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Oh good lordy. Take Bolters because they are awesome and they are the Emperor's Gift, blessing, and blah blah. To answer an earlier question about if those autoshotguns in the modern weapons movie fire explosive rounds... yeah they do. I watched through a followup to that thing and sat through it with morbid fascination as this gunhappy dude took a big steel barrel-can target to pieces in seconds and threw up a bunch of clumps of dirt which we can only assume are filled with little bits of shrap flying around.

Bolters are used by Space Marines because in Laserburn, the SF skirmish game written by Bryan Ansell before he took over GW and launched 40K, Space Marines use bolters.

IRL a bolter would not work as well as proper bullets, due to various physical laws, but they are more Grimdark™.

actually, the Gyrostabilization principal is quite sound. accuracy is equal to normal rounds and lethal range is far greater.

similer to when a football is thrown, the spin the thrower puts on it adds stability and therefor accuracy.

modern bullets use Rifiling to put a Gyrostabilisation spin on rounds. add in a small rocket and you are gold.


it might lose accuracy beyond 1 mile, but no SMG is accurate or effective at that range. bolters would be effective if not accurate.



the Bolter, unlike the lasgun, is actually an extreamly plausable weapons system given todays technology as well as real world Physics.

it would be fairly easy to manufacture a .75 caliber(that is frakkin HUGE) round that is both rocket propelled as well as exploding. it they can put a Tazer inside a shotgun shell, they can make bullets explode and be Rocket propelled.

the gun itself? well, it is just a .75 cal gun.

I'm not sure your right talking about Gyrostablised Rounds.

Spin e.g Rifling makes it more accurate in flight. This is not the same as a Gyro.

As a Naval Officer Gyro's are vital to our everyday work, they work by always point to a fixed position in space regardless of how much you move. Gyrostablised bullets would always point towards the same position in space.

If they were Bullets with a Guidance System utilising a Gyro, they would be able to hit a target by taking a known position in space e.g. the Gyro indicated position then use that input to plot a course to the target.

Gyrostablised Gun systems are used on all kinds of platforms, Aircraft to ships to Armoured vehicles and it essentially allows for accuracy against a target whilst moving, pitching rolling etc. As the gun remains on a fixed point in space and will change its elevation and orientation In order to continue to point at that fixed point in space based on the input from the GYRO regardless of where the ship, vehicle, aircraft goes.

A Gyrostablised Bullet would always try to fly towards the same point in space regardless of what orientation it was fired (It simply would not work). A guided Round using a Gyro could be achievable, but you would then need to input to the round positional/ orientational data so it could plot a course to intercept its target using the GYRO NORTH/DATUM as its orientation point.


A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of conservation of angular momentum.[1] A mechanical gyroscope is essentially a spinning wheel or disk whose axle is free to take any orientation. This orientation changes much less in response to a given external torque than it would without the large angular momentum associated with the gyroscope's high rate of spin. Since external torque is minimized by mounting the device in gimbals, its orientation remains nearly fixed, regardless of any motion of the platform on which it is mounted.

Any way i digress........BOLTERS ROCK!! A handheld 30mm Cannon? I'm getting a ****-on just thinking about it!

Ouze wrote:

cadbren wrote:
What is this from?

It's from the movie Wanted, which was enjoyable if dumb.

Thanks.

Maybe that gyro-stabilisation built in to their power suit (the details of which are unclear) is why they have a BS4 (also probably why a 4 all along the board)... It's the power armor and the cybernetic plug ins that make stuff like this implausible, impossible to explain. Do they have recoil compensators in their elbows? Because a shell the size of a fist, self propelled or not, would still break someone's arm just pulling the trigger.

The power armor is a bit ambiguous. We know it enhances their targetting skills, their battlefield navigation with HUDs, their actual physical strength... but do the bolters link into it too, which could be a reason it is the chosen weapon of the space marines. I mean seriously, why not have every one of them lug around an autocannon? A guardsman can carry one... It surely isn't a cost factor because the speshmerehns are obviously outfitted as best as the emprah can provide. Maybe factored into the ambiguous statline where a difference between 3 and 4 from everything from toughness/strength ratio to BS and to AP comes down to the fact that they are just linked to the power armor HUD, just as the Marine's T and S stat is kind of ambiguous since some of it come from the armor, some from the marine. If all marines carried basic autocannons without the supposed linkup to their HUD they would be shooting as straight as the SoB or IG gunners. Just a possibility to throw out there... maybe there's a lot more tech to the bolter than we give it credit for, and it is the reasons have a statline like they do, as is their armor, training, implants, etc. It all sort of adds up. The bolter is part of the marine just like the armor and so on and they all intertwine to give those arrogant jerks the superior in all things kind of stats they have.

Very few things out-stat a marine. Eldar match them on BS but lose out on S and T, while getting a leg up on I. Orks match them on T but for some reason their brutish arms are still only S3, but they get a leg up on A... Necronsa are close but they have their phase-out problems. Tau have better guns but can't shoot straight any better than IG... What's not to like about a 4-across-the-board kind of statline?

No weaknesses, just slightly above average in every way. I think the bolter and whatever complexities are involved with the power armor and the physical implants are all meant to abstractly represent this.

to Guitardian
You make an excellent point with the suit linking and recoil compensation from the suit and training, but game wise if they were to make things "realistic"/Fluffy all SM's would have BS5 WS5 due to super intense training and advanced technology. Every Bolter has a gun camera in it that the SM link to and they can use it to shoot around corners similar to the Israeli Corner Shot of modern day, so model wise all they would have to do is have a gun around the corner and they could shoot, game wise this is not possible. I think that the Fluff and the actuall game don't mix well together due to the game being so simple and fluid. If GW were to actually make lots of rules for different firing types and make things "Realistic" then a single 1000 point game would last 5 hours, and thats too long for one small game, imagine Apocolyse games. They'd take weeks!! All in all fluff and game mechanics don't mix as well as real life and game mechanics don't mix, so no one should try to relate the three together (although fluff and real life can be mixed I think)

Just Dave wrote:I think you may like .50 cal's a bit too much... You can probably get doctors for that kind of thing.

To Be Honest, I think this argument for Bolter's being worse than .50 cal (or much else) was finished a long time ago, as others have already said.

As for your idea of Bolters firing .50 cal bullets:

Samus_aran115 wrote:Everything else is for chumps. Bolters have excellent recoil and rarely have problems. They're easy to fix, clean and use. Also, you can feed a variety of ammunitions into them. They're good weapons.

Valkyrie wrote:a .75 cal exploding bolt really exemplifies the style of a Space Marine: hitting fast and hard, leaving very little behind.

The Defenestrator wrote:bolters are .75 calibre HE rounds; if you want to compare stats, a heavy stubber (found on IG tanks) is about what a .50 cal machine gun would be. Besides, bolters are sacred weapons to the space marines; you wouldn't ask a samurai to trade in his katana for a pike because it's 'cheaper and has better range', would you?

A 50cal can kill an elephant, a doctor couldn't do anything.

Guitardian wrote:Because a shell the size of a fist, self propelled or not, would still break someone's arm just pulling the trigger.

A human's arm.

Astartes are not human.

Melissia wrote:

Guitardian wrote:Because a shell the size of a fist, self propelled or not, would still break someone's arm just pulling the trigger.

A human's arm.

Astartes are not human.

But SoBs are human, and the only (supposed) reason they can fire a boltgun is because of their power armor.

Klawz wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Guitardian wrote:Because a shell the size of a fist, self propelled or not, would still break someone's arm just pulling the trigger.

A human's arm.

Astartes are not human.

But SoBs are human, and the only (supposed) reason they can fire a boltgun is because of their power armor.

humans can use bolters, just not on 3 round burst and Full Auto(Munitorum Manuel)

Bolters designed for non-power armor wearing humans generally use less impressive ammunition (at least, according to the FFG roleplaying games by Andy Hoare).

All of htem use .75 caliber however. WHich is roughly equivalent to a 10/12 gauge shotgun shell.

Okay, i have read this entire thread and love it.
I have all the Soul Drinker books, and love them. I ve also read about a dozen other 40k novels and have a few views of the holy Bolter.
1.) the bolter fires 'anywhere', it works in dense air, thin air, underwater, and in the void of space.
Its altogether likely part of why the Bolter looks as primitive as it does, is because it works all the time. This supports the recoiless view of the weapon, since marines dont cartwheel off in the vacuum after firing.
2.) I have read in a few places that old pattern bolters fire slower rocket projectiles, different from modern ( bear with me on the temporal terminology please, its all relative to the 40k setting) bolters.
On page 247 of the Soul Drinkers Omnibus .....
A bolter shell. Sarpedeon would recognise it anywhere- but it was different, a low- velocity mark that had not been issued to Space marines for thousands of years....
There are other examples like this in other novels, stating that older pattern bolters fired slower munitions. Ive even seen it implied ( but unsupported) in these novels that the older patterns used rocket munitions, that were semi or fully guided munitions. All seem to share two things in common though. All fire a .75 Caliber shell, and all have the capability to explode inside the target.

My view is the bolter we use in game and drool over in the fluff is awesome. It works over distances, consistently. It puts holes in things, consistently. It is a great weapon, so great its used by almost every Imperial faction capable of using it. Its even venerated.
In short its the Kalashnikov of the 41st millenium, everyone loves it and it works great for the job it was intended to fill. Is it the best of what is available? Likely no. Is it as cheap as the rest? Likely no.
Is it awesome? An unqualified YES SIR!!

The Bolter is used simply because, it hits hard enough to kill big guys such as orks or nids but is still simple and rugged. Its all basic killing power. it packs the punch a marine needs.

Actually it's not described as simple and rugged. It requires constant maintenance and is prone to corrosion, degrading, and so on.

You're confusing the boltgun with the lasgun, which is described as so rugged you can leave it leaning against a tree and come back a year later, and fire it without risk of it jamming.

As an over-powered temperamental maintenance hog the Bolter makes sense as a weapon for fanatical warrior-monks like the Astartes. All that time spent stripping and cleaning your bolter is time that isn't spent realizing that you're wasted sacrificing your superior mind and body as a pawn in the machinations of the High Lords of distant Terra. Remember, idleness breeds heresy...

Remember also that the Marines don't Kow-Tow to the lords of Terra.

those High lords better ask very nicely for the marines to aid them because, if they don't want to do something they sure as Hell won't do it.

Interestingly I was originally going to write "kow-tow to the High Lords of Terra" but as mentioned they don't. Part of what I like so much about the current Codex: Chaos Space Marines is the emphasis that they put on the thin line between a marauding band of loyalist Space Marines and a marauding band of renegade Space Marines, and how the Codex Astartes attempts to hedge against the independence that inexorably leads to damnation.

The thing that has me scratching my head over the Bolter though, is if it only carried 25 rounds. How come Marines arent lugging around satchels full of spare magazines for them, I mean they are Storm troopers but even WW2 Storm Troops carried a couple hundred rounds. If the power armor boosts strength, enhances stability, and seals them in safely against even the most hostile of environments. Why not to improve their ability to carry their fight further? More ammo means more fight right?
Sorry for the off topic.
Do you folks suppose the Bolt pistol is the same caliber as the Bolter?

Yes, the bolt pistol is the same caliber.

Both are 0.75 cal, with the heavy bolter being 1.00 cal.

in fact the weapons can use the same ammo magazines. there are specialized magazines, but they can use the same ones.

Pistol Magzines are generally 7-10 rounds.

Bolters are 20 for straight(CSMs have these), 25-30 for Sickle(most common type), 60 for drum, 50-60 for double Magazines(kind Sternguard have).


marines generally carry 5-7 additional magazines in their backpacks and attached to their belts. these are generally absent from the models however.

And usually a straight clip containing 24 rounds for civilian bolters.

Grey Templar wrote:in fact the weapons can use the same ammo magazines. there are specialized magazines, but they can use the same ones.

Pistol Magzines are generally 7-10 rounds.

Bolters are 20 for straight(CSMs have these), 25-30 for Sickle(most common type), 60 for drum, 50-60 for double Magazines(kind Sternguard have).


marines generally carry 5-7 additional magazines in their backpacks and attached to their belts. these are generally absent from the models however.

So your average Marine is likely only carrying under 200 rounds into battle? Geeez no wonder they have chain swords. Lol kidding. But it does seem like they should carry more.
Against a horde invasion of Orks or Nids seems kinda silly. i bet the Rhinos are packed with spare ammo for the stalwart Marines.

They do have extra ammo in their rhinos.

however, most engagements marines are involved in will last less then 20 minutes so they likely don't need much ammo.

besides, Modern troops waste sooooo much ammo. I bet less then 10% of rounds fired actually find a soft target(someone could back me up) most are just fired as suppression. Marines are pushing 66% accuracy, if every shot is a kill then you don't need as many.

Even piddly Guardsmen and Orks are getting pretty nice shot to hit ratios.

Grey Templar wrote:They do have extra ammo in their rhinos.

however, most engagements marines are involved in will last less then 20 minutes so they likely don't need much ammo.

besides, Modern troops waste sooooo much ammo. I bet less then 10% of rounds fired actually find a soft target(someone could back me up) most are just fired as suppression. Marines are pushing 66% accuracy, if every shot is a kill then you don't need as many.

Even piddly Guardsmen and Orks are getting pretty nice shot to hit ratios.

Yeah in our modern armies the shot to hit ratio is disgusting, i know its somewhere on the order of 1500 shots to a hit and ten times that for a kill.
Still, when the skies are turning black with mycetic spores and the bugs are crawling...... you gotta look over your shoulder at the Rhino and say......." uh guys!"

Boltguns are also the standard weapon of the army. If you were to give the SM the .50 cal or something that would murder people in 40k as it does in modern day, it would tip the balance even further. People already complain that SM are too strong and have too good of saves.

The Iraq war: 50,000 bullets to 1 death ratio

WWI: 500,000 bullets to 1 death ratio

Klawz wrote:The Iraq war: 50,000 bullets to 1 death ratio

WWI: 500,000 bullets to 1 death ratio

Well, you learn something every day....


I wonder if that ratio iis skewed by the advent of death from the skies more than the lethality of the projectiles we fire.

SanguinaryGuard wrote:Boltguns are also the standard weapon of the army. If you were to give the SM the .50 cal or something that would murder people in 40k as it does in modern day, it would tip the balance even further. People already complain that SM are too strong and have too good of saves.

Why would giving them smaller caliber, weaker munitions with a less effective explosive effect make them Marines more deadly?

AgeOfEgos wrote:

Klawz wrote:The Iraq war: 50,000 bullets to 1 death ratio

WWI: 500,000 bullets to 1 death ratio

Well, you learn something every day....


I wonder if that ratio iis skewed by the advent of death from the skies more than the lethality of the projectiles we fire.

well, there weren't many(Relativly speaking) aircraft caused deaths in WW1 so that number is pretty close to accurate. also that is shots from both sides per death from either sides.

Iraq: we do rely on air support alot. the enemy is rarely wearing any type of body armour(more common as time progresses), but it can take multiple 9mm rounds to disable someone who is pumped full of adrenilyn even when unprotected. also 9mm rounds don't blow through walls like Bolt rounds. maybe that would solve some problems Marines also have no qualms about collateral damage and civilian deaths(more easy problem solving)