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They would store ammo in their transports, or in support drop pods, or in stock piles. I'm pretty sure SM power armor has no room for compartments, but a practical space marine would have several magazines strapped to their legs and belt area.

ph34r wrote:They would store ammo in their transports, or in support drop pods, or in stock piles. I'm pretty sure SM power armor has no room for compartments, but a practical space marine would have several magazines strapped to their legs and belt area.

Exactly. They don't have enough ammo -on them- to fight a campaign. But their Drop Pods would likely carry a small stockpile, as well as T-Hawks deploying ammo points and additional Supply pods deploying to serve as resupply stations. I think it's perfectly logical. Not as comical as the ass-storage, but certainly more fluff-friendly (not to mention - less painful )

Oh my god!!1!

Bolters, the Brown Bess in SPAAAACE!

Of course, now I wonder if they'll release fluff that CSM bolters are .69 both as a terrible pun and riffing the .69 Charleville?

Philip Sibbering makes a good point on marine's ammo.

Well, if it's so lame then by all means, show us the fluff that states where they would store additional ammo during an invasion. Seeing how you act like you have the true answer.

Its called common sense and the laws of physics. I´m not hiding behind lame things like "magic" or bullets that are lighter then air to excuse some far fetched tech solutuion that is not even covered by the fluff.
No, the burden of proof is not on me, its on the guy who want to make it out into the bolt rounds "magically" taking up no space and "magically" weighting nothing.

I'd like to know how having a compartment in each pod for a few extra mags, in addition to those the Marine is carrying on him when he makes planetfall (Because going into battle without them would make you dumber than the Sergeant from the first DoW intro), is "Lame". I never claimed that it was Fluff, so there's no need to get all butthurt just because you don't think it's plausible.

Oh that is very plausible. Additional ammo in the compartment spaces of a rhino or a pod is just sensible but:
A: its not enough (orks would pretty much laugh at your ten spare clips in the rhino) and
B: Far from every scenario gives the marines access to rhinos or pods stashed with extra ammunition.

Please explain to me how shrike and his buddies managed to kill hordes of orks during their 2 years isolated behind enemy lines!
Because doing all that damage by using hand and fist just isnt "plausible".

Personally, I think Marines would be stupid not to have some sort of ammo compartment for a handful of extra mags. If you disagree, fine. It's not breaking physics, and it's not like I'm saying that Drop Pods just have bottomless ammo storage. But thanks for looking like a dill-hole on a speculative topic.

If you think that believing "magical" escapes from a common sense problem is being an a-hole then that is your opinion.
Personally I´d like to think I know how to look at a problem in a logical sense and try to explain it without bending common sense and throwing in lame "magical solution" just to excuse my personal beliefs about things that simply must be made out according to my will.

If it doesnt work, change the theory, its just that simple.
Dont be stoopid and alter reality to make it suit you.

And about the extra ammo compartments on marines, I never said that wes stupid, on the contrary in fact. I believe they carry on them about 10 extra magazines but even then it will not last long and the second point is that it goes aginst the very synergy of a space marine. If you re-read my posts I´m sure you´ll see why and what I mean.

Besides, I never said they wouldn't still run out, only that they would be smart to have storage for a couple refills once they've expended their carry-on.

Yes they would always TRY to achieve that but as with current day special forces tehy CANNOT rely on resupplies. They have to plan on carrying everything they will ever need in to battle and any resupply is only a positive extra bonus should it get through.
What if they cant get resupplied? It has nothing to do with being smart or with logics.
Clearing an ork space hulk, being left behind enemy lines, holding isolated against oncoming nids etc etc, what will tehy do then with their handful of extra spares?

Ergo: The whole theory of what a bolter uses as ammunition is flawed and before you go all mature and start screaming words like a-hole again this is not the first time GW has made a gigantic logical miss. My point is make the tech theory adapt to what canon fluff tells us marines regularily do on their missions.

If it bothers you so much, then Green Stuff some chest rigs or vests for your Marines.

The mag pouches that come with the Tac squad are way off. They're not nearly thick enough.


As for number, given the size of a bolter mag, and the width of a Marine chest, you could base it off of one of the Chi-com AK chest rigs with the 3 mag pouches in the front.

Pardon my ignorance, but is it not unwise to put magazines of live ammo on your chest? Would that help protect you from a hit to the chest, or would it explode if it got hit and shrapnelize you with your own ammo?

My marines are happy with only needing one mag, they only get two shooting phases before combat. The dice tell me that thats only 4 bolts per marine max!

bullets don't explode. Quite a few soldiers have ben saved in no small part due to their magazines and rounds taking the hits.

If it does explode, it's because whatever hit them was explosive.

s.j.mccartney wrote:Pardon my ignorance, but is it not unwise to put magazines of live ammo on your chest? Would that help protect you from a hit to the chest, or would it explode if it got hit and shrapnelize you with your own ammo?

My marines are happy with only needing one mag, they only get two shooting phases before combat. The dice tell me that thats only 4 bolts per marine max!

Magazines don't explode, but they also won't stop bullets.

They did a test on www.theboxotruth.com. Even steel AK mags with very thick walls, fully loaded, wouldn't stop rifle rounds. Pistol rounds maybe...


It's just a convenient place to put your ammunition so you can still be agile enough to run and crawl. If it's on your hips, it's much less comfortable and slower to reload.

Can save you from sharpnel and sharpnel is what causes most deaths on a battle field (not bullets as commonly mistaken).

There are also examples of knife blades saving peoples lives as bullets struck them.

It does not need to stop the bullet, per se, only limit the kinetic energy enough that it does little damage when it goes in. Thus, a knife blade saving a persons life. Take away the bullets source of power, its speed, and it does nothing. You cannot hurt someone by merely throwing a bullet at them (unless you are a major league pitcher, if you are, congrats you killing machine you) unless you hit them in eyes or drop it off the top of a multistory building, and dropping it off a building may result in at most a concussion (if that is even possible, with how light bullets are, more likely it will just feel like you hit your head on the corner of a table). You need much more speed to actually maim or kill someone.

Yeah, I think the guy with the knife blade ended up getting half the blade crammed an inch or two inside his body but that is survivable and preferred to having a bullet pass your body.

The object can also partially deflect the bullet instead of outright stopping it. Again, lowering the kinetic energy and getting it to strike somewhere less lethal.

... Minor detail, but aren't bolts supposed to be armor piercing mini grenades? Like super powered dum dum rounds or something? (Never mind that a .75 will kill you without piercing you anyway, the kinetic impact being enough to rupture internal organs through armor.)

The reason that modern militaries don't use a .75 is that with modern propellants behind it, a .75 rifle round is too much gun to handle (broken shoulders, etc).

It's up there with a 9 gauge shotgun. Yes, they exist, but most sane people don't use one, and even the ones that do have a LOT of shock absorbing.

Note the words sane and average are used. Ironically, my 100 caliber weapon has a smaller bore then the barrel of a bolt gun. Which says what we all knew, GW has no concept of scale.

Also, mind you, I've never fired said weapon without bolting it to it's mounting. Which is attached to a ship.

I did a mock up of a marine last night with two clips of ammo on his chestpiece, it isn't a good look. I'll post pics tonight.

They look much better hanging from his belt.

or inside his pauldrons.

here's my white-tacked marine displaying how big the bolter mags are when strapped to his chest.

GundamMerc wrote:It does not need to stop the bullet, per se, only limit the kinetic energy enough that it does little damage when it goes in. Thus, a knife blade saving a persons life. Take away the bullets source of power, its speed, and it does nothing. You cannot hurt someone by merely throwing a bullet at them (unless you are a major league pitcher, if you are, congrats you killing machine you) unless you hit them in eyes or drop it off the top of a multistory building, and dropping it off a building may result in at most a concussion (if that is even possible, with how light bullets are, more likely it will just feel like you hit your head on the corner of a table). You need much more speed to actually maim or kill someone.

A couple of magazines aren't going to save your bacon from any rifle round, unless we're talking extreme range here. Even at the upward limit of usable range, tiny little 5.56 will go through magazines like a hot knife through butter, and do a number on whoever is on the other side. There's not enough distance to cause a meaningful change in bullet orientation that would significantly degrade penetration and thin metal mags don't slow it down enough.

Plus you run into issues of spalling. As the round passes through the magazine, it creates lots of itty bitty secondary projectiles that can really mess up your day.

And would you have any experience in the field with this?

Also, I think you are thinking of perpendicular head on shots. This may not be the case. If the round comes in at an angle, however slight, it has to go through significantly more magazine to get through, and has a greater chance of being deflected any amount as the angle increases. So test range firings will find some information, but to get a full look at the subject, you would need to fire at it from an angle.

The eff?

What is this argument about now? I thought the situation was resolved when we discovered that the there was a small gap between the power plant of the power armour and the power armour itself for 8 mags? It was also brought up that there was in fact an outside force, the humans that tend to work for the Space Marines I believe, that manage a comm net of some sort that directs Brothers to a spare mag when they're out. In this way they supposedly have enough ammo for a stand operation. (Keeping in mind that they're standard operation time is not incredibly long)

As for ammo depots ._. Drop pods sound plausible, but with the fluff tactics of the Marines would they hang around long enough to make use of the extra mags? Rhinos and drop poinds for ammo sound more plausible...

My 2 cents...and I'm sure someone will have a witty rebuttal.

My marines would need that Rhino full of ammo...

Praise the Emperor, and pass the heavy bolter...

GundamMerc wrote:And would you have any experience in the field with this?

Also, I think you are thinking of perpendicular head on shots. This may not be the case. If the round comes in at an angle, however slight, it has to go through significantly more magazine to get through, and has a greater chance of being deflected any amount as the angle increases. So test range firings will find some information, but to get a full look at the subject, you would need to fire at it from an angle.

In addition to be a 40k nerd, I also served in the 50th bn Nahal Brigade of the IDF.

I'm sure you've seen that chest rigs are pretty chic amongst every modern fighter, and Hamas was no different. But they found out the hard way during Operation Cast Lead that magazines aren't bulletproof.

Ammo goes into thy enemy

They don't need lots of ammo. They shoot some, and then beat the crap out of the enemy with their bare fists.

Or they just keep them clips in their belt pockets.