster antennae come out of them as well?
For what it's worth, I would assume the backpack to hold sufficient energy for much more than just 30 shots, too.
If I remember well, 200 shots, according to the Siege of Vraks.
For some reason I have ''millions of shots'' in my head, might have been from either TvTropes or 1D4chan.
Fun fact: there's a ton of Stormtroopers art piece where their guns are not linked to any backpack source, leads me to beleive its possible to have hotshot cells, maybe they hold less shots, so appropriate gear for the mission.
For lasgun patterns, Lucius produces semi-auto lasguns that pack a meaner punch than the standard ones, also, they have 20 shots per cell.
Bobthehero wrote:Fun fact: there's a ton of Stormtroopers art piece where their guns are not linked to any backpack source, leads me to beleive its possible to have hotshot cells, maybe they hold less shots, so appropriate gear for the mission.
Yeah, I think there was a switch some time, has to do with the hot-shot lasgun <-> hellgun thing, I think. I'm still not sure whether it's supposed to be two different guns or the same; the current IG 'dex uses the terms interchangeably but it could well just be a copypaste error given that the text was ripped straight out of the 2E Guard 'dex with just the title changed.
Same deal in Only War, although its hellpistol<->hotshot laspistol.
I used to have a theory where the hellgun is the weapon with the power pack and the hotshot is a hellgun with a hotshot pack, the sort they put on longlas (in Abnettverse, I think).
I remember hellgun once having been explained as a corruption of the term HEL-gun, which stood for High Energy Laser.
Also, I like that theory of yours, I think there was a time when I believed the same. For the moment, I'm not sure what to believe anymore. Maybe the next Guard Codex will update us.
Bobthehero wrote:a hotshot pack, the sort they put on longlas (in Abnettverse, I think)
It does exist in GW's vision as well - maybe they got the idea from Abnett tho? Sometimes they do "adopt" stuff from outsourced products.
From Necromunda:
"The Hotshot pack is an especially powerful version of the standard laser power pack. It uses a more expensive and less robust power matrix, with the advantage that it can force more power through a standard laser weapon. However, the risk of burning out the weapon or exhausting the pack itself is much greater than with the standard pack."
It's good for more than one shot, tho. I always found it a bit harsh that the DH version only lets you fire once. Did anyone actually ever use them? It's such a crap piece of gear if you go by FFG's RAW.
Best use I can see for it is a ''that one shot'' piece of gear, put it in a longlas, and you already have around +40 to ballistic skill if you take a round to aim, furthermore, going from personal experience, combat is rarely done at ranges over 50 meters, so the +10 for close range is easy to get.
Using that on my Only War Stormtrooper mean he has 100 BS (50 base right now), making it very easy to get the 4 degrees of success needed to do the 2d10 additional damage, so you're looking at a 3d10+3 AP 1 felling 4 shot with hotshot bonus.
Yeah, good point - although that's more due to how the long las and the talent work by themselves. I guess when looking at the Hot-shot pack I only ever saw that the damage and penetration bonus were so low that I never considered to take them. I also wouldn't want to imagine my character to run around with 20 magazine-sized batteries on the belt just because I want to have 20 shots for the gun.
I guess it's alright with the talent that makes Reloads a free action, as otherwise you lose the bonus from Aim or you can't shoot that round, but I'm still sceptical.
That being said, I don't trust my dice luck in general. My last sniper in Only War (Weapons Specialist with long las) managed to land maybe 1 out of 6 shots or so. So embarassing.
I've had lots of luck with my Stormies, headshotted and finished off 2 nobs during our last combat (okay they had just taken a battlecannon round to the face, but shhhhh)
Be lucky you had one - our trenches were overrun by Orks about two minutes after touchdown, and I still think we could've used some heavy weapons or a vehicle there, but unfortunately all that stuff blew up together with the burning lander.
It was a bloodbath. Proper IG style!
Noone died after 6 session, a ton of Orks and a mechanical chaos spawn.
The Leman Russ helped immensly vs the Orks, and the Hydra gunner put 14 autocannon hits on the spawn, doing 152 damage at the very least. We did not roll all 14 hits.
Sargeant almost died. Carapace armor, 18 wounds and 43 toughness is awesome.
I wish the Tech-Priest who wants to lug around an autocannon in my DH game would realize this. Half the party are Clerics (the kind that lead a melee from the front with an Eviscerator) or Assassins (Blade-bunnies, rather than Gun-Bunnies).
... and this dude wants to pour 4d10+ rounds down-range.
It is... but with "Only Human" in effect, everyone is capped at 25 W, and no one wants to get hit with a 4d10+, Pen 5 weapon. It's the off chance that getting hit means burning a Fate Point that has most people leery of getting down-range.
From an IC perspective, the Tech-Priest's apprentice has accidentally shot the leading cleric twice. That cleric believes that a failure of the student is a failure of the instructor, and so assumes the TP is likewise a terrible, terrible shot.
Going back to OP, it’s interesting to note that in one of Black Library’s newest novels: Baneblade, it’s has a reference to a sergeant, who is engaged in a firefight in a dust storm, and he states that the beams of their lasguns are being refracted by the storm’s sands, and their range was down to 50 metres or less. I smiled when I read that. Looks like BL authors are stating to take note of “science”.
I don't know if this has been mentioned yet but a lasgun has significant advantage over ballistic rounds on high gravity planets. Where a ballistic round would have considerable less range than a pulse/beam of light.
I mainly skimmed over this and I am not going to read other posts, for the sake of saving time I hope this helps! In the game fluff, you need to train billions of troopers, and you also need to equipped billions, of HIGLY expendable troopers. The lasgun battery (magazine) can hold up to 120 shots. Whereas a projectile magazine, generally holds 20-30 shots. Think about what it takes to make a bullet, and how much resources it would consume, to make enough bullets to equip the Imperial Guards men. On top of all this when shipping them would it be more costly to lose billions of batteries, or billions of bullets. The guard’s men are highly expendable; I personally see it worthless giving them bullets. Considering the fact that most won’t use them, they would kick the bucket before they shoot. With all the nasty that the universe throws at the Imperium, it seems more logical to give them 120 shots, rather then 20-30. If this is not enough the lasgun is practically maintenance free. This is my option on the Lasgun, hope this helps. And the answer your question about the comparison of bullets to lasers, there will not be a section of men firing at you. There will be a whole rifle battalion shooting generally at one target, making the lasgun relatively more effective.
A laser also doesn't suffer the ballistics and recoil issues that projectile weapons suffer, which means its not only easier to aim and fire (And thus easier to train to be accurate with) but it means that if the rate of fire of the two weapons is comparable, the guy with the lasgun will land more hits than the guy with the projectile weapon (because of those same ballistics and recoil issues.) Which means that a lasgun can technically still do more damage (consider a sustained raking beam on full auto, you can literally slice through your target relatively easily because of that precision and control - blow off limbs, cut off heads, etc.)
Lasers also can inflict thermal effects (flash burns) alongside blowing holes in people (which may or may not inflict bleeding, depending on your source). Bullets also rely on either deformation of the slug, or tumbling (esp. in rifle bullets) or fragmentation (such as with .223 NATO rounds.) to inflict damage, and those can be somewhat more unpredictable in effect. Lasweapons generally either burn or explode holes in their target, and that is somewhat more 'reliable' as a damage mechanism (At least against the same sort of material - lasweapons will get different performance against different materials. EG lasweapons will perform differently on rock and metal than they will on flesh.)
The charge setting option also adds to the versatility, since you have two different firing 'modes' that a normal slughthrower won't have (one might think of it as being like having two or more 'calibers' in the same gun, one more powerful than the other.)
Now, all that said, slugthrowers have certain advantages over lasweapons that never really get addressed. The tech base for stub/autoweapons is alot 'lower' than lasweaponry, and thus while lasweapons might have reliability in some ways (fewer to no moving parts than a projectile weapon) you don't need as sophisticated a tech base to develop or maintain projectile weapons. Likewise, being mechcanical in nature more often than not, slugthrowers are going to be immune to EMP and related effects, which you cannot say the same for a laser.
PEP is meant as a less lethal weapon by inflicting damage that reacts to nerves and stuff. It doesn't do any physical damage (although it might be useful in explaining pain/knockdown effects associated iwth lasweaponry at some times.)
Whether PIKL (which was a precursor to that) actually does any physical damage (There used to be a PDF on the topic on scribd but it got deleted and put behind a paywall elsewhere.) is up for debate, since there's not a great deal of information on it (assuming it went anywhere.) But hypothetical laser designers amongst the hard scifi crowd tend to expand on that rather dramatically as per [url=http://panoptesv.com/SciFi/LaserDeathRay/DeathRay.html]This site or the sidearms page of the [url=http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmenergy.php]atomic rockets site. There are a few designs by Luke Campbell on that site that closely resemble the uplifting primer/codex/rulebook depiction of laswepaons (comparable to autoweapons, 220 rpm rate of fire, etc.) Lasweapons seem to go with the 'pulsed explosive' idea, although lasweapons lack the penetration described, however (single pulses as opposed to a series of pulses, which result in greater penetration, which would probably be more in line with hellguns.)
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lynata wrote: Granted, this is something I'd just leave in the "Abnettverse" ...
... lack of standardisation for charge packs kind of circumvents the whole idea of why the lasgun is the Guard's weapon of choice in the first place.
Of course it can still happen that the Munitorum won't send you any chargepacks at all... *coughValhallanscough*
there is no such thing as 'standardization' in the Imperium. They can't even exert any kind of political control over the galaxy, much less logistical. Everything is left up to 'local' devices, which is precisely why the Munitorum and Guard operate the way they do, and its the same reason they have utterly unpredictable and random quality when it comes to troops AND equipment.
Having the Guard show up at a location with the wrong kind of ammo, even for lasguns, would make perfect sense in 40K terms. The Munitorum is supposed to be that bureuacratic and inept, remember?
Its alos a bad idea to get into blaster discussions, because they are not universally 'plasma' weapons (they vary from novel to novel. Medstar for example describes them as lightspeed beams, as does the novel 'Destiny's Way', whereas in Darth Maul shadow hunter they were particle beams, as well as PBs in the EGW&T and the NEGW&T. West end game definitions were even more bizarre, as they ranged from coherent light 'laser bullets' to running on chemical energy.) And don't even get into the movies, where you had them ejecting casings (CF TESB when Han is firing on Vader at Cloud City. also notable in that he closes his eyes before shooting and the bolt zips out of his gun when it's not evne aiming at Vader. Blasters apparently are self-aiming.)
Connor MacLeod wrote:Whether PIKL (which was a precursor to that) actually does any physical damage (There used to be a PDF on the topic on scribd but it got deleted and put behind a paywall elsewhere.) is up for debate, since there's not a great deal of information on it (assuming it went anywhere.)
Well, the PIKL was meant as a drone killer (if I remember correctly), so physical damage would've been a must-have. Of course it could just as well be that they didn't manage to get it done, which may be why they opted for the "lesser" version and rebranded it as a stunner.
But ultimately, it's just a matter of how much energy you put through, isn't it? The more juice, the faster the target area heats up. Sooo, at some point, when you crank it up high enough using sci-fi spacetech, it would be just about instantaneous ...?
Connor MacLeod wrote:there is no such thing as 'standardization' in the Imperium
Of course there is. Standard Template Construct, anyone?
Of course this standardisation is extremely limited ... but not totally absent.
I mean, the Imperium has standardised Rhinos but not lasgun chargepacks? Nah, I won't buy that - not just because a single freelance author thought it'd make for a cool minor plot element in some random novel.
Connor MacLeod wrote:Having the Guard show up at a location with the wrong kind of ammo, even for lasguns, would make perfect sense in 40K terms. The Munitorum is supposed to be that bureuacratic and inept, remember?
That's why the Guard can show up without ammo, as referenced in the IG 'dex - but one doesn't have to create additional logistical issues where they are unlikely to exist. I mean, for incompatible types of chargepacks to be in existence, somebody must have made a conscious decision to make them incompatible before coming up with a pattern, and then suceeding in pitching this to the Munitorum. And then the Munitorum has to decide that, yes, they actually will try running several different yet incompatible components alongside each other.
Sure it'd be possible to come up with some sort of backstory to it (industrial bribery?), but it'd be a stretch that - personally - I don't feel a need to bother with. The idea isn't cool enough to warrant an excuse, imho.
"A laser power pack will last for many shots and can be recharged from a standard power source or by exposing its thermal cells to heat or light." - GW Necromunda
"Las weapons are the most common type of weaponry found in the Imperium, as they are cheap to manufacture and easy to maintain. They also benefit from being easy to recharge, and ammunition shortage is rarely a problem." - GW Inquisitor RPG
This is 40k, though, so of course it's anyone's own business what they adopt and what they dismiss for their interpretation of the setting. Lots of sources contradict, which means we have to cherrypick from time to time. So if you like it ... no reason not to roll with it!
Connor MacLeod wrote:Its alos a bad idea to get into blaster discussions, because they are not universally 'plasma' weapons (they vary from novel to novel. Medstar for example describes them as lightspeed beams, as does the novel 'Destiny's Way', whereas in Darth Maul shadow hunter they were particle beams, as well as PBs in the EGW&T and the NEGW&T. West end game definitions were even more bizarre, as they ranged from coherent light 'laser bullets' to running on chemical energy.) And don't even get into the movies, where you had them ejecting casings (CF TESB when Han is firing on Vader at Cloud City. also notable in that he closes his eyes before shooting and the bolt zips out of his gun when it's not evne aiming at Vader. Blasters apparently are self-aiming.)
Some of those are probably just continuity issues where SW's canon policy elevates one source over another, whereas the TESB bits (what's "CF"?) sound like typical out-of-universe movie FX issues. I did not even notice those!
I mean, the Imperium has standardised Rhinos but not lasgun chargepacks? Nah, I won't buy that - not just because a single freelance author thought it'd make for a cool minor plot element in some random novel.
somebody must have made a conscious decision to make them incompatible before coming up with a pattern, and then suceeding in pitching this to the Munitorum. And then the Munitorum has to decide that, yes, they actually will try running several different yet incompatible components alongside each other.
So if you like it ... no reason not to roll with it!
Well, let's think of it this way - Most planets in the Imperium evolved separately for at least a few thousands years during the Age of Strife. During that time, they had lasguns on many worlds, rhinos on many worlds. They also had local variations on such designs. When the Imperium reintegrated these worlds together, they found an STC for Rhinos, and started mass-producing these on forgeworlds for the Adeptus Astartes. Thus all Rhinos are standard. However, each world equips it's own infantry, up to a light-infantry standard, and certainly Tanith's lasguns were made on Tanith.
All Guard regiments are shipped away from their own sector for warfare, and certainly in the case of a Crusade, they're going to come from all over. So whoever made the Tanith guns, well as far as they knew, size X ammo ports for your lasguns are standard, right? Every planet in our subsector uses them, and they're just better. No reason why anyone would make a different size, that defeats the point.
Meanwhile, as the crusade gathers, it turns out most people are using size Y ammo ports, and the Tanith are the exception. Someone high-up in the Munitorum team responsible for supplying the Phantine liberation force doesn't get the memo that the Tanith have size X ammo ports on their weapons. Or doesn't care. So the Tanith can't get their ammo.
Mind you, thinking about this, a much more likely outcome would be the munitorum clerk just saying 'oops, sorry, we've only got size Y charge packs, here's 5,000 Lasguns size Y that we had in storage. We've got 100 million in storage because these things last, and people keep losing the damn things anyway.'
I often wonder what happens to all the discarded lasguns and wargear left behind on battlefields. I was going to write a short story about it once actually, since the Lasgun is meant to be damn hardy, and the sheer volume of them lying around the galaxy must be obscene.
Anyway, of course YMMV in 40K, but I hope that helps that scene in The Guns of Tanith seem a bit more reasonable to you now
Well, let's think of it this way - Most planets in the Imperium evolved separately for at least a few thousands years during the Age of Strife. During that time, they had lasguns on many worlds, rhinos on many worlds. They also had local variations on such designs. When the Imperium reintegrated these worlds together, they found an STC for Rhinos, and started mass-producing these on forgeworlds for the Adeptus Astartes. Thus all Rhinos are standard. However, each world equips it's own infantry, up to a light-infantry standard, and certainly Tanith's lasguns were made on Tanith.
All Guard regiments are shipped away from their own sector for warfare, and certainly in the case of a Crusade, they're going to come from all over. So whoever made the Tanith guns, well as far as they knew, size X ammo ports for your lasguns are standard, right? Every planet in our subsector uses them, and they're just better. No reason why anyone would make a different size, that defeats the point.
Meanwhile, as the crusade gathers, it turns out most people are using size Y ammo ports, and the Tanith are the exception. Someone high-up in the Munitorum team responsible for supplying the Phantine liberation force doesn't get the memo that the Tanith have size X ammo ports on their weapons. Or doesn't care. So the Tanith can't get their ammo.
Mind you, thinking about this, a much more likely outcome would be the munitorum clerk just saying 'oops, sorry, we've only got size Y charge packs, here's 5,000 Lasguns size Y that we had in storage. We've got 100 million in storage because these things last, and people keep losing the damn things anyway.'
I often wonder what happens to all the discarded lasguns and wargear left behind on battlefields. I was going to write a short story about it once actually, since the Lasgun is meant to be damn hardy, and the sheer volume of them lying around the galaxy must be obscene.
Anyway, of course YMMV in 40K, but I hope that helps that scene in The Guns of Tanith seem a bit more reasonable to you now
Cap'n R
I thought that the lasgun wasn't adopted by the Guard until M32, two thousand years after the Horus Heresy, or "War between the Planets", as our American Cousins may say
Wasn't the Imperial Army pre, and during the HH armed ballistic/hard-round weaponry?
I thought that the lasgun wasn't adopted by the Guard until M32, two thousand years after the Horus Heresy, or "War between the Planets", as our American Cousins may say
Wasn't the Imperial Army pre, and during the HH armed ballistic/hard-round weaponry?
I was trying to find a reference for this, where did you find it? The only reference I can find to standardisation in the Imperial Army was that there wasn't any, which was a massive ballache for all involved. So it's not to say that plenty of regiments didn't have Lasguns before, but not everyone did, and they sure as hell weren't standardised. So maybe the Departmento Munitorum came to be in M32, and they said 'all you bitches, switch to lasguns'.
I understand this is somewhat undermining my position on Tanith having a different standard for its lasweaponry however. Still, although the sizes may be standardised (perhaps 1 through 10?) it still doesn't mean you're going to have the right size all the time. So maybe everyone else on Phantine uses standard size 5's, and nobody realised to get the size 3's put on the right drogue for the Tanith...
Captain Roderick wrote:Well, let's think of it this way - Most planets in the Imperium evolved separately for at least a few thousands years during the Age of Strife. During that time, they had lasguns on many worlds, rhinos on many worlds. They also had local variations on such designs. When the Imperium reintegrated these worlds together, they found an STC for Rhinos, and started mass-producing these on forgeworlds for the Adeptus Astartes. Thus all Rhinos are standard. However, each world equips it's own infantry, up to a light-infantry standard, and certainly Tanith's lasguns were made on Tanith.
Variations, yes. Within limits.
"The Rhino became the standard transport vehicle of human armies across the galaxy, with different variants falling in and out of favour as the nature of Man's enemies and battlefields changed. The armies of Mankind spread throughout the galaxy, and many hundreds of worlds were brought within this growing galactic empire. As more enemies were encountered, the STC systems provided these early armies with many different variants of the Rhino such as the Predator, Immolator and Whirlwind." - WD #269
The local adoptions took the form of different turrets etc, versions still (or rather, again) produced in M41 - however, incompatible chargepacks would be more akin to one variant of the Rhino suddenly using different bolts and rivets. Whilst this too is not impossible, I just can't come up with a good enough reason for why/how this should happen, and likewise why a power port should suddenly take a different shape (which would also render any and all lasguns produced locally before this new variant incompatible to the new model) or something like that. Unlike a Rhino-variant taking a new weapon on its turret, there's just no advantage I can see here.
To me, variations of lasguns are more likely to take the shape of different stocks, different lengths of barrels, integrated optics, or the popular adjustable charge capacitor of the Triplex-pattern. Or, yes, even power packs with a longer/shorter battery life - either due to the materials used in construction (just like modern day batteries) or by increasing their size downward. None of this has to make any part incompatible to another, so why do this?
I think that dependency on specialised ammunition would take a huge advantage away from the lasgun. Imperial Guard regiments are sent all over the galaxy, and a unit may find itself fighting on the other edge of the Imperium after ten years of faithful service. Good luck trying to get steady supplies from your homeworld there.
No... as per the Codex fluff, Guard regiments receive no support from their homeworld whatsoever. No spare parts, no reinforcements (which is why they get merged with other units, often regardless of origin, if they go understrength), and no ammunition. Once they're raised and tithed, all ties are cut (exceptions seem to exist, such as the Cadian Shock Troops rotating in and out of their homeworld's Interior Guard). The only thing that keeps a regiment supplied is the Adeptus Munitorum, and certainly it'd be much more efficient to send them supplies from a planet in close proximity to their deployment, rather than assigning a fleet of freighters criss-crossing the galaxy just to deliver their yearly allotment of non-standard power packs, non-standard spare parts and non-standard missiles etc. I don't think the latter is even doable.
Ammunition shortage would not be "rarely a problem", as the Inquisitor game attests, and certainly lasguns could not be recharged from a "standard power source", as Necromunda claims, if this standard does not exist.
And let's not even touch bolt weapon caliber here... all those heavy weapons need to be fed ammo as well, and more than the las weapons even.
But yes ... as you said: YMMV. I guess we just "grew up" on different things and have correspondingly different interpretations of the setting when it comes to details such as these. It's not a big deal, anyways, just different preferences.
Lynata wrote: Well, the PIKL was meant as a drone killer (if I remember correctly), so physical damage would've been a must-have. Of course it could just as well be that they didn't manage to get it done, which may be why they opted for the "lesser" version and rebranded it as a stunner.
It was designed for both anti-mateiral and anti-personnel roles, althought hey generalized that with either defeating reacitve armor or 'blunt trauma' whatever that meant (it could do blunt trauma to AM and AP tragets both.)
But ultimately, it's just a matter of how much energy you put through, isn't it? The more juice, the faster the target area heats up. Sooo, at some point, when you crank it up high enough using sci-fi spacetech, it would be just about instantaneous ...?
It depends entirely on how the laser is designed. I know that with modern surgical lasers there were the old type that would rely on heating the target (and were not very neat or tidy) whilst newer designs have focused more on pulsed lasers (less energy needed because you rely on mechanical damage mechanisms - eg explosions - to do the work.) The chief problem with a realistic 'heat ray' style laser, the 'burn stuff' type is that burning a narrow hole through someone doesn't really do a great deal of damage (especially if you cauterize the wound). And that assumes the person is dumb enough to stand still and get hit while the laser heats its way through - anyone who has had contact with anything hot will know that your body tells you when it is getting burnt. Heck think about how you feel after you get sunburned.
The only way a heat ray will burn something 'fast' is if you use it flamethrower or wide-beam style to burn large aprts of the body (literal flashlights, in other words) or its actually firing some sort of particle beam.
If its a pulse laser (which basically uses a pulse of energy to simulate an explosion.) a single large pulse could in theory do a lot of damage, but it would have absolutely no penetration (and things like intervening brush or branches would stop the shot.) A successive series of shots (which I've known to be described as a pulse train) seems to be the ideal desired means of doing damage - bullet level energies to do simulate bullet wound like damage on the target, more or less.
Of course there is. Standard Template Construct, anyone?
Of course this standardisation is extremely limited ... but not totally absent.
I mean, the Imperium has standardised Rhinos but not lasgun chargepacks? Nah, I won't buy that - not just because a single freelance author thought it'd make for a cool minor plot element in some random novel.
Are you saying the Imperium possesses only one kind of battery, one kind of laser, etc.? I find that hard to believe. I don't evne have to appeal to 'Non-GW' sources, since I know you absolutely loathe those, this is a simple fact of real life. Even allowing for a single 'kind' of battery or laser, there is tremendous amount of variation in construction and performance (the way the laser is generated, the way the battery functions, or effieincy levels, or whatever.) Much like they've 'standardized' slugthrowers that hardly means that there aren't variations in caliber and suchlike - it would literally be impossible to keep slughthrowers even remotely identical from world to world due to variances in tech level, resources, etc. Heck we know they have cased and caseless autoguns alone. Or what about the 2nd edition IG codex (for example) describing Chimeras? IIRC they had quite a diversity in powerplants. And many vehicles, including Rhinos, are designed to run on a variety of differnet fuels, be constructed from and repaired by a wide variety of materials depending on local conditions, etc. Differences in material quality alone will radically alter performance. We know for example that ceramite and adamantium are extremely durable - materials that allow various sorts of attack craft (such as thunderhawks) to endure repeated atmospheric reentry, something that common iron or steel or aluminum/titanium would not normally permit.
Connor MacLeod wrote:That's why the Guard can show up without ammo, as referenced in the IG 'dex - but one doesn't have to create additional logistical issues where they are unlikely to exist. I mean, for incompatible types of chargepacks to be in existence, somebody must have made a conscious decision to make them incompatible before coming up with a pattern, and then suceeding in pitching this to the Munitorum. And then the Munitorum has to decide that, yes, they actually will try running several different yet incompatible components alongside each other.
Sure it'd be possible to come up with some sort of backstory to it (industrial bribery?), but it'd be a stretch that - personally - I don't feel a need to bother with. The idea isn't cool enough to warrant an excuse, imho.
Are you suggesting that the Munitorum is capable of large scale, pan galactic coordination of the sort that the High Lords of terra themselves are explicitly stated to lack? Recall that the difficulties in astrotelepathy and warp travel make administration of the Imperium at the galactic level nigh-impossible, which is why they have to focus on the big picture and delegate authorities as the local levels (such as in how the Munitorum/Guard responds to the threat, as outlined in various Codexes.)
"A laser power pack will last for many shots and can be recharged from a standard power source or by exposing its thermal cells to heat or light." - GW Necromunda
"Las weapons are the most common type of weaponry found in the Imperium, as they are cheap to manufacture and easy to maintain. They also benefit from being easy to recharge, and ammunition shortage is rarely a problem." - GW Inquisitor RPG
As you are often fond of saying, the fluff is often variable/fond of contradicting itself.
I'll just skip over the disclaimer because I'm well familiar with your policy regarding fluff.
Some of those are probably just continuity issues where SW's canon policy elevates one source over another, whereas the TESB bits (what's "CF"?) sound like typical out-of-universe movie FX issues. I did not even notice those!
What little consistency remains in Star Wars' so called 'canon' policy, tends to be ridiculously all inclusive, as is evidenced by the approach taken on Wookieepedia (where even the toys and amusement park rides are considered to be 'in-universe' canon.) I doubt you could get away with just saying 'FX issues' and stay consistent with that sort of canon policy. Especially going by the whole GCSN thing (although since Disney bought Lucasfilm, it's anyones guess how canon might change yet again.)
Connor MacLeod wrote:If its a pulse laser (which basically uses a pulse of energy to simulate an explosion.) a single large pulse could in theory do a lot of damage, but it would have absolutely no penetration (and things like intervening brush or branches would stop the shot.)
From how I've understood GW's description of las weapon effects, the "penetration" would occur by the material in the target area itself exploding due to rapid expansion in response to the flash-heating beam, thus giving way for how many milliseconds of beam are left. It certainly isn't a penetration in the classical sense that it just punches through.
Connor MacLeod wrote:Are you saying the Imperium possesses only one kind of battery, one kind of laser, etc.?
No, as mentioned and explained in my last post above yours there is indeed room for different patterns. I just don't buy that they would be entirely incompatible and inexchangable for no good reason. For a real-life comparison, take the standard household AAA battery. There's ones made from zink-carbon, alkaline, lithium, nickel-cadmium, ... all performing differently in terms of capacity and other factors, yet magically you can fit 'em all into the same device. That's how I see lasgun chargepacks, although there is room for different shapes in my interpretation as well - as long as the shape stays compatible to the standard lasgun loading port.
Kinda like so.
Connor MacLeod wrote:I don't evne have to appeal to 'Non-GW' sources, since I know you absolutely loathe those, this is a simple fact of real life.
That's only half-true, actually. I dismiss most of them as the authors tend to go off on their own with their ideas, either without doing research or simply because they don't care - but there is a number of non-GW products in my possession which I have enjoyed a lot, haverecommendedto others (yes, that's 3 links), and in some cases even adopted aspects thereof into my own little vision of M41. I just don't tend to discuss the latter here as that's even less of a common ground than GW's own writings.
Connor MacLeod wrote:Much like they've 'standardized' slugthrowers that hardly means that there aren't variations in caliber and suchlike - it would literally be impossible to keep slughthrowers even remotely identical from world to world due to variances in tech level, resources, etc.
That sounds like you wouldn't even trust the Space Marines to have standardised bolt weapons/ammunition.
Connor MacLeod wrote:Heck we know they have cased and caseless autoguns alone.
And why not? The Imperium doesn't care much what some local weaponsmith tinkers together in his workshop. The Imperium cares for its armies, and those are armed with lasguns.
Connor MacLeod wrote:Or what about the 2nd edition IG codex (for example) describing Chimeras? IIRC they had quite a diversity in powerplants.
"The Chimera chassis provides the basis for countless specialised vehicles from fuel tankers to ambulances, munitions carriers, mobile communications vehicles, recovery vehicles and even military construction vehicles like bulldozers and cranes. It is the most versatile of all the vehicles produced for the Imperial Guard and it can be adapted to take almost any power plant, from sub-nuclear stacks to wood-burning steam turbines." - 2E C:IG
"Can be adapted" isn't quite the same as "produced with". Ironically, what you were recalling actually speaks more in favour of a certain degree in standardisation - you couldn't fit so many different types engines into a tank chassis otherwise. Not to mention that the Chimera is itself a standard, and the basis for a wide range of vehicles all based on the same template.
Connor MacLeod wrote:Are you suggesting that the Munitorum is capable of large scale, pan galactic coordination of the sort that the High Lords of terra themselves are explicitly stated to lack?
No. Which is exactly why I think it's a bit daft to assume that the Munitorum can arrange the transportation of different sorts of ammunition halfway across the galaxy when it's much easier to just order "standard lasgun charge packs" from the world closest to the regiment's current position.
Connor MacLeod wrote:As you are often fond of saying, the fluff is often variable/fond of contradicting itself.
Which is why we sometimes have to pick between the GW-verse and the Abnettverse, for example.
Which we prefer and choose to go with is nobody's business but our own, as long as we realise the consequences of such a decision and the potentially resulting gap in source compatibility.
Connor MacLeod wrote:What little consistency remains in Star Wars' so called 'canon' policy, tends to be ridiculously all inclusive, as is evidenced by the approach taken on Wookieepedia (where even the toys and amusement park rides are considered to be 'in-universe' canon.) I doubt you could get away with just saying 'FX issues' and stay consistent with that sort of canon policy. Especially going by the whole GCSN thing (although since Disney bought Lucasfilm, it's anyones guess how canon might change yet again.)
I see polite requests for explanation regarding non-standard abbreviations don't work. Very well, it probably wasn't important anyways.
Doubt all you will, but I've never seen someone claim that, for example, TIE-Fighters have some sort of grey'ish cube of atmosphere around their hull just because in some scenes you could see the not-quite-as-dark-as-background-space square from the model shots the FX department didn't manage to remove until the respective scenes were revised decades later.
Even with an established canon there will always be arguments - stupid ones, too. But at least you've got a set of universal rules to point to, which means that everyone operates on a common ground. Here is the relevant article, by the way, as you seem to have misinterpreted something regarding "aumsement park rides" etc.
Lyanata, I think we can finally come to an agreement...
you used AAA batteries as an example. Great! What about size D, size C, size AA? All standard, all different.
Dan Abnett wrote: The clerk picked up the clip and looked at it. We were instructed to issue ammunition. Eight hundred boxes. Standard pattern.' 'Standard size three,' said Varl patiently. That's standard size five.' 'Standard pattern, they said. I've got the docket.' 'I'm sure you have. And the Tanith First-and-Only have got boxes and boxes of ammo that they can't use.' 'It said standard pattern.' Varl sighed. 'Everything's standard pattern! This is the Imperial fething Guard! Standard pattern boots, standard pattern mess-tins, standard pattern bodybags! I'm a standard pattern infantryman and you're a standard pattern no-neck, and any minute now my standard pattern fist is going to smack your nose bone back into your very sub-standard pattern brain!'
So the ghosts end up on a drogue that only has AA batteries, and their lasguns only take AAA.
Captain Roderick wrote:Ah-Ha!
Lyanata, I think we can finally come to an agreement...
you used AAA batteries as an example. Great! What about size D, size C, size AA? All standard, all different.
They are incompatible, not standardised, so the comparison stops to apply once you broaden it to other types of batteries.
This was no mistake - I specifically picked a singular type of battery for a reason, to show that you can have different sub-types with differing performance without making stuff not fit together anymore.
I don't think we actually can come to an agreement on this (unless you manage to dig up something in a GW source, that'd be your joker due to my self-adopted policy) ... but we don't need to, either! I think it's really just a matter of what books (and hence fluff) we "grew up" with when it comes to 40k.
The quote was funny, though. I may not agree with Mr. Abnett's ideas (or at least not all of them; afaik he also invented the Blood Pact, and that was cool), but I won't discredit his writing style, though I only know a single short story he wrote.
(in context, doesn't that kind of mess with the idea that the Imperium doesn't do standardisation on this level? "size three vs size five" is rather remarkable on a galactic style also, and not so different than if you had only a single size for all)
I don't think we actually can come to an agreement on this (unless you manage to dig up something in a GW source, that'd be your joker due to my self-adopted policy) ... but we don't need to, either! I think it's really just a matter of what books (and hence fluff) we "grew up" with when it comes to 40k.
(in context, doesn't that kind of mess with the idea that the Imperium doesn't do standardisation on this level? "size three vs size five" is rather remarkable on a galactic style also, and not so different than if you had only a single size for all)
Yeah fine, let's not agree
And yes, my argument is constantly evolving, I have no idea what my original points were any more, I'm just trying to find some agreement with you... it's all over now
And I love most of Abnett's work, I also love the fact that a lot of the 'Abnettverse' became canon, since he started writing around the beginning of 3rd ed, and the background was getting a little stale then. It's the better parts of BL that have been folded into the mainstream that make the universe so much more addictive now than it was.
Okay. I think I just ordered it from Amazon or Black Library back then.
