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

So here goes, finally found a source, while going through Dark Heresy's stuff to add something new to a roleplay.

From the Inquisitor's Handbook, page 173:

"Indeed a human trying to fire such a weapon [Astartes Bolt weapon of some sort) would likely suffer recoil of such strength that it would rip their arm out of their sockets."

This doesn't really make much logical sense to me-- a bigger, more reinforced weapon should have LESS recoil, rather than more-- but there it is. My guess is that it also means that there's a superior charge in the shell as well, as Astartes boltgun shells are supposed to be rare and coveted for anyone who themselves are not Astartes.


edit: mostly posting this because it's a bit of a contentious issue.

Not sure about this, but it could be because the gun was designed for astartes they didn't bother to deal with the recoil caused by the the charge of the bolt shell, as they are basically bullet sized grenades.

Agreed. Not to mention the small initial charge would make negligible recoil, even for a normal human, somewhat like an RPG on auto, which isn't to bad from my experience. Must be including the rate of fire.

Kasrkai wrote:Agreed. Not to mention the small initial charge would make negligible recoil, even for a normal human, somewhat like an RPG on auto, which isn't to bad from my experience. Must be including the rate of fire.

There's a HUGE initial charge, not a small one. If it had a small initial charge you could block it by putting a hand up against the exit to the barrel. As it is, the weapon is very powerful at close range AND long range, so having a weak initial charge doesn't make sense.

And it isn't just a grenade. It's closer to a HEAT round with a secondary rocket propulsion. Penetrate THEN explode.

Well good. I always thought they had recoil. They're still supposed to be like action-movie guns with casings flying everywhere.

I think that's what he was saying, with the rocket propulsion you don't necessarily need a large force to get the bolt where it's going to go. But I do agree that by the very fact that they work at point blank range there must be a large initial charge.

Melissia wrote:
There's a HUGE initial charge, not a small one. If it had a small initial charge you could block it by putting a hand up against the exit to the barrel. As it is, the weapon is very powerful at close range AND long range, so having a weak initial charge doesn't make sense.

And it isn't just a grenade. It's closer to a HEAT round with a secondary rocket propulsion. Penetrate THEN explode.

Is it really secondary, though? The old "fluff" used to have boltgun rounds being kicked out of the barrel by a small charge and then being self-propelled - which would mean little or no recoil:

(2ed "wargear" booklet, p. 21)

"The bolt contains an armour piercing tip, an explosive, and a mass reactive detonator. It is shot from the barrel under low velocity, its own propellant igniting once the missile is clear of the barrel."

Commissar Molotov wrote:

Melissia wrote:
There's a HUGE initial charge, not a small one. If it had a small initial charge you could block it by putting a hand up against the exit to the barrel. As it is, the weapon is very powerful at close range AND long range, so having a weak initial charge doesn't make sense.

And it isn't just a grenade. It's closer to a HEAT round with a secondary rocket propulsion. Penetrate THEN explode.

Is it really secondary, though?

Yes, because if it was such a weak charge it'd suck at close range, and it doesn't.

As far as I know, Bolters are a bit like mini RPGs. I asume they'd have a similar recoil, though with the armor Marines shouldn't realy feel it. Also have iin mind that Bolters are semi-auto (rapid fire) for a reason. If they didn't had a big recoild, why not make them automatic (assault)?

I always imgined it to be something like this.

Melissia wrote:

Kasrkai wrote:Agreed. Not to mention the small initial charge would make negligible recoil, even for a normal human, somewhat like an RPG on auto, which isn't to bad from my experience. Must be including the rate of fire.

There's a HUGE initial charge, not a small one. If it had a small initial charge you could block it by putting a hand up against the exit to the barrel. As it is, the weapon is very powerful at close range AND long range, so having a weak initial charge doesn't make sense.

And it isn't just a grenade. It's closer to a HEAT round with a secondary rocket propulsion. Penetrate THEN explode.

'

I remember specifically reading somewhere that you COULD stop a bolter shot just by blocking the barrel with your hand. The initial shot force was supposed to be that weak. It's supposed to accelerate after exiting the gun.

But then again, that was before GW made changed the fluff to let bolters release casings since apparently every single piece of art showed that.

I assume it's a double propulsion system now. Like an artillery shell initially (hence the super recoil) followed by the ignition of the rockets once the round leaves the gun.

A bolter, to my knowledge, is a gyrojet weapon, the round containing it's own propellant charge. This would leave next to no recoil due to the make up of a gurojet round ( basically a minature missile, complete with explosive warhead). Only thing in the design i can think of causing recoil could be a internal hammer system, but even then that would be minimal.

Also noticed in the latest movie, the weapon making a loud, sharp, bang when fired.... I dont see how thats possible imo.... Giving that it's 40k... It might not matter

Okay, I got something here! I've been doing research and aparently, the bolter family was based on the Gyrojet, a family of firearms that shot small rockets instead of actual bullets. Here you can learn some things about it and here you can see a man firing his Gyrojet handgun. Compare the handgun to the Bolter Pistol and add some power for the whole 41tst century technology thingie; now you have something.

The gyrojet weapons are incredibly ineffectual at short range, a problem that bolters do not have. The gyrojet weapons also don't leave shell casings, the bolters do. The gyrojet weapons don't have recoil either, but bolters have insane levels of recoil without compensators.

The thing is, it's not something that has an equivalent in modern tech yet, at least in small arms. There are other things which are roughly equivalent though...

terranarc wrote:I assume it's a double propulsion system now. Like an artillery shell initially (hence the super recoil) followed by the ignition of the rockets once the round leaves the gun.

That is exactly what it's like


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Belexar wrote:As far as I know, Bolters are a bit like mini RPGs. I asume they'd have a similar recoil, though with the armor Marines shouldn't realy feel it. Also have iin mind that Bolters are semi-auto (rapid fire) for a reason. If they didn't had a big recoild, why not make them automatic (assault)?

Rapid Fire is full auto.

Assault has other meanings than merely rate of fire.

I believe Melissia has proved time and time again (cause people bring it up time and time again) that bolters are not gyrojets.

That being said, it make sense that a Marine's bolter would have a large initial charge. Marines are meant to fight close ranged battles as they drop into sensistive locations for a surgical strike, they aren't meant to be front-line infantry. That being said, you'd expect them to have a weapon that'd be powerful at close range, hence the presence of a large initial charge to ensure the bolt has lethal velocity at any range.

IN addition to humans being smaller, and thus unable to hold a weapon designed for an 8 foot tall superhuman in powered armor, it makes sense that the non-Astartes bolter should have a smaller charge, and be smaller overall.

Hmmm... arent bolters an option for use in necromunda? They are more likely to jam, but not rip your arms off. I also remember that in the audiobook 'the Dark King', NightHaunter gives a bolter to a terrified prisoner, who then uses it to shoot the Primarch (hitting his armour). That prisoner dies of 'Primarch-fist-to-the-head', not recoil related dismemberment.

They still have the same caliber. But it's more likely that they actually merely use more recoil-reducing technology instead, because the difference between human and Astartes bolters is pretty negligible.

The revamped Deathwatch rules has the following:

Human (civilian) Boltgun: 1d10+5X Pen 4, re-roll damage
Astartes Boltgun: 1d10+9X Pen 4, re-roll damage

Both of which are more than enough to kill most targets in a single hit, what with the X (explosive) damage type having the absolute most deadly critical hits and the two weapons very easily getting high rolls due to re-rolled damage, but the Astartes one is given a slight advantage in damage (though shots from the civilian boltgun ca easily exceed the Astartes one regardless with a good roll). The Astartes Boltgun has ten percent more range and a little bit more ammunition in its magazine I believe (four shots) as well, although this only compares the civilian pattern boltgun, as I'm too lazy to be arsed with the rest of hte patterns.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

darkkt wrote:Hmmm... arent bolters an option for use in necromunda? They are more likely to jam, but not rip your arms off. I also remember that in the audiobook 'the Dark King', NightHaunter gives a bolter to a terrified prisoner, who then uses it to shoot the Primarch (hitting his armour). That prisoner dies of 'Primarch-fist-to-the-head', not recoil related dismemberment.

Fear gives great strength to people.

At any rate, the necromunda bolters are civilian pattern ones. Less effective than the Guard ones, which are less effective then the Sororitas and Astartes ones.

Recoil for a bolter is probably similar to trying to fire a Mk.19 or AGS-17 Auto Grenade Launcher without a tripod while standing. Wouldn't rip your arms out of your socket, but it'd knock you over. I've always envisioned Bolters just to be fancy auto grenade launcher rifles as it is.

Nobody cared abut my other post. That makes me sad.

That being said, in the manual you can read that Rapid Fire weapons are usually semi-automatic rifles. I know assault weapons aren't all automati rifles (there are the Kustom MEga Blastas and flamethrowers, among others), but since we're talking about rifles here, I assumed the assault rifles would be automatic.

Storm bolters are basically LMGs, and they're assault 2. Shootas are also essentially LMGs, which are assault 2. Shuriken Cannons are assault, but this is also to represent the agility and mobility of the Eldar.

Shotguns are also assault 2, though it depends on what kind... dark heresy shows us break-open, pump action, and the semi-automatic combat shotgun, and the full automatic vanaheim (a skitarii special).

And still nothing on paralels with the Gyrojet.

Of course not, that's because nobody cares about gyrojet weapons except for people who like to mention them to wrongly claim that that's what bolt weapons are.

They are not gyrojet weapons. Gyrojet weapons are caseless, bolters are not (in fact, spent bolter shell casings are considered lucky charms). Gyrojet weapons are purely rocket propelled, bolter weapons are not (as they are able to penetrate armor and do maximum damage at close range-- remember they do not explode until after penetration, and the explosion itself wouldn't get through flak armor because flak armor is intended to protect specifically AGAINST explosions. But bolter shells penetrate and THEN explode, circumventing this strength. This is why flak armor works against Ork shootas, which are often explosive shells, but not against bolter shells.). Gyrojet weapons have very little recoil, bolter weapons have a lot, and need compensators for humans to use without injury (which is noted in both Dark Heresy AND Deathwatch, amongst other places).

Guns that fire rockets?

No.

To repeat myself:

Melissia wrote:They are not gyrojet weapons. Gyrojet weapons are caseless, bolters are not (in fact, spent bolter shell casings are considered lucky charms). Gyrojet weapons are purely rocket propelled, bolter weapons are not (as they are able to penetrate armor and do maximum damage at close range-- remember they do not explode until after penetration, and the explosion itself wouldn't get through flak armor because flak armor is intended to protect specifically AGAINST explosions. But bolter shells penetrate and THEN explode, circumventing this strength. This is why flak armor works against Ork shootas, which are often explosive shells, but not against bolter shells.). Gyrojet weapons have very little recoil, bolter weapons have a lot, and need compensators for humans to use without injury (which is noted in both Dark Heresy AND Deathwatch, amongst other places).

Belexar wrote:Guns that fire rockets?

The difference is this.

Gyrojets rely solely on the rocket to propel their projectile.

Bolters have a usual explosive charge to fire the bullet (thus giving it good stopping power upclose) and THEN the rocket takes over.

It's a small but important distance.

Of course they're gyrojets, they just have an initial charge to launch them because apparently gyrojets weren't pointlessly complex and inefficient enough for them already. I'm a little surprised they didn't come up with a justification to have mini-chainsaws on the bolts...

I think there's some flawed logic being expressed here.

Bolters should have minimal(or less-than-typical) recoil compared to conventional firearms, as has been pointed out above. The thing is, for practicality's sake, they should also be effective at close range.

The flawed logic comes in when one assumes that because premise 'A' has bolters being low-recoil, it cannot possibly be true while premise 'B'(bolters being effective at close-range), is also true, so premise 'A' must be thrown out.

It in a logical world, it would indeed be tricky to have bolters being low-recoil AND effective even at point-blank range but frankly, 40k writers, GW, and whoever can pretty much ignore logic, the laws of physics, etc. when it comes to fluff.

Okay, awkward thing here, that post I posted before I ould read your prevous post. Sorry.

So yeah, Boltguns might be based upon the Gyrojets, but they add their punch to the shot. Okay, how about this. The bolt gun does have recoil, but it shouldn't be enough to do any actual harm to a human. We've heard of unarmored humans shooting them wthout haivng their arm torn off, though it must still have quite the kick for even armored humans to feel it.

Here's an idea! How about we look at the official art? I know it's a bit stretched out, but the position of the Marine's arms at the moment of shootign should help us see about how much of a kick the gun has.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:Of course they're gyrojets

So because something has ONE similarity and is glaringly different in every other way, it's the same?

Ronin-Sage wrote:It in a logical world, it would indeed be tricky to have bolters being low-recoil AND effective even at point-blank range but frankly, 40k writers, GW, and whoever can pretty much ignore logic, the laws of physics, etc. when it comes to fluff.

Which basically amounts to "I don't like the idea of boltguns having lots of recoil so I'm just gonna say science fiction!, throw my hands up, and hope you accept it".

We have official recent sources saying it has high recoil.

It's like that grey knights bathing in the blood of Sisters to keep themselves pure thing. A lot of people don't like it, but it IS canon.

The SM Codex should be a reliable source for art. Gonna check it out in a while.

Also, my simpathy for the GK keeps declining every day.