Watched an interesting video recently where Mr Matt talks about advantages and disadvantages of melee weapons vs firearms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKHdJfnM9rA

What do you think? Maybe all that swords have a real appeal in 40k.

No, they're still dumb.

It's been justified that defense has outpace offensive output, sorta like dune

Melee weapons make a little bit of sense for marines since they've picked a ranged weapon that is less effective at short range (since boltgun rounds are rocket propelled they won't be at maximum velocity until some distance after leaving the muzzle).

Of course, a better gun makes more sense than a chainsword and (virtually) all of the other weapons in the setting don't have this issue.

Boltguns are also dumb, though.

Melee weapons will always have a place in warfare.

They're silent, don't require ammunition, stealthy, quick to use, ideal for covert operations etc etc.

On top of that Daemons are harmed by melee weapons more than by ranged weapons (due to symbolism - it's in the fluff).



Melee weapons likely wouldn't be the main weapons, but they will have a purpose.

"On top of that Daemons are harmed by melee weapons more than by ranged weapons"

Except they aren't.

Martel732 wrote:
"On top of that Daemons are harmed by melee weapons more than by ranged weapons"

Except they aren't.

Actually, I think that is touched on in the fluff? In one of the HH books, Know No Fear, I think?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"On top of that Daemons are harmed by melee weapons more than by ranged weapons"

Except they aren't.

Actually, I think that is touched on in the fluff? In one of the HH books, Know No Fear, I think?

In the crunch it's not true. The fluff means nothing. The best anti-demon weapon is the scatterlaser. Here, make 200 saves. Can't? I guess back to the warp with you. If the Imperium fielded mass multilasers, they'd be 3/4 as good as the Eldar.

The fluff means plenty to a lot of people. Personally that's what keeps my interest, also why would the imperium use scatter lasers a xenos weapon.

 Wulfmar wrote:
Melee weapons will always have a place in warfare.

They're silent, don't require ammunition, stealthy, quick to use, ideal for covert operations etc etc.

Not so much with a chainsword... And there are exceptionally few situations where a melee weapon is more useful than a suppressed firearm (but the firearm is more useful in many situations).

 Wulfmar wrote:

On top of that Daemons are harmed by melee weapons more than by ranged weapons (due to symbolism - it's in the fluff).

There is that. If you're fighting a different alien race every week then I guess it pays to keep your weapon options versatile.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
The fluff means plenty to a lot of people. Personally that's what keeps my interest, also why would the imperium use scatter lasers a xenos weapon.

Because they work. And winning matters. That said, they have the multilaser, they are just idiots about not fielding enough of them. Personally, I think the IG should have at least 20 multilasers per list.

When I set up my models, the BA fluff doesn't matter. The BA crunch does. And in the crunch, the BA can't beat anyone regardless of what the fluff claims. Fluff = meaningless.

Shielding to projectiles could become so good that melee weapons become the way to bypass shielding.

Well considering the modern day, biological enhancements and bio-mechanical enhancements could potentially make melee weapons more valuable as you can stop or deflect missiles/rounds/etc, and CC skill becomes the modus operandi of arms.

If you consider that an age of human warfare similarly takes place in the near future, say 2000 years from now, and those enhancements and abilities were lost, it could very well be that a large number of power swords and chainswords and other CC weapons would be left over from that age.
The Imperium may just be using what's available, in a way that's unintended from it's original purpose.

The mass number of chainswords and power weapons may also be left overs from the iron men, who with mass numbers and superhuman capabilities, would have no reason to fear CC over modern firearm-based combat.

My 2 pence.

If you take a look at medieval times with plate armour, when ordinary ranged weapons were drastically less effective, it took melee weapons in order to have any real chance of scoring a kill.

It would be easier to aim for weak points in armour, and a proper melee attack will have more force than a projectile.

Now with modern guns it is a bit different obviously but assuming ranged and defense technology is balanced, the advantages of melee come back to being a major factor.

The other aspect is that it is very difficult to kill someone charging at you with a melee weapon, there are many videos on YouTube about this. If your weapon is ready and already aiming at the target down range you will have a good chance, if you need to bring a weapon up and aim it would be 50/50, and if they weapon was hostered the charging attacker almost always wins within 30 feet.

Martel732 wrote:
"On top of that Daemons are harmed by melee weapons more than by ranged weapons"

Except they aren't.

If people are going to quote me - don't mis-quote by chopping out ESSENTIAL parts of what I said.


ITS IN THE FLUFF.

Suddenly the WHOLE meaning of what I said changes ffs

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Melee weapons will always have a place in warfare.

They're silent, don't require ammunition, stealthy, quick to use, ideal for covert operations etc etc.

Not so much with a chainsword... And there are exceptionally few situations where a melee weapon is more useful than a suppressed firearm (but the firearm is more useful in many situations).

Aye for this bit I remember reading (I think it was one of the HH series) that the chainswords are more about horrifying the enemy by the brutality of the Imperial armoury - it's a psychological weapon to break their spirits when they see the mess they make of their fellow soldiers.

If someone can remember the book - I believe it was a scene where marines are charging through a palace to kill a planetary leader pretending to be the Emperor (I *think* I may be getting the plots mixed here)

 Wulfmar wrote:
the chainswords are more about horrifying the enemy by the brutality of the Imperial armoury - it's a psychological weapon to break their spirits when they see the mess they make of their fellow soldiers.

Chainswords: For horrifying* your enemies!!!
*May not apply to Other Space Marines, Necrons, Chaos Daemons, Orks, Chaos Space Marines, Tyranids or humans/Tau/Eldar of strong constitution.

 Mantorok wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
the chainswords are more about horrifying the enemy by the brutality of the Imperial armoury - it's a psychological weapon to break their spirits when they see the mess they make of their fellow soldiers.

Chainswords: For horrifying* your enemies!!!
*May not apply to Other Space Marines, Necrons, Chaos Daemons, Orks, Chaos Space Marines, Tyranids or humans/Tau/Eldar of strong constitution.

Y'know, you should read the Black Library books - there's thousands of races in the galaxy who are terrified by them - including humans.

The use of chainswords for psychological reasons is also the same as why the marines use their Boltgun rounds on human soldiers - when other ammunition is equally effective and less costly - It's the dramatic mess they make to horrify the enemy and make the statement they stand no chance (again referring to stuff in the books)

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Mantorok wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
the chainswords are more about horrifying the enemy by the brutality of the Imperial armoury - it's a psychological weapon to break their spirits when they see the mess they make of their fellow soldiers.

Chainswords: For horrifying* your enemies!!!
*May not apply to Other Space Marines, Necrons, Chaos Daemons, Orks, Chaos Space Marines, Tyranids or humans/Tau/Eldar of strong constitution.

Y'know, you should read the Black Library books - there's thousands of races in the galaxy who are terrified by them - including humans.

The use of chainswords for psychological reasons is also the same as why the marines use their Boltgun rounds on human soldiers - when other ammunition is equally effective and less costly - It's the dramatic mess they make to horrify the enemy and make the statement they stand no chance (again referring to stuff in the books)

Its true that I haven't read that many books outside of the codexes.
I've read the first Night Lords Soul Hunter book and an Imperial Fist book Sons of Dorn, but there are SO MANY BL books.
Besides I'm still trying to finish the LoTR books, and I'm not even halfway through the first audiobook, which is 19 hours.

Anyways, I was making more of a statement from a tabletop perspective.
I can't imagine that too many 40K armies would be that scared of chainswords, but I suppose that's just the narrow view of the universe that the TT is given.
Though the other races are most likely to insignificant to be their own codex, especially if they're scared of chainswords.

Martel732 wrote:
Boltguns are also dumb, though.

Out of curiosity, why do you even play this game? You clearly dislike the setting, and you also (though understandably) hate the rules.
So why do you play a faction that uses both bolt guns and CC weapons? You play BA, do you not?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Boltguns are also dumb, though.

Out of curiosity, why do you even play this game? You clearly dislike the setting, and you also (though understandably) hate the rules.
So why do you play a faction that uses both bolt guns and CC weapons? You play BA, do you not?

Yeah, I chose them in 1994. I thought their fluff was cool at the time. And I'm way too cheap and dislike GW way too much to do a second list. This where I realize that I'm the pariah in the wasteland, as almost every poster on here has more than one list.

I like the story of the BA, but now the crunch invalidates everything ever written about BA. Good job, GW. BA can't fight their way out of a paper bag now.

Melee weapons have a place, but armies should not be built around them.

EDIT:

I should say, armies that -are- built around punching your opponent to death should expect to lose.

 Wulfmar wrote:
Melee weapons will always have a place in warfare.

They're silent, don't require ammunition, stealthy, quick to use, ideal for covert operations etc etc.

Indeed. After all, nothing is more stealthy than a jump pack
On a serious note, the idea of melee weapons in the setting never bothered me.
Sometimes walking up to someone and stabbing them in the eye is more effective then shooting them out of cover.
Its not as if everyone is dedicated for melee anyway. There's only a handful of units in the game who are supposed to engage in CC.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Melee weapons have a place, but armies should not be built around them.

EDIT:

I should say, armies that -are- built around punching your opponent to death should expect to lose.

This offends Khorne greatly.
Gork and Mork agree.

The arguement of unlimited ammo advantage of melee weapons over firearms is pretty convincing in reality of 40k.

In modern day you need like 1-2 good hits to incapacitate a foe. But how hard is it to get those hits? Even the best shooters won't go for 1 bullet for one casualty ratio. Actually, statistics shows that you need a shockingly large ammount of bullets to kill someone.

Don't know if it's some confirmed information but have seen it in many places.

In Would War II, the United States and its allies expended 25,000 rounds of ammunition to kill a single enemy soldier. In the Korean War, the ammunition expenditure had increased four-fold to 100,000 rounds per soldier; in the Vietnam War, that figure had doubled to 200,000 rounds of ammunition for the death of a single enemy soldier.

That most likely includes machine guns that are primarily used not for killing but for pinning enemy soldiers to allow your own assault teams advance forward. Even if it's 100 times higher than numbers for hand guns...it's still some awful lot of ammunition. In fact, most casualties were caused by artillery.

And that's shooting at puny umiez. Yes, umiez tend to hide well but imagine you're facing a freaking swarm of tyranids or a horde of orks. Heck, even imperial guardsmen with bayonetes. You'll inevitebly end up in close quarters and out of ammo or with no time to reload.

Another arguement that convinces me is that it's possible to do cumulative damage with melee weapons. You can hit the same spot many times. Whereas it's very unlikely that you hit the same spot of a moving target with a ranged weapon - be it far away or up close. And it does matter against things that don't go down to one hit like umiez do.

 koooaei wrote:
The arguement of unlimited ammo advantage of melee weapons over firearms is pretty convincing in reality of 40k.

In modern day you need like 1-2 good hits to incapacitate a foe. But how hard is it to get those hits? Even the best shooters won't go for 1 bullet for one casualty ratio. Actually, statistics shows that you need a shockingly large ammount of bullets to kill someone.

Don't know if it's some confirmed information but have seen it in many places.

In Would War II, the United States and its allies expended 25,000 rounds of ammunition to kill a single enemy soldier. In the Korean War, the ammunition expenditure had increased four-fold to 100,000 rounds per soldier; in the Vietnam War, that figure had doubled to 200,000 rounds of ammunition for the death of a single enemy soldier.

That most likely includes machine guns that are primarily used not for killing but for pinning enemy soldiers to allow your own assault teams advance forward. Even if it's 100 times higher than numbers for hand guns...it's still some awful lot of ammunition. In fact, most casualties were caused by artillery.

And that's shooting at puny umiez. Yes, umiez tend to hide well but imagine you're facing a freaking swarm of tyranids or a horde of orks. Heck, even imperial guardsmen with bayonetes. You'll inevitebly end up in close quarters and out of ammo or with no time to reload.

Another arguement that convinces me is that it's possible to do cumulative damage with melee weapons. You can hit the same spot many times. Whereas it's very unlikely that you hit the same spot of a moving target with a ranged weapon - be it far away or up close. And it does matter against things that don't go down to one hit like umiez do.

Yeh, I remember having to resort to melee a lot in Space Marine, as you can only carry so much ammo.
Also keep in mind that its easier to reach a weak point with a melee weapon.
With a knife one can stab under the ribcage and into the heart.
With a gun you have to go through the ribcage. Fine if the target is human, but its some alien with tougher bones? Much harder.

I think there is a big issue where some people have read the fluff, others are relating it to the real world (and both have more in common) - and then some are basing it on literal tabletop rules which are, let's face it, as complete odds with the previous two (where Space marines are weak compared to normal humans and die in droves and cover means nothing because all weapons ignore it and everyone is practically a hero as leadership is so high / everyone has some rule to negate it)

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Melee weapons will always have a place in warfare.

They're silent, don't require ammunition, stealthy, quick to use, ideal for covert operations etc etc.

Indeed. After all, nothing is more stealthy than a jump pack
On a serious note, the idea of melee weapons in the setting never bothered me.
Sometimes walking up to someone and stabbing them in the eye is more effective then shooting them out of cover.
Its not as if everyone is dedicated for melee anyway. There's only a handful of units in the game who are supposed to engage in CC.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Melee weapons have a place, but armies should not be built around them.

EDIT:

I should say, armies that -are- built around punching your opponent to death should expect to lose.

This offends Khorne greatly.
Gork and Mork agree.

Khorne cares not from when the blood flows - charging to your death and bleeding out in front of enemy gunlines is just as worthy praise to Khorne as shooting the enemy yourself. Swords aren't mandatory.

Gork is brutal, yes, but cunning - cunning enough to know that charging entrenched positions with machine guns and artillery fire zones is full of stupid.
Mork is cunning - cunning enough to know that.... well you get the point. And also he is brutal.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Melee weapons make a little bit of sense for marines since they've picked a ranged weapon that is less effective at short range (since boltgun rounds are rocket propelled they won't be at maximum velocity until some distance after leaving the muzzle).

Of course, a better gun makes more sense than a chainsword and (virtually) all of the other weapons in the setting don't have this issue.

Bolters are a two-stage munition. They have a standard powder propellant before the rocket kicks in. The bolt-round is lethal at the muzzle.

Need justification? Go watch Aliens. Pay particular attention to Lt. Gorman's panic when it's pointed out to him that his platoon are in the coolant facility for the reactor.. and his subsequent order to NOT USE GUNS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE.

In regards to the Imperium the Imperial Guard do not make extensive use of close combat troops. Space Marines on the other hand do, but *Space* Marines are so named because a big part of their raison d'être is boarding spaceships where there are going to be lots of instances like the above.

Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

Maybe they have special ammo that contains an oxygen supply for use in vacuum and non-oxygen atmospheres?

works for me, like compressed O2 / solid O2 (I don't know if it would actually work but *shrugs* it's a more believable reason than any so far given in the books ^^)

 Wulfmar wrote:
works for me, like compressed O2 / solid O2 (I don't know if it would actually work but *shrugs* it's a more believable reason than any so far given in the books ^^)

They made rocket motors work with the Apollo lunar spacecraft work in space decades ago in real life. I'm sure in the 28,000 years between then and the Horus Heresy they could've figured something out for bolters.

Hell, in the year 40,000 in real life, they may have dug up an old WH40k lore booklet and laughed at how primitive our vision of the future was. After figuring out a way to translate it and probably getting it horribly wrong.

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

This is nonsense. Most explosives (including propellants typically used in firearms) contain their own oxidiser and will work just fine in a vacuum or under water.

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

You are assuming that GW understands ballistics and physics
Anyway, it is possible that they use a propellant that does not need oxygen.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

This is nonsense. Most explosives (including propellants typically used in firearms) contain their own oxidiser and will work just fine in a vacuum or under water.

Quoted for Truth.

 Gashrog wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

This is nonsense. Most explosives (including propellants typically used in firearms) contain their own oxidiser and will work just fine in a vacuum or under water.

Quoted for Truth.

Well done, both of you for reading all the posts after this one - is was explained by Pouncy. I found out about the oxidisers after looking up the rockets she mentioned

 Pouncey wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
works for me, like compressed O2 / solid O2 (I don't know if it would actually work but *shrugs* it's a more believable reason than any so far given in the books ^^)

They made rocket motors work with the Apollo lunar spacecraft work in space decades ago in real life. I'm sure in the 28,000 years between then and the Horus Heresy they could've figured something out for bolters.

Hell, in the year 40,000 in real life, they may have dug up an old WH40k lore booklet and laughed at how primitive our vision of the future was. After figuring out a way to translate it and probably getting it horribly wrong.

"According to this document, our ancestors had a book of faces, and used it to make farms. What a bunch of filthy heretics!"

 Wulfmar wrote:

Well done, both of you for reading all the posts after this one - is was explained by Pouncy. I found out about the oxidisers after looking up the rockets she mentioned

Not really - Apollo carried separate fuel and oxider which it mixed during use.

Most explosives actually contain their own oxidiser - they would be very ineffective without them (because only the surface that's exposed to air would be able to combust).

This really should have been obvious. How do you think that the explosive inside a bomb casing goes off? Or underwater explosives (mines, depth charges, torpedoes, etc). Not to mention - if you believe that a round of ammunition for a gun requires air to get into it in order for it to go off then how do they keep water out?

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:

Well done, both of you for reading all the posts after this one - is was explained by Pouncy. I found out about the oxidisers after looking up the rockets she mentioned

Not really - Apollo carried separate fuel and oxider which it mixed during use.

Most explosives actually contain their own oxidiser - they would be very ineffective without them (because only the surface that's exposed to air would be able to combust).

This really should have been obvious. How do you think that the explosive inside a bomb casing goes off? Or underwater explosives (mines, depth charges, torpedoes, etc). Not to mention - if you believe that a round of ammunition for a gun requires air to get into it in order for it to go off then how do they keep water out?

I wouldn't be too rough on him for it, do you know how many people still believe a bullet will "shoot" if they throw a round into a fire?

Melee weapons are dependable at the least. A blade is always going to hurt, either sharp or dulled (dulled are more painful).

Guns obviously have the advantage of range, but they can run out of ammo, jam, friendly fire, etc

 Frozocrone wrote:
Melee weapons are dependable at the least. A blade is always going to hurt, either sharp or dulled (dulled are more painful).

Guns obviously have the advantage of range, but they can run out of ammo, jam, friendly fire, etc

I mean, a gun jamming is about the same thing as a sword breaking.

And the funniest part about guns is that it's a false dichotomy; they're not helpless in melee. You don't have to 'choose' between being good at shooting or being good at melee - the Zulu Wars proved that a rifle with a bayonet is an incredibly effective spear (so much so that it outperformed the Zulu assegai) even after gunning down its ammunition load of Zulus from afar. Even without a bayonet, a gun makes for a mighty great club!

 Orblivion wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:

Well done, both of you for reading all the posts after this one - is was explained by Pouncy. I found out about the oxidisers after looking up the rockets she mentioned

Not really - Apollo carried separate fuel and oxider which it mixed during use.

Most explosives actually contain their own oxidiser - they would be very ineffective without them (because only the surface that's exposed to air would be able to combust).

This really should have been obvious. How do you think that the explosive inside a bomb casing goes off? Or underwater explosives (mines, depth charges, torpedoes, etc). Not to mention - if you believe that a round of ammunition for a gun requires air to get into it in order for it to go off then how do they keep water out?

I wouldn't be too rough on him for it, do you know how many people still believe a bullet will "shoot" if they throw a round into a fire?

A cartridge can be ignited in a fire. The bullet may explosively separate from the shell but as it has more mass, the shell will move with greater velocity. It won't have the same power as there is no chamber to contain/direct the force but if the shell should rest against something solid it is possible for the bullet to accelerate to lethal speeds.

Don't try this at home!

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

Boltguns are based on the gyrojet, a projectile weapon designed in the '70's by the West to fire self-propelled rockets with next to no recoil to increase accuracy as well as potentially being use in micro-gravity if the cold war ever made it to space (the Russians designed laser handguns for the same thing). Technically, a Boltgun should have next to no recoil, which is why it is the weapon of choice for Marines that specialize in space combat.

As to melee weapons, we still teach soldiers to fight hand-to-hand, to use bayonets and the butt of their rifles, to even use shovels and their helmets as weapons (at least they still did when I was in). Why? Because you can and will run out of ammo, or be disarmed, or caught unarmed.

In the 40k setting, we have a legacy of techno-barbarism where fighting up close and personal was how things got done! A time when ammo was scarce and swords never jam! Melee in 40k is not only an expected thing, its a skill set of the elite, a rite of passage. Logic be damned, my fist will crush your skull while my bolts shred your heart!

SJ

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

Modern ammunition contains its own oxidizer. You can shoot modern ammo in a vacuum or even under water. Boltguns would be little different.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Logic be damned, my fist will crush your skull while my bolts shred your heart!

Armor, void shields, scatter fields, plenty of things that can stop a bullet or just deflect it away from a vital area. These things are far less effective at stopping my massive hydraulically driven cutting shears from just slicing you in half.

 Dorastus wrote:
Armor, void shields, scatter fields, plenty of things that can stop a bullet or just deflect it away from a vital area. These things are far less effective at stopping my massive hydraulically driven cutting shears from just slicing you in half.

If they can stop a bullet, why would things of a lower velocity and with less kinetic energy be any trouble for them at all?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Barring random dune-like handwavium of course.

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

You can bind pure oxygen to another element in a solid state that then combusts when exposed to an electric charge, which provides sufficient oxygen for the initial charge (you don't need much). The rocket in the round will have its own solid-fuel cell.

There's also the fact that most ship-board battles (the "space" part of Space Marine) will be in a life-sustaining environment.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Dorastus wrote:
Armor, void shields, scatter fields, plenty of things that can stop a bullet or just deflect it away from a vital area. These things are far less effective at stopping my massive hydraulically driven cutting shears from just slicing you in half.

If they can stop a bullet, why would things of a lower velocity and with less kinetic energy be any trouble for them at all?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Barring random dune-like handwavium of course.

Because that is how kinetic barriers function. They use the kinetic energy of the projectile against it, in effect, which is why slow things go through the shield... less kinetic energy.

 Psienesis wrote:

Because that is how kinetic barriers function. They use the kinetic energy of the projectile against it, in effect, which is why slow things go through the shield... less kinetic energy.

That's exactly what he meant by dune-style handwavium. Kinetic barriers aren't even theoretical - they are a story/setting mechanism to justify the relevance of melee weapons or certain kinds of energy weapons.

 Psienesis wrote:
You can bind pure oxygen to another element in a solid state that then combusts when exposed to an electric charge, which provides sufficient oxygen for the initial charge (you don't need much).

Exactly. Even non-modern explosives/propellants like black powder and dynamite contain their own oxygen.

An electric charge is will not trigger many explosives/propellants - most require significantly more than that.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

Because that is how kinetic barriers function. They use the kinetic energy of the projectile against it, in effect, which is why slow things go through the shield... less kinetic energy.

That's exactly what he meant by dune-style handwavium. Kinetic barriers aren't even theoretical - they are a story/setting mechanism to justify the relevance of melee weapons or certain kinds of energy weapons.

 Psienesis wrote:
You can bind pure oxygen to another element in a solid state that then combusts when exposed to an electric charge, which provides sufficient oxygen for the initial charge (you don't need much).

Exactly. Even non-modern explosives/propellants like black powder and dynamite contain their own oxygen.

An electric charge is will not trigger many explosives/propellants - most require significantly more than that.

In Star Wars, swords and the like saw a come-back due to the development of personal energy shields, as you could maintain vibrations that were so powerful that you could literally pass through the shields as if they weren't there. This is the same science behind the Transonic Razers that the Mechanicum uses. I could easily see something like this causing melee weapons to make a serious comeback.

Lightsabers are even better with a guard.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

You can bind pure oxygen to another element in a solid state that then combusts when exposed to an electric charge, which provides sufficient oxygen for the initial charge (you don't need much). The rocket in the round will have its own solid-fuel cell.

There's also the fact that most ship-board battles (the "space" part of Space Marine) will be in a life-sustaining environment.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Dorastus wrote:
Armor, void shields, scatter fields, plenty of things that can stop a bullet or just deflect it away from a vital area. These things are far less effective at stopping my massive hydraulically driven cutting shears from just slicing you in half.

If they can stop a bullet, why would things of a lower velocity and with less kinetic energy be any trouble for them at all?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Barring random dune-like handwavium of course.

Because that is how kinetic barriers function. They use the kinetic energy of the projectile against it, in effect, which is why slow things go through the shield... less kinetic energy.

Are any of the shields in 40k kinetic barriers? I always assumed they were force fields or warp shunt fields.

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

I think GW expects you to appear before your local member of the Inquisition for mind-scrubbing

Martel732 wrote:


Yeah, I chose them in 1994. I thought their fluff was cool at the time. And I'm way too cheap and dislike GW way too much to do a second list. This where I realize that I'm the pariah in the wasteland, as almost every poster on here has more than one list.

I like the story of the BA, but now the crunch invalidates everything ever written about BA. Good job, GW. BA can't fight their way out of a paper bag now.

Welcome to the Chaos Wastelands, enjoy your stay and get along with your CSM neighbores.

It took BA 5th or 6th ed to suck, CSM sucks since 4th, i know what you mean.

At first I was irked that everyone kept quoting my initial question after it had been answered - but now all these different explanations are making me imagine awesome applications to use in my sci-Fi shorts I write for fun

 Wulfmar wrote:
At first I was irked that everyone kept quoting my initial question after it had been answered - but now all these different explanations are making me imagine awesome applications to use in my sci-Fi shorts I write for fun

I think you got a lot of responses as it was not phrased as an honest question. Rather you asked a rhetorical question which included the (completely wrong) statement that no known explosive propellant could function without ambient oxygen.

The inverse is actually true - all effective explosive propellants must contain their own oxygen (otherwise their reaction speed will be limited making them weak and their potential use cases are extremely limited).

A good knowledge of science and engineering fundamentals is extremely valuable for a sci-fi writer. There are few things more embarassing than a ridiculous sci-fi explanation for something that is actually perfectly possible with real science.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
At first I was irked that everyone kept quoting my initial question after it had been answered - but now all these different explanations are making me imagine awesome applications to use in my sci-Fi shorts I write for fun

I think you got a lot of responses as it was not phrased as an honest question. Rather you asked a rhetorical question which included the (completely wrong) statement that no known explosive propellant could function without ambient oxygen.

The inverse is actually true - all effective explosive propellants must contain their own oxygen (otherwise their reaction speed will be limited making them weak and their potential use cases are extremely limited).

A good knowledge of science and engineering fundamentals is extremely valuable for a sci-fi writer. There are few things more embarassing than a ridiculous sci-fi explanation for something that is actually perfectly possible with real science.

Why do I find this passive-aggressive and moderately insulting.

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
At first I was irked that everyone kept quoting my initial question after it had been answered - but now all these different explanations are making me imagine awesome applications to use in my sci-Fi shorts I write for fun

I think you got a lot of responses as it was not phrased as an honest question. Rather you asked a rhetorical question which included the (completely wrong) statement that no known explosive propellant could function without ambient oxygen.

The inverse is actually true - all effective explosive propellants must contain their own oxygen (otherwise their reaction speed will be limited making them weak and their potential use cases are extremely limited).

A good knowledge of science and engineering fundamentals is extremely valuable for a sci-fi writer. There are few things more embarassing than a ridiculous sci-fi explanation for something that is actually perfectly possible with real science.

Why do I find this passive-aggressive and moderately insulting.

Actually, that was entirely sincere.

My previous post where I pointed out a bunch of common applications of explosives that very obviously function without access to ambient oxygen...

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

Because that is how kinetic barriers function. They use the kinetic energy of the projectile against it, in effect, which is why slow things go through the shield... less kinetic energy.

That's exactly what he meant by dune-style handwavium. Kinetic barriers aren't even theoretical - they are a story/setting mechanism to justify the relevance of melee weapons or certain kinds of energy weapons.

 Psienesis wrote:
You can bind pure oxygen to another element in a solid state that then combusts when exposed to an electric charge, which provides sufficient oxygen for the initial charge (you don't need much).

Exactly. Even non-modern explosives/propellants like black powder and dynamite contain their own oxygen.

An electric charge is will not trigger many explosives/propellants - most require significantly more than that.

The Hellfire electric firing assembly (available in gunstores everywhere now) begs to differ.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

Because that is how kinetic barriers function. They use the kinetic energy of the projectile against it, in effect, which is why slow things go through the shield... less kinetic energy.

That's exactly what he meant by dune-style handwavium. Kinetic barriers aren't even theoretical - they are a story/setting mechanism to justify the relevance of melee weapons or certain kinds of energy weapons.

 Psienesis wrote:
You can bind pure oxygen to another element in a solid state that then combusts when exposed to an electric charge, which provides sufficient oxygen for the initial charge (you don't need much).

Exactly. Even non-modern explosives/propellants like black powder and dynamite contain their own oxygen.

An electric charge is will not trigger many explosives/propellants - most require significantly more than that.

The Hellfire electric firing assembly (available in gunstores everywhere now) begs to differ.

An electrically fired primer is not the same as igniting the propellant via electricity.

The primer is an explosive, is it not?

 Psienesis wrote:
The primer is an explosive, is it not?

It is a very specialised form of explosive.

I said that an electrical charge would not trigger many explosives/propellants and that most require significantly more than that to trigger them - not that it wouldn't trigger any.

I think there would be some advantages to close combat weapons in the grim dark future. Consider Tyranids and Orks that would close on you with close combat being their objective, this would necessitate some means of defense or counter assault. As humans fighting humans we don't need close combat weapons because our ranged weapons are so capable of stopping another person. The moment your primary arm fails to reliably drop an enemy, it means you need a new primary arm or failing that some sort of close combat capability.

Consider a bolter, it is much like some our modern special weapons that launch a small warhead with an explosive. Those weapons are both unwieldy to a normal human. So what do you do when you need something more, but that something more doesn't exist in the technological realm of ranged weapons.

 Psienesis wrote:
The primer is an explosive, is it not?

Yes, but its not the kind of explosive you'd want as your propellant.

Propellant needs to have a lot of power, but you also want it to be stable for safety purposes. This means you need the primer, which is a specialized kind of explosive that can ignite the otherwise stable explosive.

Thats why things like C4 and other high explosives are often fairly stable. You can put C4 in a fire and it won't explode, it just burns kinda like wax.

Stargate also had shields who reflective ability was tied to the velocity of the object hitting them. Real world physics this is probably nonsense but so is most of 40k compared to the real world. Assuming that such devices existed and there do seem to be evidence of such in 40k, then hitting each other makes sense.

Doesn't one of the White Scars vs Tau novels, have the Tau using a big energy shield projector that "sciencemagically" one way prevents them from using everything but a plasma cannon and bum rushing it with chainsaws?

Disregard the by product of weird glitchy Internet.

As someone who owns many firearms as well as swords, and who does competitive HEMA longsword fencing twice a week (with a broken finger and a currently-recovering dislocated patella to prove it), really it's no contest, the gun wins. There's a reason melee weapons aren't issued to troops beyond a knife, which is a utility tool more than an actual combat weapon.

In real life, if two combatants are within a couple paces of each other, one has a blade drawn, versus a gun that's not drawn, sure, the blade may have the advantage, but aside from that, the gun is by far the superior option.

With regards to 40k, we're generally not talking about nor playing games portraying close quarters combat where such situations may arise. Even in the one game that does do that, Space Hulk, the side that gets to shoot stuff gets to kill a whole lot more of their non-shooting opponents.


40k plays by "rule of cool", being more Fantasy with a scifi skin than an actual Scifi universe. Melee weapons in a universe with starships, drop pods, masses of armored vehicles, automatic weapons everywhere, etc, are in fact stupid if any sort of reality is applied.

With regards to the ammo issue, yes, the statistics of every kill requiring tens of thousands of rounds are true, but one must understand that the vast majority of those rounds are fired in suppression fire and crew served automatic weapons fire hosing down entire areas. One will notice that, despite the fact that yes, firearms can run out of ammunition, nobody on modern battlefields is running around trying to stab anyone to death. The few instances you can find are stand out precisely because of their rarity. Soldiers go into battle with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and crew served weapons often with thousands of rounds.

LIkewise, the idea of "cumulative damage" with melee weapons, hitting the same spot over and over, not gonna happen unless you've got an already helpless or otherwise defenseless target (e.g. surprise kidney shiving some dude prison style from behind). You're far more likely to have a burst of automatic fire hit roughly the same spot than say, multiple sword or multiple knife strikes.

Additionally, with regards to body penetration, bullets are going to do better every time than a blade will. Even a relatively piddly round, like say .380, will go straight through a sternum and retain enough energy to cause fatal damage to an organ like the heart, and still potentially exit the other side of the body. Doing that with a sword is possible, but the other guy has a whole lot more say in it and swinging blades edge-on are usually not going to penetrate extremely deeply (as opposed to thrusting).

I always carry a knife, and often carry a handgun (CHL wooo!), and if I run into anything that's going to threaten my life, I'm not reaching for the knife.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The primer is an explosive, is it not?

Yes, but its not the kind of explosive you'd want as your propellant.

Propellant needs to have a lot of power, but you also want it to be stable for safety purposes. This means you need the primer, which is a specialized kind of explosive that can ignite the otherwise stable explosive.

Thats why things like C4 and other high explosives are often fairly stable. You can put C4 in a fire and it won't explode, it just burns kinda like wax.

I can't believe I have to explain this, but here we go...

The primer in question is in the boltround itself, yes? Yes. The boltround is basically a weather-immune cartridge (like most brass rounds today, those things are shelf-stable for decades). An electric jolt activated by one of the ubiquitous "power cells" in 40K, or even through an induction pad in the grip run off the power armor's fusion reactor, is enough to detonate the primer, which then causes the chain-reaction that sends the boltround downrange. When it comes to a bullet, there is no real functional difference between a firing pin and an electric firing assembly. They're both there to pop the primer. That's all they do.

The electric firing assembly has several advantages over a firing pin. One, they're a lot harder to break. Two, they permit replacing a trigger with a firing stud or button, which reduces "trigger jerk" on long-range precision shots (such as from a Stalker-pattern bolter). Three, if they *do* break, they're a lot easier to replace and repair, since they're basically some wires attached to a battery or other source of power (such as the fusion reactor in a Marine's Power Armor), rather than a precision-tooled piece of metal that has to be within very tight tolerances to operate. Four, they don't wear out like firing pins do over repeated use, which results in misfires, bent cartridges and a host of similar issues. Five, you can keep the assembly in a sealed module in the weapon, which saves on maintenance, as it keeps environmental debris, dust, dirt, etc. out of the weapon... and the wires/pins don't need to be oiled or all that bothered about carbon build-up (and when they get to the point where they are, they are much easier to clean than a firing pin and bolt assembly).

Ultimate point being, a boltgun is fully operational in any environment, including underwater and in the vacuum of space, save one where the whole place is flooded with an explosive gas. In such an environment, the weapon will still operate, but you will wish that it had not.

 Psienesis wrote:

The electric firing assembly has several advantages over a firing pin. One, they're a lot harder to break. Two, they permit replacing a trigger with a firing stud or button, which reduces "trigger jerk" on long-range precision shots (such as from a Stalker-pattern bolter). Three, if they *do* break, they're a lot easier to replace and repair, since they're basically some wires attached to a battery or other source of power (such as the fusion reactor in a Marine's Power Armor), rather than a precision-tooled piece of metal that has to be within very tight tolerances to operate. Four, they don't wear out like firing pins do over repeated use, which results in misfires, bent cartridges and a host of similar issues. Five, you can keep the assembly in a sealed module in the weapon, which saves on maintenance, as it keeps environmental debris, dust, dirt, etc. out of the weapon... and the wires/pins don't need to be oiled or all that bothered about carbon build-up (and when they get to the point where they are, they are much easier to clean than a firing pin and bolt assembly).

One - I don't agree. Small electrical switches and spring loaded electrical pins are significantly more vulnerable to damage then a small number of hardened steel parts and large springs. This is why electrical ignition is extremely rare in military small arms.
Two - Actually, it's not trigger jerk but reduced lock time which improves accuracy with electrical triggers.
Three - This would depend entirely on the design of the weapon. There are rifles where the complete trigger pack can be removed as a unit with the removal of a single pin. Equally, an electrical trigger can be many small parts that are difficult to remove. It is entirely a function of design, neither is inherently better.
Four - Electrical switches absolutely do wear out as do the contacts for the electrical primer and you'll also need contacts between the bolter and the armour if you're proposing to use the armour's power source. (you'll also render the weapon useless if a proper grip isn't made - this does not seem like good design) If you have a separate power source in the weapon then you have an additional point of failure.
Five - Actually carbon build up on the electrical contacts for the primer is a real problem with electrical ignition. This is why electrical triggers are only gaining ground in precision applications where round counts will be low and in mounted applications (like aircraft) which also have relatively low round counts between significant maintenance and which will be at least partially electrically operated regardless of ignition system.

 Vaktathi wrote:

With regards to the ammo issue, yes, the statistics of every kill requiring tens of thousands of rounds are true, but one must understand that the vast majority of those rounds are fired in suppression fire and crew served automatic weapons fire hosing down entire areas. One will notice that, despite the fact that yes, firearms can run out of ammunition, nobody on modern battlefields is running around trying to stab anyone to death. The few instances you can find are stand out precisely because of their rarity. Soldiers go into battle with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and crew served weapons often with thousands of rounds.

Modern day warfare is very different from what 40k represents. Heck, even WW2 has numerous stories of melee weapons such as bayonettes, shovels and even sabers used with unexpectedly great results. I remember reading about a group of 3 cossacks with sabers overruning a german mechanised column.

Anywayz, current day warfare is about positioning, cover and tactical movement. When you get out of ammo, you simply retreat. Every special force soldier who doesn't always have an option to retreat, for example, when they get thrown at the enemy backlines, are well trained to use their melee weapons. 40k often depicts situations when forces have nowhere to retreat. In this context, it's a good idea to have a dedicated melee weapon.

Besides, modern day weapons way outperform modern day defensive mechanisms a person could wear. 1 proper hit usually means a dead or at least incapacitated foe. In 40k not so much. You can shoot an ork that's a few meters away from you with your bolter and he might not get killed. Not telling about even tougher foes. And a ranged weapon provides no protection from melee attacks. You can't effectively parry with a bolter. Whereas that damn ork is running at you swinging his rusty choppa. You can't effectively grapple with a shooting weapon that's not a short pistol.

Do these guys work in munitions design and manufactor or something?

 koooaei wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

With regards to the ammo issue, yes, the statistics of every kill requiring tens of thousands of rounds are true, but one must understand that the vast majority of those rounds are fired in suppression fire and crew served automatic weapons fire hosing down entire areas. One will notice that, despite the fact that yes, firearms can run out of ammunition, nobody on modern battlefields is running around trying to stab anyone to death. The few instances you can find are stand out precisely because of their rarity. Soldiers go into battle with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and crew served weapons often with thousands of rounds.

Modern day warfare is very different from what 40k represents. Heck, even WW2 has numerous stories of melee weapons such as bayonettes, shovels and even sabers used with unexpectedly great results. I remember reading about a group of 3 cossacks with sabers overruning a german mechanised column.

Anywayz, current day warfare is about positioning, cover and tactical movement. When you get out of ammo, you simply retreat. Every special force soldier who doesn't always have an option to retreat, for example, when they get thrown at the enemy backlines, are well trained to use their melee weapons. 40k often depicts situations when forces have nowhere to retreat. In this context, it's a good idea to have a dedicated melee weapon.

Besides, modern day weapons way outperform modern day defensive mechanisms a person could wear. 1 proper hit usually means a dead or at least incapacitated foe. In 40k not so much. You can shoot an ork that's a few meters away from you with your bolter and he might not get killed. Not telling about even tougher foes. And a ranged weapon provides no protection from melee attacks. You can't effectively parry with a bolter. Whereas that damn ork is running at you swinging his rusty choppa. You can't effectively grapple with a shooting weapon that's not a short pistol.

Artillery> and machine guns. These are the main killers during both world wars. Matters of parrying swords or axes pale in comparission to that kind of firepower, even when it comes to spaceorks.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The primer is an explosive, is it not?

Yes, but its not the kind of explosive you'd want as your propellant.

Propellant needs to have a lot of power, but you also want it to be stable for safety purposes. This means you need the primer, which is a specialized kind of explosive that can ignite the otherwise stable explosive.

Thats why things like C4 and other high explosives are often fairly stable. You can put C4 in a fire and it won't explode, it just burns kinda like wax.

I can't believe I have to explain this, but here we go...

The primer in question is in the boltround itself, yes? Yes. The boltround is basically a weather-immune cartridge (like most brass rounds today, those things are shelf-stable for decades). An electric jolt activated by one of the ubiquitous "power cells" in 40K, or even through an induction pad in the grip run off the power armor's fusion reactor, is enough to detonate the primer, which then causes the chain-reaction that sends the boltround downrange. When it comes to a bullet, there is no real functional difference between a firing pin and an electric firing assembly. They're both there to pop the primer. That's all they do.

The electric firing assembly has several advantages over a firing pin. One, they're a lot harder to break. Two, they permit replacing a trigger with a firing stud or button, which reduces "trigger jerk" on long-range precision shots (such as from a Stalker-pattern bolter). Three, if they *do* break, they're a lot easier to replace and repair, since they're basically some wires attached to a battery or other source of power (such as the fusion reactor in a Marine's Power Armor), rather than a precision-tooled piece of metal that has to be within very tight tolerances to operate. Four, they don't wear out like firing pins do over repeated use, which results in misfires, bent cartridges and a host of similar issues. Five, you can keep the assembly in a sealed module in the weapon, which saves on maintenance, as it keeps environmental debris, dust, dirt, etc. out of the weapon... and the wires/pins don't need to be oiled or all that bothered about carbon build-up (and when they get to the point where they are, they are much easier to clean than a firing pin and bolt assembly).

Ultimate point being, a boltgun is fully operational in any environment, including underwater and in the vacuum of space, save one where the whole place is flooded with an explosive gas. In such an environment, the weapon will still operate, but you will wish that it had not.

Sorry, I wasn't refuting your electric primer ignition. Just explaining what the primer was to Scott using your quote.

Any material short comings of today can be waved off by virtue of it being set in the year 40k.

So remind me what keeps a gun from being a melee weapon that can shoot?

Like my example of bayonetted rifles vs Assegai in the Zulu wars, a gun can also be an effective melee weapon, whereas a pure melee weapon cannot be a terribly effective firearm.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So remind me what keeps a gum from being a melee weapon that can shoot?

Like my example of bayonetted rifles vs Assegai in the Zulu wars, a gun can also be an effective melee weapon, whereas a pure melee weapon cannot be a terribly effective firearm.

It can be a decent ranged weapon if you have a very good throwing arm and a piece of rope though

Unless its made for throwing, not so much.

Rifle with bayonet is the best compromise. Or you build sharp pointy guns like armored core 4.

 koooaei wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

With regards to the ammo issue, yes, the statistics of every kill requiring tens of thousands of rounds are true, but one must understand that the vast majority of those rounds are fired in suppression fire and crew served automatic weapons fire hosing down entire areas. One will notice that, despite the fact that yes, firearms can run out of ammunition, nobody on modern battlefields is running around trying to stab anyone to death. The few instances you can find are stand out precisely because of their rarity. Soldiers go into battle with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and crew served weapons often with thousands of rounds.

Modern day warfare is very different from what 40k represents. Heck, even WW2 has numerous stories of melee weapons such as bayonettes, shovels and even sabers used with unexpectedly great results. I remember reading about a group of 3 cossacks with sabers overruning a german mechanised column.

They get used, but usually because a firearm wasn't handy (hard to use a 5ft long rifle with a bolt action and a 5 round magazine as anything but a club in close quarters, if they had pistols or submachineguns however...). Things with cossack cavalry (as opposed to dragoon infantry) attacking with sabers and the like were, IIRC, against retreating and routing infantry columns (and, again, IIRC, in low light conditions like dusk through ravines and valleys), not strong mechanized forces.

Anywayz, current day warfare is about positioning, cover and tactical movement. When you get out of ammo, you simply retreat. Every special force soldier who doesn't always have an option to retreat, for example, when they get thrown at the enemy backlines, are well trained to use their melee weapons. 40k often depicts situations when forces have nowhere to retreat. In this context, it's a good idea to have a dedicated melee weapon.

The problem is that if the enemy still has ammo, you're basically screwed at that point and will probably never get to use that weapon

Besides, modern day weapons way outperform modern day defensive mechanisms a person could wear. 1 proper hit usually means a dead or at least incapacitated foe. In 40k not so much. You can shoot an ork that's a few meters away from you with your bolter and he might not get killed.

How would an blade do anything different? A gun could drill 6 holes into an Ork much faster and more effectively than a sword, knife, or axe would.

Not telling about even tougher foes. And a ranged weapon provides no protection from melee attacks. You can't effectively parry with a bolter.

You can block melee attacks with guns, there's a whole technique to it (though I wouldn't want to have to), that's a whole part of bayonet training. But, more importantly, if you've got a bolter, the chances of the other guy swinging a Choppa at you are going to be practically nil when you can shoot him first.

Whereas that damn ork is running at you swinging his rusty choppa. You can't effectively grapple with a shooting weapon that's not a short pistol.

I think the point would be to shoot him first, and there's a reason vast gobs or Orks die before any get properly stuck in.

There are lots of ways to make guns into melee weapons in the 41st millenium.

Shroud the stock in a toggle-able power field and BOOM power maul.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just as an example

 aka_mythos wrote:
Any material short comings of today can be waved off by virtue of it being set in the year 40k.

Not really, but if you say so.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There are lots of ways to make guns into melee weapons in the 41st millenium.

Shroud the stock in a toggle-able power field and BOOM power maul.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just as an example

Won't that be expensive and potentially harmful to the user?
You have a gun, and then you have to redesign the gun to support a power field.
Also, a power field disintegrates flesh, right? What if you accidentally flick the switch when trying the aim the damn thing?
If you are going to put a power weapon on a gun, it should be on the end that you want to point at the enemy.

A detachable power bayonet sounds more reasonable. Just stick a ring on a power sword.
Or rather a power knife.

A gun with a bayonette is never as good melee weapon as a proper spear.

Its shorter, that's about the only disadvantage it has.

Its a lot less encumbering than carrying a spear, and you can still shoot the spearman from far away.

 koooaei wrote:
A gun with a bayonette is never as good melee weapon as a proper spear.

not too many soldiers carrying spears, these days.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
A gun with a bayonette is never as good melee weapon as a proper spear.

not too many soldiers carrying spears, these days.

SJ

Not many soldiers today fight 7ft tall green fungus aliens who are slightly bulletproof.
Ork bones can resist high velocity impacts, and they have this spongy stuff that protects their vital organs, which they don't have many of.
You would pretty much either have to dismember one, shoot them with a really big gun that hits a weak point, or shoot them a bunch and hope something breaks.

Melee weapons are good at the former, might get through the spongy mass too. Aren't kevlar vests susceptible to stabby things, like knives, as they work by absorbing the kinetic energy from a bullet? That spongy stuff probably works like that.

A big gun can probably do the former as well. That's probably what bolters were designed for; explode inside of a ork, tearing up its organs and maybe removing a limb.

The IG practice the latter. It sometimes works.

Love the fact Orks (at least in the old fluff - not seen much reference in recent stuff) are effectively walking mushrooms with heads that are fruiting bodies - explains why they could soak up so many bullets without suffering much ill-effect

 Wulfmar wrote:
Love the fact Orks (at least in the old fluff - not seen much reference in recent stuff) are effectively walking mushrooms with heads that are fruiting bodies - explains why they could soak up so many bullets without suffering much ill-effect

Yeah, most of their body is composed of a fungal mass. Other than that, they don't have many organs.
They have a brain, but its relatively small and behind a thick skull. They have a stomach, and some sort of organ that serves as its liver, kidney and pancreas.
I think they have a heart, but I didn't read anything about it, and logically they should have an intestinal tract, unless they excrete waste from their skin, or have a very efficient digestive system.

Supposedly they can also photosynthesize, and of course they reproduce by constantly spreading spores, especially in their death throes.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

You would pretty much either have to dismember one, shoot them with a really big gun that hits a weak point, or shoot them a bunch and hope something breaks.

Melee weapons are good at the former, might get through the spongy mass too.

Yes, because its sooooo easy to cut limbs off with melee weapons, and if the orks are sooooooo much tougher than humans, it'll be damned near impossible to do so and then add armor. Lasguns can blow limbs of people, no reason they should be so inefficient vs orks, except for the typical ''humans must suck more than everything else'' thing that 40k has going.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Love the fact Orks (at least in the old fluff - not seen much reference in recent stuff) are effectively walking mushrooms with heads that are fruiting bodies - explains why they could soak up so many bullets without suffering much ill-effect

Yeah, most of their body is composed of a fungal mass. Other than that, they don't have many organs.
They have a brain, but its relatively small and behind a thick skull. They have a stomach, and some sort of organ that serves as its liver, kidney and pancreas.
I think they have a heart, but I didn't read anything about it, and logically they should have an intestinal tract, unless they excrete waste from their skin, or have a very efficient digestive system.

Supposedly they can also photosynthesize, and of course they reproduce by constantly spreading spores, especially in their death throes.

I've got a load of mushroom models (from the underworld basing kit and Kromlech) which I need to paint up - not for any serious gaming reason (though maybe a few tactical objectives - could be a rare truffle or something) to stick around the board as a reminder of mushroomy heritage

 Bobthehero wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

You would pretty much either have to dismember one, shoot them with a really big gun that hits a weak point, or shoot them a bunch and hope something breaks.

Melee weapons are good at the former, might get through the spongy mass too.

Yes, because its sooooo easy to cut limbs off with melee weapons, and if the orks are sooooooo much tougher than humans, it'll be damned near impossible to do so and then add armor. Lasguns can blow limbs of people, no reason they should be so inefficient vs orks, except for the typical ''humans must suck more than everything else'' thing that 40k has going.

That's why chainswords have teeth. To chew up tough flesh like that.
Armor would make it harder, but that's what power fields are for.
No idea why there aren't powered chain-swords though. That would be logical

Lasguns can blow the limbs off of people. Orks are not people.
Ork flesh is a bit tougher, and they have a high pain thresh hold. It'll probably sever a limb eventually, but it would need several hits.
If you shoot an ork in the eye it'll still probably blow up its brain though.

Melee weapon is also more effective at dealing damage to an armored opponent up close than a ranged weapon. When we get a guy in power armor, bullets, laser bolts and even bolter rounds won't do much damage to a plate. You need to hit joints or visors to bypass armor.

Even medieval knights in plate armor carried daggers cause daggers are way more effective than literally anything else a single person could carry at killing somebody in armor. Simply cause you can bypass armor with a dagger.

Sometimes, you don't have anything to penetrate armor. You need ways of bypassing it. In this regard, a space marine would do much more with his sword and a bolt pistol rather than with a bolter or even a heavy bolter. Plazma or melta is all good though. But apparently, you can't have enough plazma and melta weapons for everyone. That's a shame.

The flesh part is not the problem, a normal blade can cut that, the muscles and bones are what's going to be a problem.

As for armor, why bother making power fields? Hotshot lasgun punch through armor with little trouble, make more of those. That'll serve you far better than power weapons.

A marine with a sword and pistol won't be able to hit the weak spot more reliably than a dude with a lasgun, the way the rondel dagger were use back then was to wrestle down the enemy and stab him in the joint, it wasnt an all magical thing that would aim at the joints for you, the Marines don't have that kind of weaponry on them, they have a bolt pistol, which is gak vs armor and a chainsword which is equally bad at piercing armor. Give your Marines that bolt that can pierce armor, and you'll do far better at a lot less risks.

Melee weapons aren't really used for cutting up limbs and the like, that really almost never happens. What you're hoping for typically is to *break* a bone or cut a vital artery, hacking something to pieces typically requires it to already be effectively defenseless.

In these respects, bullets work every bit as well, if not better, than melee weapons.

I mean, there are animals today that would be every bit as hard to kill as an Ork, or even harder (Silverback Gorillas, Elephants, etc), and you know what people use to kill them? Not swords, spears, or axes, or even big bore heavy hitting guns, but AK-47's that simply put out lots of little bullets, because quite frankly, each bullet packs an incredible amount of kinetic energy, and they can spit out a ton of them.

Something like a chainsword would, in real life, be an absolutely terrible weapon, excessively prone to jamming, breaking, and getting stuck in things, and the first metal bit it runs into will wreak havoc on the weapon.

Plasma projected accurately, at twice the speed of sound can not be dodged. I dont care how nimble you are, your still getting burned. Armors value against such an attack is debatable. Energy shields may be useful, but its easier to build plasma guns than it is creating hundreds of thousands of man portable energy shields. So the idea that your going to walk up to a man with a plasma gun & hit'em with a lead pipe seems...uhhhh...optimistic.

When it comes to marines I think most of the hth weapons are for breaching obstacles and/or fortifications. SMs also engage in a overly in-your-face style of "shock & awe" warfare where hth weapons fit in.

I think close combat weapons are necessitated by the types of aliens the Imperium has encountered. Orks and nids move to close range and while a bolter, lasgun, or special weapon is more effective at range once something is within arms reach a rifle like weapon isn't going to help you as much. Even though shooting at short ranges is easier try lining up a shot against enemies who would bat away your weapon or knock you to the ground.

It's important to consider that these aren't human threats. Orks and tyranids would shrug off shots from modern large caliber weapons. They would get into close combat. If you were a military planner knowing there was some strong likely hood of a close combat enemy getting into close combat you would provide some sort of close combat weapon even if it isn't that effective.

Just a note on plasma, at best it will singe armor and leave a flash burn. At worst, the shooter might get radiation poisoning. Plasma does not work the way GW depicts it.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Just a note on plasma, at best it will singe armor and leave a flash burn. At worst, the shooter might get radiation poisoning. Plasma does not work the way GW depicts it.

SJ

Very true but ably real world physics to 40k is only going to lead to a headache. based on internal 40k logic, so many factions prefer fighting up close it makes sense that everyone learned to use a sword.

Or drilled/equipped their troops in such a way that those without ranged weapon get blasted before they can reach the gunline.

I don't think there is really enough to go by to determine how plasma weapons in 40k work. Do we even know what elements are projected in a plasma state?

Haha. Actually a gun firing high-velocity alpha radiation in large quantities would hit like a fething truck if it had some method of piercing armour and delivering the particles straight to the flesh.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Haha. Actually a gun firing high-velocity alpha radiation in large quantities would hit like a fething truck if it had some method of piercing armour and delivering the particles straight to the flesh.

You do realize that alpha radiation can't even penetrate human skin, and that magically increasing the velocity of radiation starts to approach the ability to change natural laws, far beyond any other weapon discussed in this thread?

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

Modern ammunition contains its own oxidizer. You can shoot modern ammo in a vacuum or even under water. Boltguns would be little different.

Why marines use guns with ammo? They have a nuclear reactor in the backpack so energy guns would be better.

My two cent.

You can only carry so much ammo. even if you're near a ammo dump it can only store so much ammo. eventually it WILL run out and supply lines are high priority targets. In the case of 40k's setting the numbers involved in *skirmish* can rival casualties of so reality's most devastating wars, thats alot of bullets.

Now as far as "why don't the Imperium just use or develop X weapon" as all of us that are familiar with the imperium know it is empire ruled by blind dogma, brutality, and fear. This can also be said for the Mechanicus as well which holds that "innovation is bad" as one if it most central tenents. For those saying "That doesnt make sense, why wouldn't they use better weapons if they could?!" THATS THE POINT! it blind dogma, it doesnt matter whats logical. The imperium and mechanicus has fervently clung to these beliefs for over 10,000 years in a effort to keep sliding down the slippery slope of galactic superpowerdom. Almost everyne is kept in the dark, even those in power are probably just told what they want to hear. The exceptions we read about are rare oddities not your everyman.

On a side note, if I'm down range and on a patrol you better damn well believe I've got a knife or a hatchet or ANYTHING on me regs be damned.

 Draco wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

Modern ammunition contains its own oxidizer. You can shoot modern ammo in a vacuum or even under water. Boltguns would be little different.

Why marines use guns with ammo? They have a nuclear reactor in the backpack so energy guns would be better.

Because running out of energy for your armor because you shot it all away would be very bad.
Its not a nuclear reactor, its a microfusion reactor, and it can still run out of power, hence the need for reserve cells.
Also, considering how bolters and solid slug weapons tend to have more hitting power, I don't see how energy weapon would be better for their intended role.

Also, in case someone brings up lasguns - they are largely ineffective against inorganic and armored targets, as I do believe that the so called detonation from the beam is caused by flash-boiling any water in the target's tissues, resulting in considerable damage to organic matter.
That makes the most amount of sense to me; thinking of it as being caused by a kinetic force doesn't make sense, as lasers have negligible mass.
It also explains why a weapon that can supposedly cause a small explosive is so ineffective against armor and vehicles; they don't have enough moisture to evaporate.

EDIT : Now that I think about, they do use their generators for heavy energy weapons, such as lascannons and plasma cannons. The fact that such weapons need an additional component that plugs into their power source suggests that such weapons do indeed require an fair bit of power to fire.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Haha. Actually a gun firing high-velocity alpha radiation in large quantities would hit like a fething truck if it had some method of piercing armour and delivering the particles straight to the flesh.

You do realize that alpha radiation can't even penetrate human skin, and that magically increasing the velocity of radiation starts to approach the ability to change natural laws, far beyond any other weapon discussed in this thread?

No. I didn't know that. I assumed alpha radiation could be accelerated, since its speed could very well be 0 or whatever.

I thought only photons were at the universal speed limit.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Haha. Actually a gun firing high-velocity alpha radiation in large quantities would hit like a fething truck if it had some method of piercing armour and delivering the particles straight to the flesh.

You do realize that alpha radiation can't even penetrate human skin, and that magically increasing the velocity of radiation starts to approach the ability to change natural laws, far beyond any other weapon discussed in this thread?

No. I didn't know that. I assumed alpha radiation could be accelerated, since its speed could very well be 0 or whatever.

I thought only photons were at the universal speed limit.

As far as I understand as a layman, in order to speed up alpha radiation you'd have to change the process of nuclear decay generating it, and if you're capable of such molecular manipulation it'd probably make more sense to just weaponize that instead.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Just a note on plasma, at best it will singe armor and leave a flash burn. At worst, the shooter might get radiation poisoning. Plasma does not work the way GW depicts it.

SJ

Except the plasma burns at the heat of a small sun.
Of course, if there were the case, then anyone around the firer should be fried.

Unless the heat was somehow being limited in its magnetic containment field.
Plasma in fiction has always been a bit...weird. There has never been a proper way of explaining how plasma doesn't just dissipate everywhere after leaving the weapon.

Dropzone Commander has the best explanation, imo; the scourge plasma weapons don't fire pure plasma, but a small, specially designed projectile that either contains plasma, or emits a magnetic field that sheaves the projectile in a cloud of plasma.
In other words, they cheat

Plasma is ionized gas. While it does indeed product heat in the thousands of degrees, heat does not transfer efficiently enough to be the mean form of damage. What does transfer is the electrical charge (the gas is ionized), which has more of an effect like being hit by a lightning bolt than a chunk of sun. Plasma weapons like seem in 40k are possible, its just that the effect seem is not. The effect should be closer to haywire than AP2.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Plasma is ionized gas. While it does indeed product heat in the thousands of degrees, heat does not transfer efficiently enough to be the mean form of damage. What does transfer is the electrical charge (the gas is ionized), which has more of an effect like being hit by a lightning bolt than a chunk of sun. Plasma weapons like seem in 40k are possible, its just that the effect seem is not. The effect should be closer to haywire than AP2.

SJ

Interesting. I knew about the ionized aspect, but it had not occurred to me that there would be an electrical as well as a thermal effect.
Makes sense.

Now if it worked like a DzC plasma weapon, then it would be able to transfer the heat efficiently, as the solid projectile hits the target and the plasma burns it.
In the DzC rulebook there's some pretty nasty fluff about human soldiers burning from the inside out, as the plasma bullets would get inside and fill them with superheated ionized gas.
Its pretty brutal. I love it

Plasma isn't a "solid" projectile, its a stream of charged particles. The reason way a solid projectile heats a target is due to energy transfer as the projectile deforms the targets (ie, friction). Charged particles don't have the mass to deform the target, just transfer the charge across the impact surface. Without mass, you need time. The more time you have pumping charged particles into a target, the more surface get ablated. However, if the target has the same electric charge as the plasma or a magnetic field, the plasma will transfer little to no energy at all. If the target is grounded, the plasma will splash and singe the surface.

Now, if the plasma in 40k is equivalent to the raw heat of a star, the shooter would die without proper shielding, the exact same shielding the target would have.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Plasma isn't a "solid" projectile, its a stream of charged particles. The reason way a solid projectile heats a target is due to energy transfer as the projectile deforms the targets (ie, friction). Charged particles don't have the mass to deform the target, just transfer the charge across the impact surface. Without mass, you need time. The more time you have pumping charged particles into a target, the more surface get ablated. However, if the target has the same electric charge as the plasma or a magnetic field, the plasma will transfer little to no energy at all. If the target is grounded, the plasma will splash and singe the surface.

Now, if the plasma in 40k is equivalent to the raw heat of a star, the shooter would die without proper shielding, the exact same shielding the target would have.

SJ

I know its not a solid projectile.
Read my description of plasma weapons in Dropzone

I read your description, and pointed out how solid shot differs from being hit by charged particles. The DzC weapon you described appears to function just like a modern day white phosphorous tracer round, or a tungsten penetrator round.

SJ

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Haha. Actually a gun firing high-velocity alpha radiation in large quantities would hit like a fething truck if it had some method of piercing armour and delivering the particles straight to the flesh.

You do realize that alpha radiation can't even penetrate human skin, and that magically increasing the velocity of radiation starts to approach the ability to change natural laws, far beyond any other weapon discussed in this thread?

No. I didn't know that. I assumed alpha radiation could be accelerated, since its speed could very well be 0 or whatever.

I thought only photons were at the universal speed limit.

As far as I understand as a layman, in order to speed up alpha radiation you'd have to change the process of nuclear decay generating it, and if you're capable of such molecular manipulation it'd probably make more sense to just weaponize that instead.

Given that Alpha radiation actually has mass(being just a hydrogen atom) it could theoretically be accelerated. Of course its like you said, if you could do that it would probably mean you'd have better uses for that tech.

Grey Templar wrote:

Given that Alpha radiation actually has mass(being just a hydrogen atom) it could theoretically be accelerated. Of course its like you said, if you could do that it would probably mean you'd have better uses for that tech.

Helium nucleus*

 Wulfmar wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

Given that Alpha radiation actually has mass(being just a hydrogen atom) it could theoretically be accelerated. Of course its like you said, if you could do that it would probably mean you'd have better uses for that tech.

Helium nucleus*

Well I'll be. I could have sworn Alpha radiation was a single proton.

Either way, it has mass and could theoretically be accelerated.

Alpha is a helium nucelus, beta is an electron, gamma is a high energy photon.

It was proved Long, long ago in a Galaxy far, far away that teddybears with spears and monks with powerswords are easily a match for laser gun wielding heavily armoured mass troop formations.

So nothings changed really then!

Even BS2 can defeat 3+, given enough dice.

SJ

You know, actually in a setting like warhammer, melee weapons would be more useful than attempting to draw sight picture for everything, all the time, in close quarters....

- some of the races will be hard pressed to disable before they get to you. Even with some species -like grizzlies- can take awhile to bring down - depending on shot placements (yes plural, not just a single shot) as well as caliber/load. This is just my understanding of it.

-sword and pistol would be quite a viable load out in 40k

- like someone else said, the effective body armour in 40k also throws off current modern tactical doctrine. Though dang it, why the heck some models can't be posed with the finger off the trigger is a bit irritating. That and the abundance of breast/hip shooting. This is worse than the proposed melee aesthetics being stupid. I can go along with helmet targeters to answer for this... mostly.

- for those disputing the bolter: it isn't the effect or science of how the gun works that's a tad silly, I'd point to the ammo. .75 rounds (last I recall) for 16 round clip, would be rather bulky and weigh a lot. Though pwr armour solves this a bit.

Bolters are .75 cal in 30 round magazines(or 100 round drum mags)

And no, it really wouldn't be that heavy. Bolters would be quite manageable for a normal human to hold. .75 cal is very large relative to other modern calibers, but it would still be fine for a human or roughly human sized weapon to have a 30 round magazine. Even in a banana magazine format. It would just be a little wider than typical magazines, and the gun itself would be a little larger, but no more difficult than any LMG would be.

 kveldulf wrote:
You know, actually in a setting like warhammer, melee weapons would be more useful than attempting to draw sight picture for everything, all the time, in close quarters....

- some of the races will be hard pressed to disable before they get to you. Even with some species -like grizzlies- can take awhile to bring down - depending on shot placements (yes plural, not just a single shot) as well as caliber/load. This is just my understanding of it.

You go fight a grizzly with a power sword, I'll be over here with my C9, see how well it goes.

Sod a C9, I will take a 2CM quad flakveirling. Lets see any CC beast get through that.

Bit unwieldy, don't you think?

 Bobthehero wrote:
You go fight a grizzly with a power sword, I'll be over here with my C9, see how well it goes.

It's useless, Bob. WH40K is after all just WH Fantasy IN SPACE!, and in fantasy a sword-waving hero will always take out a unit of lowly musket gunners. If a 350-point hero can trump a 300-point unit by charging them and killing four guys it must be accurate. ;-)

Even if ordinary soldiers today carry a bayonet, a knife and maybe a hatchet they've usually messed up something fierce (or been totally blindsided by superior enemy forces) if they actually have to use melee instead of just shooting everyone who looks at them funny. Melee weapons for silence, or surprises, that I can see. Or tradition like the Gurkha kukri knife, but they too prefer shooting you first these days.

You guys realize that its only really marines who go hand to hand, and even then they tend to fight at range? There's only one marine unit that wants to go hand to hand, and that's an assault marine.
He has a jump pack, a suit of power armor, some grenades and a pistol that may be a flame thrower.

The main imperial fighting force, the Imperial Guard, mainly uses ranged weapons, and seldom want to get close, because unlike Marines, they don't have power armor.
The officers have swords, but I think that's more of a sign of office.

And of course there's the Tau, who tend to frown upon melee combat in general, with the exception of the Enclaves. Their attitude towards hand-to hand arose after extended bouts of conflict with orks, iirc.

The whole "everyone fights with swords" thing is a bit of a misconception, imo.
There are dedicated melee weapons, but they are for specific purposes on certain units, and the soldiers who use them tend to have the means to get close without dying.

Which is fine. I have no problem with that.
Now, if every single soldier in the game, from guardsman to Assault Marine to even Eldar snipers packed a sword, a gun and bunch of grenades, and made it their priority to use the sword then its silly.

Right now? Fairly reasonable.

Let me put this this way, in the game, what do spend the most time doing? Shooting or charging?
Doesn't shooting outclass melee this edition?

In the Fluff, how often do they shoot, and how often do they chop?
It seems to me that in the artwork, even when they are less than 10ft from each other, there will mostly be shooting.

 Bobthehero wrote:

 kveldulf wrote:
You know, actually in a setting like warhammer, melee weapons would be more useful than attempting to draw sight picture for everything, all the time, in close quarters....

- some of the races will be hard pressed to disable before they get to you. Even with some species -like grizzlies- can take awhile to bring down - depending on shot placements (yes plural, not just a single shot) as well as caliber/load. This is just my understanding of it.

You go fight a grizzly with a power sword, I'll be over here with my C9, see how well it goes.

I'll take a good old great sword vs a grizzly. Thats what they used in the middle ages for hunting boar and bear.

They used spears. Boar spears, in fact.

But still, feel free to go at it, I am personally gonna stick with my machine gun.

Bobthehero wrote:They used spears. Boar spears, in fact.

But still, feel free to go at it, I am personally gonna stick with my machine gun.

lolololol exalted

 Bobthehero wrote:
They used spears. Boar spears, in fact.

But still, feel free to go at it, I am personally gonna stick with my machine gun.

http://www.weapons-universe.com/Swords/Swords_of_the_Renaissance.shtml

The Falchion was actually originally a hunting weapon.

Then there were Boar Swords.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
They used spears. Boar spears, in fact.

But still, feel free to go at it, I am personally gonna stick with my machine gun.

http://www.weapons-universe.com/Swords/Swords_of_the_Renaissance.shtml

The Falchion was actually originally a hunting weapon.

Then there were Boar Swords.

Spoiler:

I still like the machine gun idea better.

 Bobthehero wrote:

 kveldulf wrote:
You know, actually in a setting like warhammer, melee weapons would be more useful than attempting to draw sight picture for everything, all the time, in close quarters....

- some of the races will be hard pressed to disable before they get to you. Even with some species -like grizzlies- can take awhile to bring down - depending on shot placements (yes plural, not just a single shot) as well as caliber/load. This is just my understanding of it.

You go fight a grizzly with a power sword, I'll be over here with my C9, see how well it goes.

Errr... a 9mm or a power sword.... why exactly are we seperating the need for either? They are both tools - that's it. If you want less tools kk. If I had to choose between a power sword and pistol in a survival situation, I'd choose the power sword.

If it's purely a matter of defense vs a grizzly, I'd want both if I could. Also, though a 9mm can be effective - as with many firearms depending on shot placement - it is not a guarantee.

You do realize you can shoot a pistol one handed right - its an actual thing (more old school). My father shot competition that way. I believe some military units of old were proficient with this too, carrying both sword & pistol, eh?

Space marines, wearing thick armour & maintaining enough dexterity for some impressive speed would be much worse than a grizzly, though the effect isnt a guarantee.

You may be that guy in a squad with a specialized weapon to deal with a SM effectively, but that isn't a guarantee either.

The trade off you have for certain weapons is sometimes huge, and sometimes about the same - depending on the situation. If a SM happened to get into the midst of your squad, the real question is, how & why did you let that happen and less to do with the tools. By that point, your dealing with a 7'6" idea that has been made manifest before you, and it is designed, and actually effective in melee - in an age of advances ballistic weapons. If you think you can back pedal fast enough to shoot, okay, but I reckon the tactics, equipment he has already accounts for you trying this. I don't think your going to outpace him either.

Really, this is a matter of: there's less you can do when the opponent has you on his terms.

No one in 40k is choosing between a machine gun and a sword because they get to carry both.

 kveldulf wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:

 kveldulf wrote:
You know, actually in a setting like warhammer, melee weapons would be more useful than attempting to draw sight picture for everything, all the time, in close quarters....

- some of the races will be hard pressed to disable before they get to you. Even with some species -like grizzlies- can take awhile to bring down - depending on shot placements (yes plural, not just a single shot) as well as caliber/load. This is just my understanding of it.

You go fight a grizzly with a power sword, I'll be over here with my C9, see how well it goes.

Errr... a 9mm or a power sword.... why exactly are we seperating the need for either? They are both tools - that's it. If you want less tools kk. If I had to choose between a power sword and pistol in a survival situation, I'd choose the power sword.

If it's purely a matter of defense vs a grizzly, I'd want both if I could. Also, though a 9mm can be effective - as with many firearms depending on shot placement - it is not a guarantee.

You do realize you can shoot a pistol one handed right - its an actual thing (more old school). My father shot competition that way. I believe some military units of old were proficient with this too, eh?

Yup. Really you are only two handing a pistol for accuracy, in which case why are you not using a rifle instead?

Probably because, if someone has a pistol and is firing with both hands (the way most modern training doctrine will teach you to do), their primary role is probably not involved with actual fighting or their other weapons are not able to be brought to bear for whatever reason (out of ammo, damaged, etc).

 Grey Templar wrote:

 kveldulf wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:

 kveldulf wrote:
You know, actually in a setting like warhammer, melee weapons would be more useful than attempting to draw sight picture for everything, all the time, in close quarters....

- some of the races will be hard pressed to disable before they get to you. Even with some species -like grizzlies- can take awhile to bring down - depending on shot placements (yes plural, not just a single shot) as well as caliber/load. This is just my understanding of it.

You go fight a grizzly with a power sword, I'll be over here with my C9, see how well it goes.

Errr... a 9mm or a power sword.... why exactly are we seperating the need for either? They are both tools - that's it. If you want less tools kk. If I had to choose between a power sword and pistol in a survival situation, I'd choose the power sword.

If it's purely a matter of defense vs a grizzly, I'd want both if I could. Also, though a 9mm can be effective - as with many firearms depending on shot placement - it is not a guarantee.

You do realize you can shoot a pistol one handed right - its an actual thing (more old school). My father shot competition that way. I believe some military units of old were proficient with this too, eh?

Yup. Really you are only two handing a pistol for accuracy, in which case why are you not using a rifle instead?

Indeed. And a rifle with a bayonet would be best of both worlds I'd presume.

There does come a point where even in close quarters, you're not going to kill an angry guy with a bullet or two necessarily. It isn't like the movies - you shoot until he is simply dead.

Then you have to deal with the guy or thing who's grabbing your rifle, or already eating you. A sword/knife seems like a good alternative, especially when we are talking about things like tyranids, orks, killer robots, even cultists.... etc.

Just thinking of dealing with crazy humans of today makes me wonder:
A sword & pistol would seem real effective when dealing with a dude on pcp. /shrug

 Grey Templar wrote:

And no, it really wouldn't be that heavy. Bolters would be quite manageable for a normal human to hold. .75 cal is very large relative to other modern calibers, but it would still be fine for a human or roughly human sized weapon to have a 30 round magazine. Even in a banana magazine format. It would just be a little wider than typical magazines, and the gun itself would be a little larger, but no more difficult than any LMG would be.

Wat. You've clearly never shot anything larger than 7.62mm or you'd realize how crazy that sounds. The M2A1 Caliber 50 machine gun is a whole third smaller than the supposed .75 cal of a Bolger but pretty much impossible to fire dismounted.

And soldiers today are certified in a pseudo MMA style technique aimed at integrating the real experiences of soldiers who had found themselves in hand to hand combat with the enemy. I can tell you the Army combatives program focuses on ground game, aiming to either create enough space from an enemy to draw a pistol, or to hold them down long enough for your buddy in the next room to shoot him for you. The whole idea of swords being necessary in actual combat is ridiculous and only someone living in a fantasy world would see them as useful.

Speaking of which they are practical in 40k because of the crazy stuff that can/does happen. Like teleporting, burrowing, and dropping in that stuff does. All that said, I love close combat in 40k and its my preferred type of unit.

Edit: also during my combatives certification I found myself sitting there multiple times super confused thinking I would have just pulled out my ka-bar and killed the guy instead of wrestling and doing a series of twelve moves to get into dominant position. Take that as you will.

 Ignatius wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

And no, it really wouldn't be that heavy. Bolters would be quite manageable for a normal human to hold. .75 cal is very large relative to other modern calibers, but it would still be fine for a human or roughly human sized weapon to have a 30 round magazine. Even in a banana magazine format. It would just be a little wider than typical magazines, and the gun itself would be a little larger, but no more difficult than any LMG would be.

Wat. You've clearly never shot anything larger than 7.62mm or you'd realize how crazy that sounds. The M2A1 Caliber 50 machine gun is a whole third smaller than the supposed .75 cal of a Bolger but pretty much impossible to fire dismounted.

Caliber alone can be deceiving.

I mean, a Desert Eagle in .50 AE is ostensibly the same caliber as a 50BMG, but can be fired (albeit awkawrdly) one handed by an average adult human male, because the cartridge and load is so much lighter. In the 40k universe, there absolutely are bolters that normal humans can fire, every IG squad can ostensibly have their Sgt take a bolter or bolt pistol.


At the same time, the way the bolter supposedly works doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a small arm...they're described as something of an RPG gun. Well, if they work the way an RPG works, they've made guns like that, and they can't hit the broad side of a barn because they don't reach peak acceleration until several meters after they leave the barrel, (and thus are far less stable, while a bullet is at its maximum speed as it leaves the barrel and is much less prone to stabilization issues). If they've got some sort of booster charge, as they've sometimes been described as having, then there's not a whole lot of point in them having internal motors in the first place.

Edit: also during my combatives certification I found myself sitting there multiple times super confused thinking I would have just pulled out my ka-bar and killed the guy instead of wrestling and doing a series of twelve moves to get into dominant position. Take that as you will.

A lot of military hand to hand training is often done with a different aim than the one that is initially put forth. Nobody does bayonet drill really thinking they're going to fix bayonets and use them, but rather to instill a certain mindset, attitude, and aggressiveness.. Training like the kind you describe often is intended for things like taking/dealing with prisoners, crowd control, riots, etc and the like.in addition to the aforementioned mindset drilling as opposed clearing a trench by hand.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Ignatius wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

And no, it really wouldn't be that heavy. Bolters would be quite manageable for a normal human to hold. .75 cal is very large relative to other modern calibers, but it would still be fine for a human or roughly human sized weapon to have a 30 round magazine. Even in a banana magazine format. It would just be a little wider than typical magazines, and the gun itself would be a little larger, but no more difficult than any LMG would be.

Wat. You've clearly never shot anything larger than 7.62mm or you'd realize how crazy that sounds. The M2A1 Caliber 50 machine gun is a whole third smaller than the supposed .75 cal of a Bolger but pretty much impossible to fire dismounted.

Caliber alone can be deceiving.

I mean, a Desert Eagle in .50 AE is ostensibly the same caliber as a 50BMG, but can be fired (albeit awkawrdly) one handed by an average adult human male, because the cartridge and load is so much lighter. In the 40k universe, there absolutely are bolters that normal humans can fire, every IG squad can ostensibly have their Sgt take a bolter or bolt pistol.


At the same time, the way the bolter supposedly works doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a small arm. They're described as something of an RPG gun. Well, if they work the way an RPG works, they've made guns like that, and they can't hit the broad side of a barn because they don't reach peak acceleration until several meters after they leave the barrel, (and thus are far less stable, while a bullet is at its maximum speed as it leaves the barrel and is much less prone to stabilization issues). If they've got some sort of booster charge, as they've sometimes been described as having, then there's not a whole lot of point in them having internal motors in the first place.

Can't argue against anything in this post but the Desert Eagle is not intended to be a weapon to be used as a primary weapon system by anyone, nor is it intended to be necessarily very capable at any range further than at most 50 m. Even soldiers today have a hard enough time using the Baretta M9 9mm at 40 m let alone a .50 cal . But the internals of a pistol allow for a slightly larger caliber to be used simply because there is less inside the weapon and because it doesn't have to account for various aspects of shooting that a larger weapon shooting a lot more rounds would like cooling, movement of sight posts, extensive electrostatic barrel pitting, maintenance of sight picture, etc.

All that said, I always default to "space magic" whenever a personal experience biases me towards things in 40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ignatius wrote:

Edit: also during my combatives certification I found myself sitting there multiple times super confused thinking I would have just pulled out my ka-bar and killed the guy instead of wrestling and doing a series of twelve moves to get into dominant position. Take that as you will.

A lot of military hand to hand training is often done with a different aim than the one that is initially put forth. Nobody does bayonet drill really thinking they're going to fix bayonets and use them, but rather to instill a certain mindset, attitude, and aggressiveness.. Training like the kind you describe often is intended for things like taking/dealing with prisoners, crowd control, riots, etc and the like.in addition to the aforementioned mindset drilling as opposed clearing a trench by hand.

Having not only been going through that training for the better part of four yerpars but actively designing training for my soldiers to do I get all that too. We got rid of bayonets in the 90s and haven't done anything at all with them since then. I don't know for sure but the Marines may still use it in their basic training but in that case you're spot on about the mindset game. But our combatives program is designed specifically for the real world engagement. I brought up my thoughts about the ka-bar because I found it funny I was arguing against the thought of using a direct combat weapon in real life, but could recall an instance where it was my first thought about iPhone to handle an engagement. Not because it was the answer and defeated the purpose of my training.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone would ever really think the Desert Eagle would be a real battlefield weapon, I certainly wouldn't want to carry one

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone would ever really think the Desert Eagle would be a real battlefield weapon, I certainly wouldn't want to carry one

Neither would I. There's a reason the Army uses 9mm

Or a sword, for that matter, where the hell do put it? Our bayonet goes on our tac vest, but it's small, a sword is too heavy but the fact that it's another meter or so of metal to carry makes me wonder

Well taking the priming aspect of an rpg to the bolter is sorta missing any tech leaps for this setting. I'm sure we can all come up with a fill in the blank here to make it work.

Furthermore, yea combat in todays view is done with a certain conventional view point - that can and will change as long as warfare exists. Melee may just resurface in the future, and oversized electrical super gloves may just be flung around.... with no unwieldy rule lol I sat that not being so serious, but heck, advancements can make you eat your own words.

Uh, if power armor is the major reason for melee combat being a thing in 40k, why not just incorporate the power weapon's energy disruption field tech into a special-issue projectile weapon of some sort? Or maybe make munitions capable of creating a plasma stream on impact, like how anti-tank shells work?

 Pouncey wrote:
Uh, if power armor is the major reason for melee combat being a thing in 40k, why not just incorporate the power weapon's energy disruption field tech into a special-issue projectile weapon of some sort? Or maybe make munitions capable of creating a plasma stream on impact, like how anti-tank shells work?

Or cover the plate in a power field to deflect power weapons, plasma, and explosive ordnance.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Uh, if power armor is the major reason for melee combat being a thing in 40k, why not just incorporate the power weapon's energy disruption field tech into a special-issue projectile weapon of some sort? Or maybe make munitions capable of creating a plasma stream on impact, like how anti-tank shells work?

Or cover the plate in a power field to deflect power weapons, plasma, and explosive ordnance.

SJ

I always thought that's what Iron Halos and the like were - literal energy fields, in a similar vein to power fields but intended for defense.

 Pouncey wrote:
Uh, if power armor is the major reason for melee combat being a thing in 40k, why not just incorporate the power weapon's energy disruption field tech into a special-issue projectile weapon of some sort? Or maybe make munitions capable of creating a plasma stream on impact, like how anti-tank shells work?

Why don't we just cure cancer. You know, just take cancer cells and kill them all and everything would be fine. Science!

Except armor piercing ranged weapons are available.

High enery ranged weapons are very expensive, not easy to manufacture and are not useful in close quarters cause they're generally quite unwieldy. Yep, they'll pierce through anything but they need to hit first.

My point is that there are certain technological limitations which might lead to how things are. In 40k it's possible to project a mighty armor-melting power field to a sword length and reliably chop things to death. Or alternatively, you could shoot a high-powered weapon like plazma or melta and it'd do the job too but it's either dangerous for the user and his mates or low rate of fire and range. Besides, this weapons need a significantly larger ammount of maintainence and ammunition.

Sometimes, you got to stick with a less powerful tool. There are numerous examples in real history. For example, officers in ww2 often used rifles whereas they had access to automatic weapons that are better. Why did they choose rifles? Cause if the enemy sees someone with an automatic weapon he knows - that's an officer.

Machinegun teams also preferred a less devastating machinegun (don't remember the pattern) to a more effective one simply cause it's lighter and easier to carry. You're not firing 99% of the time - you move around.

All i'm trying to say is that the most obvious solution is not always the best one.

And you have to hit in CC too, power weapons are rare and expensive and had to make, too. And of course they don't do well in close quarters, they're designed to make the idiot with his sword and pistol a few hundred of meters away doesn't reach you.

Need to clear houses and stuff? Carbines are a thing.

 Bobthehero wrote:
And you have to hit in CC too, power weapons are rare and expensive and had to make, too. And of course they don't do well in close quarters, they're designed to make the idiot with his sword and pistol a few hundred of meters away doesn't reach you.

Need to clear houses and stuff? Carbines are a thing.

Carbines are ap5 at best I'd rather have an ap3 stick if there's a space marine inside the house.

And it's easier to hit with a sword when the opponent is at arms reach rather than shoot with a rifle.

The point is that the dude with sword won't reach you.

Why not? Can't kill him with my carbine. He's wearing a freaking tank armor. All he needs to do is come straight at me waving a sword around and i'm running away screaming in fear. He doesn't even need to catch me - he's taken over a position. And i have way less attitude of staying there fighting to my death if i know that he might not just shoot my head off but instead swing a chainsword and here go my intestines lying around the place and i'm crawling on the ground trying to put them back in.

By carbine I am not talking about the Tau one, I am talking about compact version of tiles, like a hotshot carbine, ewhich punches through armor with.

And you act like you have a reliable chance of beating a SM in CC, yeah, right.

1 on 1 - no chances. But i've got some mates around here with me. 10 on 1 and i'll probably take my chances. If there's no option of running away or blasting him with artillery before he reaches me anywayz.

I don't need mates to play the targets for me, and if you're the only with a power weapon, the SM's probably smart enough to take you out first

I'll jump into this and start by saying that the 40k Fluff is goofy. Every aspect of it is silly. Techno-Barbarism though is a fantastic aesthetic though and as such makes for an interesting setting. But it is not a realistic setting. Not in the slightest.

Having said there there's plenty of good reasons to carry a melee weapon in any sort of scenario. I do a lot of leather working as part of my business and as such always have two and sometimes three knives on my person. These are not fighting blades; they're explicitly for skinning, peeling, stripping, puncturing, and cutting but because of that they're made tremendously well. Aside from work I've used to to eat, dig splinters out of my body, gut fish, cook with, prune flowers, snip threads, and shave. And those are just what the edged tools I wear on my person can be used for.

In the future, sure, you could use some fancy device to clear brush but machetes don't need batteries and bill hooks don't need fuel. Other people in this thread have made claims of melee weapon being silent or the whimsy of fixed bayonets or, appealing the setting, the savagery of a chainsword. And sure, those are all well and good but to me the whole point of "melee weapons"... the most common of which is simply the vague "Close Combat Weapon"... is simply to have something that isn't a gun or electronic device that can be used for utility work or bushcraft. That's not saying every soldier regardless of race or division in 40k needs to know how to survive in the wild but it's just useful to have on hand. This is why most real-world military groups still issue knives to their soldiers. Not exclusively for stabbing people but for cutting things. Food, vegetation, cloth, paper, tarps, opening bags, prying things, scratching marks into things, batoning through wood, personal hygiene, and on and on.

Swords can be scary and a sword being swung by a seven foot tall slab of man meat falling out of the sky can be absolutely terrifying. It's a shock and awe weapon. Looking beyond swords and other archaic implements though there's still plenty of good reasons for a soldier, when confronted with the horrors of unforgiving and alien worlds, would want to have a good knife or hatchet on hand.

Even if I were camping on earth, in my own country, I'd want a knife or hatchet on hand. Not to protect myself but to do things that human hands simply cannot do. If I were on a another planet you'd be damn right that I'd want a machete or something on hand. Because I don't know what the next day might hold but having firewood gives me an invaluable piece of mind.

 Dust wrote:
I'll jump into this and start by saying that the 40k Fluff is goofy. Every aspect of it is silly. Techno-Barbarism though is a fantastic aesthetic though and as such makes for an interesting setting. But it is not a realistic setting. Not in the slightest.

Having said there there's plenty of good reasons to carry a melee weapon in any sort of scenario. I do a lot of leather working as part of my business and as such always have two and sometimes three knives on my person. These are not fighting blades; they're explicitly for skinning, peeling, stripping, puncturing, and cutting but because of that they're made tremendously well. Aside from work I've used to to eat, dig splinters out of my body, gut fish, cook with, prune flowers, snip threads, and shave. And those are just what the edged tools I wear on my person can be used for.

In the future, sure, you could use some fancy device to clear brush but machetes don't need batteries and bill hooks don't need fuel. Other people in this thread have made claims of melee weapon being silent or the whimsy of fixed bayonets or, appealing the setting, the savagery of a chainsword. And sure, those are all well and good but to me the whole point of "melee weapons"... the most common of which is simply the vague "Close Combat Weapon"... is simply to have something that isn't a gun or electronic device that can be used for utility work or bushcraft. That's not saying every soldier regardless of race or division in 40k needs to know how to survive in the wild but it's just useful to have on hand. This is why most real-world military groups still issue knives to their soldiers. Not exclusively for stabbing people but for cutting things. Food, vegetation, cloth, paper, tarps, opening bags, prying things, scratching marks into things, batoning through wood, personal hygiene, and on and on.

Swords can be scary and a sword being swung by a seven foot tall slab of man meat falling out of the sky can be absolutely terrifying. It's a shock and awe weapon. Looking beyond swords and other archaic implements though there's still plenty of good reasons for a soldier, when confronted with the horrors of unforgiving and alien worlds, would want to have a good knife or hatchet on hand.

Even if I were camping on earth, in my own country, I'd want a knife or hatchet on hand. Not to protect myself but to do things that human hands simply cannot do. If I were on a another planet you'd be damn right that I'd want a machete or something on hand. Because I don't know what the next day might hold but having firewood gives me an invaluable piece of mind.

Yep. From a survivalist standpoint a hatchet/knife is a must - even for troops, I'd agree. As far as weapons of war goes, the utility your getting at seems like your saying that hatchet equals or is greater than a weapon of war? Some weapons are designed particularly to give you leverage in melee - which I'm sure you agree with. Some of these weapons are noticeably more effective in certain situations in melee, and I'd argue are different enough to consider as a real option - for a theatre that may have melee as a likely scenario. By all means take a hatchet, but something with more reach or leverage may also be consideration, even in addition to. I know pounds/ounces really add up in this case, but sometimes the benefit outweighs the inconvenience.

Heh something like a telescopic/collapsible bastard sword, that has quality edge and maintains good shape under great force would be a pretty convenient tool in a 40k situation, though the lack of mass would be weird perhaps (This is all if i were a guard peon). Could be used also for a number of extra survival utility operations perhaps too.

 kveldulf wrote:

I know pounds/ounces really add up in this case, but sometimes the benefit outweighs the inconvenience.

It never does. Because it's a graduating, compounding weight. Anyone can carry a 40lb bag and a rifle. Person in good shape could carry 60lbs without issue. Full day of marching... not an issue. What about two? What about a week? Lets make it a week in hot sun. You start hitting a point in which you start looking for any way to lighten the load and that's when you make sacrifices that you regret later.

But that just makes the process of issuing and designing travel, trail, and brush implements such an complicated affair. Because they're necessary tools, tremendously so, but all the necessity in the world doesn't matter if it's too cumbersome to deal with.

Heh something like a telescopic/collapsible bastard sword, that has quality edge and maintains good shape under great force would be a pretty convenient tool in a 40k situation, though the lack of mass would be weird perhaps (This is all if i were a guard peon). Could be used also for a number of extra survival utility operations perhaps too.

The biggest problem with a telescoping sword would be that the bulk of it would be hollow. This is why telescoping lightsaber toys break. One section gets dented in and then the whole thing can't collapse. It would be an effective weapon, sure. Extra weight on the tip would make it easy to swing and deliver proportionately more force. But it's a sword. Swords are great weapons, plenty versatile, but by their geometry they make better weapons than they do tools. It's difficult to find something that fits that perfect balance between the two that hasn't already been done before.



But we're not here to deliberate upon the ideal weapon for the 41st millennium. We're discussing whether or not melee weapons are still appropriate in the far future. But even now.... when we have real-time, global communication and unmanned aircraft and satellites and laser guided whatevers (some technology which has apparently been forgotten in 40k) we still have a demand for machetes, combat knives, entrenching tools, hatchets, wrecking bars, and mini-sledges. And I believe that to be the proof to the argument.

 Dust wrote:

 kveldulf wrote:

I know pounds/ounces really add up in this case, but sometimes the benefit outweighs the inconvenience.

It never does. Because it's a graduating, compounding weight. Anyone can carry a 40lb bag and a rifle. Person in good shape could carry 60lbs without issue. Full day of marching... not an issue. What about two? What about a week? Lets make it a week in hot sun. You start hitting a point in which you start looking for any way to lighten the load and that's when you make sacrifices that you regret later.

But that just makes the process of issuing and designing travel, trail, and brush implements such an complicated affair. Because they're necessary tools, tremendously so, but all the necessity in the world doesn't matter if it's too cumbersome to deal with.

Heh something like a telescopic/collapsible bastard sword, that has quality edge and maintains good shape under great force would be a pretty convenient tool in a 40k situation, though the lack of mass would be weird perhaps (This is all if i were a guard peon). Could be used also for a number of extra survival utility operations perhaps too.

The biggest problem with a telescoping sword would be that the bulk of it would be hollow. This is why telescoping lightsaber toys break. One section gets dented in and then the whole thing can't collapse. It would be an effective weapon, sure. Extra weight on the tip would make it easy to swing and deliver proportionately more force. But it's a sword. Swords are great weapons, plenty versatile, but by their geometry they make better weapons than they do tools. It's difficult to find something that fits that perfect balance between the two that hasn't already been done before.



But we're not here to deliberate upon the ideal weapon for the 41st millennium. We're discussing whether or not melee weapons are still appropriate in the far future. But even now.... when we have real-time, global communication and unmanned aircraft and satellites and laser guided whatevers (some technology which has apparently been forgotten in 40k) we still have a demand for machetes, combat knives, entrenching tools, hatchets, wrecking bars, and mini-sledges. And I believe that to be the proof to the argument.

I don't think those are melee weapons, as you said, they're tools, designed primarily for purposes other than killing. Of course, you -can- kill with them, but you can also kill someone with a frying pan, and I wouldn't consider that a melee "weapon" either.

 Ignatius wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

And no, it really wouldn't be that heavy. Bolters would be quite manageable for a normal human to hold. .75 cal is very large relative to other modern calibers, but it would still be fine for a human or roughly human sized weapon to have a 30 round magazine. Even in a banana magazine format. It would just be a little wider than typical magazines, and the gun itself would be a little larger, but no more difficult than any LMG would be.

Wat. You've clearly never shot anything larger than 7.62mm or you'd realize how crazy that sounds. The M2A1 Caliber 50 machine gun is a whole third smaller than the supposed .75 cal of a Bolger but pretty much impossible to fire dismounted.

There are many types of .50 cal rounds. You are probably thinking a Bolter is a scaled up .50 cal BMG used by an M2. But really it would be more like a scaled up .50 cal Beowulf.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_Beowulf



As you can see this .50 cal round isn't much larger than a 5.56. Scale that up to .75 cal and you could conceivably get 30 rounds in a manageable sized magazine. It would be fairly bulky in comparison, but that wouldn't be an issue for someone in power armor. Or just a particularly big dude.

The BMG has so much recoil because it has significantly more powder relative to the bullet, thats why its cartridges are wider than the bullet itself. You get a normal cartridge and its going to be less.

Its still going to kick like a mule, but it will be manageable.

Thought I'd add my 2 bits. There are 2 factors that would make sense to bring a melee weapon to a gunfight.
The quality of protection, if you have armour that negates the effects of ranged weapons then a blade skillfully inserted where the armour is weakest would be more effective, or the blunt force of a tenderizer can damage without even penetrating armour. Warhammer has plenty of very effective armour.
Also, almost every weapon ever invented requires ammo, and yhus in turn requires to be periodically reloaded. Next time you are faced with an extended firefight and you run out of ammo then I bet you had hoped you brought something better then the but of you rifle when your joined in melee. Again, warhammer on the fluff side is filled with these situations where supply of a munitions runs low.
War 40k is a setting that supports melee, it just does. Today, in our world the Concept is rather impractical. But don't try to deny the use of melee in 40k...besides, the emperor despises all who shun melee...shun to you.

Let the Emperor shun me then, centering your combat strategy on melee is stupid.

Warhammer has plenty of ranged weapons that can penetrate armor with ease, too.

That is true too, but how common are those weapons fluff wise? And how are those weapons handled, are they short barreled hand held guns that can easily moved around when orks overrun your position? Or is It a artillery/slow vehicle that requires carefully planning and placement? A sniper doesn't bring his 50cal in a building, so he pulls out a pistol or shotgun, a weapon that probably won't penetrating the armour of the spacrmarjne just around the corner. The setting supports melee.
Another factor I missed is speed. Melee wouldn't ever be an option in any 40k army if there w asnt a way to bring those power weapons into enemy lines. Drop pods, bikes, heavy transports, and hover craft, and tons of trucks justify melee.

And yes, you are forever shunned for not embraceing the glory of honorable melee.

Power weapons are rare as hell, too, why do people act like its not the case?

You can have different patterns of weapons to allow shorter barrels and what not. A sniper won't use his .50 cal to clear a building he's going to use a shortened assault rifle, called a carbine, shotguns are used for breaching and that's about it in modern armies, but more often than not, the snipers won't be the ones doing house clearing, because house clearing with so few people will end up with those few people dead, its going to be the job of the infantry to do it. And if you're about to clear a house with SM's in it, you might as well just call the artillery, because sending a sniper team with power weapons is going to far more expensive and generally end up with a dead sniper team.

As for method of transportation, its a waste to use them to fling your guys in the face of others, trucks are incredibly easy to destroy, bikes make you a bigger targer, hovercraft are also pretty rare and drop pods can be denied with enough anti air firepower.

Now if you used those things to simply drop your gunners in a safe position, you'd lose a lot less of them, reducing the amount of resources you're wasting.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ignatius wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

And no, it really wouldn't be that heavy. Bolters would be quite manageable for a normal human to hold. .75 cal is very large relative to other modern calibers, but it would still be fine for a human or roughly human sized weapon to have a 30 round magazine. Even in a banana magazine format. It would just be a little wider than typical magazines, and the gun itself would be a little larger, but no more difficult than any LMG would be.

Wat. You've clearly never shot anything larger than 7.62mm or you'd realize how crazy that sounds. The M2A1 Caliber 50 machine gun is a whole third smaller than the supposed .75 cal of a Bolger but pretty much impossible to fire dismounted.

There are many types of .50 cal rounds. You are probably thinking a Bolter is a scaled up .50 cal BMG used by an M2. But really it would be more like a scaled up .50 cal Beowulf.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_Beowulf



As you can see this .50 cal round isn't much larger than a 5.56. Scale that up to .75 cal and you could conceivably get 30 rounds in a manageable sized magazine. It would be fairly bulky in comparison, but that wouldn't be an issue for someone in power armor. Or just a particularly big dude.

The BMG has so much recoil because it has significantly more powder relative to the bullet, thats why its cartridges are wider than the bullet itself. You get a normal cartridge and its going to be less.

Its still going to kick like a mule, but it will be manageable.

I was tempted to get the Beowulf at one time Yea cartridge size would be more on part with it

It might be manageable to have a 30 round clip for a 7'6 dude in power armour - yes. It would be a bit rough for an average Jo - that's a ton of grain in a 30 round magazine.
We're talking about ~20 lbs magazines !!! Maybe the cartridge is lighter, or the bullet itself is lighter too? Yea, you think the desert eagle is hilarious in the field, a bolter in the guard would be worse.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Power weapons are rare as hell, too, why do people act like its not the case?

You can have different patterns of weapons to allow shorter barrels and what not. A sniper won't use his .50 cal to clear a building he's going to use a shortened assault rifle, called a carbine, shotguns are used for breaching and that's about it in modern armies, but more often than not, the snipers won't be the ones doing house clearing, because house clearing with so few people will end up with those few people dead, its going to be the job of the infantry to do it. And if you're about to clear a house with SM's in it, you might as well just call the artillery, because sending a sniper team with power weapons is going to far more expensive and generally end up with a dead sniper team.

As for method of transportation, its a waste to use them to fling your guys in the face of others, trucks are incredibly easy to destroy, bikes make you a bigger targer, hovercraft are also pretty rare and drop pods can be denied with enough anti air firepower.

Now if you used those things to simply drop your gunners in a safe position, you'd lose a lot less of them, reducing the amount of resources you're wasting.

The shotgun was a quick example, even your carbine won't penetrating marine armour.
Use artillery on the building? Wow, why did anyone in the history of war ever think to just blow up every building just because some badies are in it.....with every decision to use weapons that ca use mass colateral damage you have to consider risk over reward. If we went by your logic you have shown so far then the inquisition should exterminatus every planet that is being invaded.
And finally transport...by the fluff of 40k drop pods are highly effective, why would the astartes use them if they werent? In the recent montka book the astartes used pods to great effect on a highly defended tau world...and tau have probably the best anti air in the game. Bikes are mobile and with a skilled rider incredibly hard to shoot at. Hovercraft are common in 3 factions...it's basically the only transport of 3 factions (I'll see if you can guess them). And individual ork trucks are weak, no argument there, but do you have enough dakka to stop all the trukks (this time I'll give you a hint....u cant, there's too many, prepare to get cromped )
The logic of the setting justifies melee, of course this differs for each faction, but those that do melee have a way to justify it.

40k doesn't care about collateral damage unless it's planet wise, the Scion codex mentionned a drop pod assault (against Chaos forces, I think, or just rebels, either way, not Tau) that failed because of AA, same deal for the Siege of Vraks, and yes, there's plenty of firepower to destroy the trucks, but authors suck at armying and constantly underestimate the firepower the IG should put out, all in favor of the green morons

geargutz wrote:
Wow, why did anyone in the history of war ever think to just blow up every building just because some badies are in it.....

The difference is that, in the real world, we have this thing called collateral damage to worry about. Even "evil" armies in the real world are reluctant to blow up a building full of civilians to kill one enemy. But in 40k there is no such thing as civilians. You're going to exterminate everyone anyway, and killing them as collateral damage in an artillery bombardment just means you have fewer people to round up and execute once the battle is over. In 40k every faction, except maybe the Tau, is going to skip straight to "bomb the whole city into rubble and build a new one later".

And finally transport...by the fluff of 40k drop pods are highly effective, why would the astartes use them if they werent?

Because 99.99% of the time they're fighting against low-tier enemies with WWII level AA guns as their only air defense. Against networked SAM mobile sites like the Tau have or Eldar psychic laser AA tanks drop pods would be shot down effortlessly. Even in the real world we solved the problem of how to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles (which a drop pod is just a larger version of) 50+ years ago.

 Bobthehero wrote:
40k doesn't care about collateral damage unless it's planet wise, the Scion codex mentionned a drop pod assault (against Chaos forces, I think, or just rebels, either way, not Tau) that failed because of AA, same deal for the Siege of Vraks, and yes, there's plenty of firepower to destroy the trucks, but authors suck at armying and constantly underestimate the firepower the IG should put out, all in favor of the green morons

"All in favor of the green morons".....wow, you must be in denial, theres a reason why the orks have been a thorn in the empires side since they 1st took to the stars. I think your just sour that the fluff points to only 3 factions that will conquer the galaxy, and 2 of which are predominately melee.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:


The difference is that, in the real world, we have this thing called collateral damage to worry about. Even "evil" armies in the real world are reluctant to blow up a building full of civilians to kill one enemy. But in 40k there is no such thing as civilians. You're going to exterminate everyone anyway, and killing them as collateral damage in an artillery bombardment just means you have fewer people to round up and execute once the battle is over. In 40k every faction, except maybe the Tau, is going to skip straight to "bomb the whole city into rubble and build a new one later".

It's true, the imperium would rather blow up a world instead of save some civilians, you win the argument sir, I'll instruct the fleet to begin bombardment immediately!
And then the mechanicus stops you since that is a forge world that makes reAly important weapons...I'm sorry comander, your found wanting in your reasoning. We will be dropping to that planet and getting stuck in, fighting for every inch and building. You are relieved of command.

I am not sour, I just hate the orks, by far they're the worst aspect of 40k, absolutely everything from their model to their fluff disgust me, except the part where they used as fodder for the actually interesting faction to slaughter. And even then you could swap them with Chaos cultists or Nids and nothing of value would be lost, I don't care about winning 40k, noone will, because the time line has stopped. But I do care about the fact that whenever I interact with something 40k I'll have to deal with unfunny accent, the gakky humour and the eyesore that is their aesthetics.

 Bobthehero wrote:
I am not sour, I just hate the orks, by far they're the worst aspect of 40k, absolutely everything from their model to their fluff disgust me, except the part where they used as fodder for the actually interesting faction to slaughter. And even then you could swap them with Chaos cultists or Nids and nothing of value would be lost, I don't care about winning 40k, noone will, because the time line has stopped. But I do care about the fact that whenever I interact with something 40k I'll have to deal with unfunny accent, the gakky humour and the eyesore that is their aesthetics.

U hating orks, sure, I can accept that, but they are in the setting and are vital to it, but you can't change their importance with an opinion.

They're entirely unimportant to me, if I could, I wouldn't remove them from the game because it would be a dick move to the players. But if I could remove them and somehow make everyone forget about their existence I'd do it in a heartbeat

geargutz wrote:
It's true, the imperium would rather blow up a world instead of save some civilians, you win the argument sir, I'll instruct the fleet to begin bombardment immediately!
And then the mechanicus stops you since that is a forge world that makes reAly important weapons...I'm sorry comander, your found wanting in your reasoning. We will be dropping to that planet and getting stuck in, fighting for every inch and building. You are relieved of command.

You don't have to blow up the whole planet to kill marines with artillery. Leveling a building leaves the rest of the planet intact, and you were probably going to bulldoze that xenos/heretic abomination anyway to build a proper Imperial shrine where it stood.

And sure, the admech tell you the planet is important. Too bad the marines you're trying to kill smashed everything out of spite and left a nuke (or foul heretical sorcery that makes the nuke look kind and gentle) on a dead man's switch just in case you somehow won the battle. So you might as well kill them from a distance and save your own troops.

Orks remind me not to take the universe so seriously - I rather like em for that reason.

Sometimes us warhammer guys get too darn serious that we forget how to sit back and enjoy the 40k experiment for what it is: tolkien races in space. At least, it use to be more so.

One day squats hopefully come back.

 Peregrine wrote:

geargutz wrote:
It's true, the imperium would rather blow up a world instead of save some civilians, you win the argument sir, I'll instruct the fleet to begin bombardment immediately!
And then the mechanicus stops you since that is a forge world that makes reAly important weapons...I'm sorry comander, your found wanting in your reasoning. We will be dropping to that planet and getting stuck in, fighting for every inch and building. You are relieved of command.

You don't have to blow up the whole planet to kill marines with artillery. Leveling a building leaves the rest of the planet intact, and you were probably going to bulldoze that xenos/heretic abomination anyway to build a proper Imperial shrine where it stood.

And sure, the admech tell you the planet is important. Too bad the marines you're trying to kill smashed everything out of spite and left a nuke (or foul heretical sorcery that makes the nuke look kind and gentle) on a dead man's switch just in case you somehow won the battle. So you might as well kill them from a distance and save your own troops.

well, lets see here, that admek guy who deosnt want their machines destroyed still takes priority over you, if you think it deosnt then say goodbye to all those new shipments of vital tech, and dont expect to have a ship, vehicle, or lasgun ever to be repaired again.
there are important things in the setting, we cant just level a building while the important thing is inside it. your tactica is flawed, oh wait, you must be one of those guyz who only ever plays eternal war missions and not maelstrom..."oh noooo, i dont want to play to objectives, i want to be a pest and just shoot at you from way inside my deployment zone"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kveldulf wrote:
Orks remind me not to take the universe so seriously - I rather like em for that reason.

Sometimes us warhammer guys get too darn serious that we forget how to sit back and enjoy the 40k experiment for what it is: tolkien races in space. At least, it use to be more so.

One day squats hopefully come back.

oh, if only forum debates could be handled in the orky way, just a trot over to the nearest fight pit and a few teef missing later then we will see who's right.

geargutz wrote:
there are important things in the setting, we cant just level a building while the important thing is inside it.

And guess what: the enemy knows that too. The enemy is also not concerned about collateral damage as a result of killing you. That factory the admech wants to take back from the CSM? The CSM set a nuke on a dead man's switch in the basement, and if you somehow manage to kill them you set off the nuke and destroy the factory anyway. Everyone but the Tau (and the Eldar, in the rare cases where they're defending Eldar territory) should be using scorched earth tactics where any losing battle results in immediate use of WMDs to deny the objective to the enemy. It shouldn't be possible to take objectives intact, so you might as well destroy them from a distance without risking your troops.

Ye hate da orkses? But orkses lovez ye! Dat's why dey comin' for ye! Cuz dey lovez ye!

Peregrine wrote:


The difference is that, in the real world, we have this thing called collateral damage to worry about. Even "evil" armies in the real world are reluctant to blow up a building full of civilians to kill one enemy. But in 40k there is no such thing as civilians. You're going to exterminate everyone anyway, and killing them as collateral damage in an artillery bombardment just means you have fewer people to round up and execute once the battle is over. In 40k every faction, except maybe the Tau, is going to skip straight to "bomb the whole city into rubble and build a new one later".

There is one real world military willing to drop a building on civilians just because a possible "bad guy" used a cellphone near that building, and that's the US Military. Real life currently has the "good guys" doing more evil than the "bad guys".

SJ

 Peregrine wrote:

geargutz wrote:
there are important things in the setting, we cant just level a building while the important thing is inside it.

And guess what: the enemy knows that too. The enemy is also not concerned about collateral damage as a result of killing you. That factory the admech wants to take back from the CSM? The CSM set a nuke on a dead man's switch in the basement, and if you somehow manage to kill them you set off the nuke and destroy the factory anyway. Everyone but the Tau (and the Eldar, in the rare cases where they're defending Eldar territory) should be using scorched earth tactics where any losing battle results in immediate use of WMDs to deny the objective to the enemy. It shouldn't be possible to take objectives intact, so you might as well destroy them from a distance without risking your troops.

this is amazing, truly amazing, it is almost fascinating, i am in aw of the raw amounts of idiocy that infects some in this playerbase.
when some just cant acknowledge that there is something in 40k that is worth fighting for, whether it be an important forge world, a relic of a bygone age, the bloody golden throne of tera itself, and would rather drop the bombs.
congratulation sir, you have singlehandedly out shined the worst of the worst jerks in 40k, inquisition, please, they got nothing on you. chaos gods, they tip their hats to you.
we should follow this mans example and throw common sense out the window. why on earth should we care about the history and fluff of 40k, it obviously doesn't follow the "genius" of this good sir. gw should be ashamed, they obviously don't know the setting as well as peregrine. i will shed a tear for all those who will never get a chance to understands this man pure genius.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

Peregrine wrote:


The difference is that, in the real world, we have this thing called collateral damage to worry about. Even "evil" armies in the real world are reluctant to blow up a building full of civilians to kill one enemy. But in 40k there is no such thing as civilians. You're going to exterminate everyone anyway, and killing them as collateral damage in an artillery bombardment just means you have fewer people to round up and execute once the battle is over. In 40k every faction, except maybe the Tau, is going to skip straight to "bomb the whole city into rubble and build a new one later".

There is one real world military willing to drop a building on civilians just because a possible "bad guy" used a cellphone near that building, and that's the US Military. Real life currently has the "good guys" doing more evil than the "bad guys".

SJ

hey, political commentary, thats never been done on this forum b4.....

geargutz wrote:

oh, if only forum debates could be handled in the orky way, just a trot over to the nearest fight pit and a few teef missing later then we will see who's right.

 Bobthehero wrote:

geargutz wrote:

oh, if only forum debates could be handled in the orky way, just a trot over to the nearest fight pit and a few teef missing later then we will see who's right.

For someone who hates ork kultur, your more than willing to use the ork emote....that's because green is da best, even those Dat hate dah orks kant deny that

Because its the only thing that's available on the site.

And, keep speaking like an Ork, it will surely help make me take you seriously and not simply put you in the ignore list, surely sure, Mcsurely

geargutz wrote:
this is amazing, truly amazing, it is almost fascinating, i am in aw of the raw amounts of idiocy that infects some in this playerbase.
when some just cant acknowledge that there is something in 40k that is worth fighting for, whether it be an important forge world, a relic of a bygone age, the bloody golden throne of tera itself, and would rather drop the bombs.

Nice job ignoring Rule #1 of the forums, I'm sure you'll have a long and productive career here.

And you still aren't paying attention to what I'm saying. Let's say you're a CSM lord. You've just captured the golden Throne, but loyalist forces are closing in and you probably aren't going to be able to hold your prize. You have two choices:

1) Fight to defend the Throne, but make sure you don't damage it and allow the Imperial forces to take it intact if you lose the fight.

or

2) Set a bomb on a dead man's switch on the Throne, ensuring that if you lose the fight all the Imperium will be able to take back from you is a pile of useless scrap metal.

Now, proper traitor that you are you know that the only thing worse than failing to hold the Throne would be letting the enemy recover it. So you set your bomb and ensure that they can't. Now look at it from the point of view of the Imperial side. You know that the traitors will never let you take the Throne intact, so you have two choices:

1) Nuke the whole area, destroying the Throne and the traitors with it but not risking any casualties to your own army.

or

2) Fight to take it back, suffering heavy casualties, only to watch the bomb explode and destroy the Throne anyway.

You know you have zero chance of taking it back intact, so you might as well cut your losses and just kill the enemy from a safe distance.

 Peregrine wrote:

geargutz wrote:
this is amazing, truly amazing, it is almost fascinating, i am in aw of the raw amounts of idiocy that infects some in this playerbase.
when some just cant acknowledge that there is something in 40k that is worth fighting for, whether it be an important forge world, a relic of a bygone age, the bloody golden throne of tera itself, and would rather drop the bombs.

Nice job ignoring Rule #1 of the forums, I'm sure you'll have a long and productive career here.

And you still aren't paying attention to what I'm saying. Let's say you're a CSM lord. You've just captured the golden Throne, but loyalist forces are closing in and you probably aren't going to be able to hold your prize. You have two choices:

1) Fight to defend the Throne, but make sure you don't damage it and allow the Imperial forces to take it intact if you lose the fight.

or

2) Set a bomb on a dead man's switch on the Throne, ensuring that if you lose the fight all the Imperium will be able to take back from you is a pile of useless scrap metal.

Now, proper traitor that you are you know that the only thing worse than failing to hold the Throne would be letting the enemy recover it. So you set your bomb and ensure that they can't. Now look at it from the point of view of the Imperial side. You know that the traitors will never let you take the Throne intact, so you have two choices:

1) Nuke the whole area, destroying the Throne and the traitors with it but not risking any casualties to your own army.

or

2) Fight to take it back, suffering heavy casualties, only to watch the bomb explode and destroy the Throne anyway.

You know you have zero chance of taking it back intact, so you might as well cut your losses and just kill the enemy from a safe distance.

You might have chosen a bad example, because the IoM will do whatever it takes to retake the golden throne.
No Imperial general would ever considering bombing the Golden Throne, and any general who does will most certainly be summarily executed for treason and heresy by a nearby commissar / inquisitor / priest.

Now, if it were some Forge World, that would be more reasonable; that's what exterminatus is for, to destroy assets that cannot be retaken from the enemy.
The Ad Mech won't be happy, but even they would properly accept that its better for one of their factories to be destroyed than in the hands of dirty heretics.
There may be Red Tape, and a very long inspection for possible heresy.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Because its the only thing that's available on the site.

so if the only players available around you are ork players then you would play against them?

 Bobthehero wrote:
And, keep speaking like an Ork, it will surely help make me take you seriously and not simply put you in the ignore list, surely sure, Mcsurely

hmm, im not sure if that is supposed to be a positive or negative for me.....i kant be shure, but i tink i dun dont kare

 Peregrine wrote:
Nice job ignoring Rule #1 of the forums, I'm sure you'll have a long and productive career here.

sorry for being rude...but that doesnt keep me from being right.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
You might have chosen a bad example, because the IoM will do whatever it takes to retake the golden throne.
No Imperial general would ever considering bombing the Golden Throne, and any general who does will most certainly be summarily executed for treason and heresy by a nearby commissar / inquisitor / priest.

Now, if it were some Forge World, that would be more reasonable; that's what exterminatus is for, to destroy assets that cannot be retaken from the enemy.
The Ad Mech won't be happy, but even they would properly accept that its better for one of their factories to be destroyed than in the hands of dirty heretics.
There may be Red Tape, and a very long inspection for possible heresy.

this guy, this guy understands you cant just blow up everything, he needs a promotion EXALTED (not being sarcastic here).

A better way to look at this whole issue is to think about what missile weapons you want your troops not to carry.

A bayonet is always useful for a general tool. It also turns a rifle into a spear and gives the infantryman a sense of aggression necessary for combat.

But any larger melee weapon, especially a 40K power assisted model, will need to replace some of the infantryman's carrying capacity for missile weapons and ammunition.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
A better way to look at this whole issue is to think about what missile weapons you want your troops not to carry.

A bayonet is always useful for a general tool. It also turns a rifle into a spear and gives the infantryman a sense of aggression necessary for combat.

But any larger melee weapon, especially a 40K power assisted model, will need to replace some of the infantryman's carrying capacity for missile weapons and ammunition.

Not necessarily. Power Armor could allow one to carry both, due to the increase in strength.
Not that they do; Tactical marines do not carry swords.

Power armour's increased strength would allow you to carry a heavier, more powerful rifle with more ammunition, and a bayonet, instead of a power sword.

 Wulfmar wrote:
Thinking about Space Marines being in space, their boltguns rely on combustion to propel the slug - which requires oxygen. Do GW expect us to assume there is some explosive propellant / element unknown to us that can combust in the vacuum of space?

Well Most rounds have some kind of oxidizer in them that's why you can fire a handgun under water. Just google it or click the link. Also if your rifle is built correctly it should not have any air being sucked in after the bolt closes. if it did the seal with the round would be weak and would make the muzzle velocity slower, if you just put a round in the oven and turn it on it will do much much less damage and could even be less than lethal unlike if you place a gun in the oven with a round in the chamber. Science is fun.
http://www.livescience.com/18588-shoot-gun-space.html

(Legal disclaimer Don't put ammo or guns in the oven....just no. also dont shoot under water, or in space, or with out adult super vision, or if you are kind of accident prone... Or just don't do anything dangerous at all ever. if you do anything that results in harm it's your fault.)