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NauticalKendall wrote:
Why has no one addressed the issue that if two people are fighting using chainswords the weapons are likely to clash when parrying one another.... regardless if the chainsword teeth are super strong and sharp, wedge like or block like... that equals two broken swords.

Chainsword is a horrendous weapon, and would probably never work. Not any better than a Chain Saw would. Which makes the sword itself redundant. and Chain saw rifles like in Gears of War much more sensical if you ignore the fact that the game clearly clashes them... even though they would break. The only way the two swords wouldn't destroy each other when snagging on each others super awesome teeth is if one had a more powerful motor and just over powered the other sword, rendering only one broken sword.

Chain Axe on the other hand, different story.

It would depend on the strength of the links more than the blades really. cant imagine the forces involved

There's only 2 possibilities if you have a form lock between a chainsword and something solid/another chainsword
Either both motors stop instantly, or something breaks. There's no other solution to keep the thing rotating but locking into each other at the same time.

Also, like any good soldier you'd know that parrying with the sharp edge of your sword (chain or no chain) is retardäd... I put those absolutely stupid "locked chain swords against each other" pictures into the hollywood trophe box with the rest of the silly "heroic/epic" moments and blame the artists...

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Snap, shatter, really the same thing. Just depends on the relative brittleness of the object.

Not at all. Shattering means breaking up into a bunch of little pieces while snap means breaks into two. If you shatter a sword, then it is broken and done-for; almost impossible to repair. If you snap a sword, on the other hand, then you can weld the two pieces together and re-work the blade so that it's almost as strong as when it was new.

Ummm yeah that would be terrible. the weld becomes a terrible hard spot that will be the first point of break when hit by anything. because when you weld two pieces of metal the center is overall the same composition

The reason a japanese katana works so well is because it is actaully two types of steel forge welded together. a Hard high in carbon outside and and a softer less carbon inside. the reason it has a curve is after the blade is forged the final step is quenching where the softer metal contracts more than the harder front, pulling the blade upwards.

The hard blade lets it keep an edge while the rear softer core keeps it from shattering.


European blades generally didn't do all that and basically was one uniform material throughout. so some times it would be a softer blade that would bend and get dull quick, or a harder metal that would be prone to chipping and breaking but kept a sharpas feth edge.

I see you've bought into the mystique of the Katana.

The Katana was actually made of very poor quality steel, then only good steel was the very blade itself. This made the katana very brittle.

By the late middle ages, European steel manufacturing was the best in the world. The best swords ever made were made in Toledo. They were flexible and lightweight and would spring back after bending.

Japan has done a good job of marketing their culture, and that includes elevating the Katana to more than it actually was. The Katana was great at cutting through flesh, but it failed miserably against any good quality armor.

People tend to forget that the Katana was just a backup weapon for the spears Samurai wielded.

I thought the wakizashi was the samuria's back-up weapon?

 Redcruisair wrote:
I thought the wakizashi was the samuria's back-up weapon?

It is. It's also for beheading, seppuku and close quarters fighting, as well as serving as a status symbol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Snap, shatter, really the same thing. Just depends on the relative brittleness of the object.

Not at all. Shattering means breaking up into a bunch of little pieces while snap means breaks into two. If you shatter a sword, then it is broken and done-for; almost impossible to repair. If you snap a sword, on the other hand, then you can weld the two pieces together and re-work the blade so that it's almost as strong as when it was new.

Ummm yeah that would be terrible. the weld becomes a terrible hard spot that will be the first point of break when hit by anything. because when you weld two pieces of metal the center is overall the same composition

The reason a japanese katana works so well is because it is actaully two types of steel forge welded together. a Hard high in carbon outside and and a softer less carbon inside. the reason it has a curve is after the blade is forged the final step is quenching where the softer metal contracts more than the harder front, pulling the blade upwards.

The hard blade lets it keep an edge while the rear softer core keeps it from shattering.


European blades generally didn't do all that and basically was one uniform material throughout. so some times it would be a softer blade that would bend and get dull quick, or a harder metal that would be prone to chipping and breaking but kept a sharpas feth edge.

I see you've bought into the mystique of the Katana.

The Katana was actually made of very poor quality steel, then only good steel was the very blade itself. This made the katana very brittle.

By the late middle ages, European steel manufacturing was the best in the world. The best swords ever made were made in Toledo. They were flexible and lightweight and would spring back after bending.

Japan has done a good job of marketing their culture, and that includes elevating the Katana to more than it actually was. The Katana was great at cutting through flesh, but it failed miserably against any good quality armor.

Ai, that's the sad truth about the katana. It wasn't any different to the European sword, except slightly worse at dealing with armor.
The viking Ulthbert is a superior sword; it's highly flexible, can hold a pretty sharp edge and is a solid piece of steel, as opposed to 2 layers of two types of steel.
Still, the fact that the Japanese smiths could create a functional blade with what terrible materials they had available is impressive.

NauticalKendall wrote:
Why has no one addressed the issue that if two people are fighting using chainswords the weapons are likely to clash when parrying one another.... regardless if the chainsword teeth are super strong and sharp, wedge like or block like... that equals two broken swords.

Chainsword is a horrendous weapon, and would probably never work. Not any better than a Chain Saw would. Which makes the sword itself redundant. and Chain saw rifles like in Gears of War much more sensical if you ignore the fact that the game clearly clashes them... even though they would break. The only way the two swords wouldn't destroy each other when snagging on each others super awesome teeth is if one had a more powerful motor and just over powered the other sword, rendering only one broken sword.

Chain Axe on the other hand, different story.

...you always parry with the flat of the blade...The Imperial Chainsword is not unlike a large falchion, with a sharp edge and a wide, blunt backside for weight and power. But like any sword, hitting edge on edge will damage the blade, unless 1 is vastly superior to the other (ie, a Chainsword vs a wooden toy, or a steel sword vs one made of tin). Like the falchion, the chainsword would parry the other weapon by hitting the flat side of your weapon against the flat side of your opponent's, knocking it off its intended trajectory, rather than flat out stopping it, which is an awful idea in istelf because your body then absorbs the force and is now strength vs strength. Parrying, proper parrying that is, is redirecting the momentum of the opponent's attack so that their energy is wasted, dually tiring them and saving yourself, whilst also putting off balance and into a vulnerable position.

NANANANANANH I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SCREAMS OF THE PERSON I JUST GUTTED WITH A CHAINSAW!

Boltguns: There's a lot of info on these considering the posterboys of the whole franchise carry them rather often, but I'd like to see how much details we can figure out. According to the fluff, they fire self-propelled rounds that explode slightly after impact for maximum damage. I was reading stuff about gyrojet ammunition, but I'm wondering if bolts would be more like that, or if they would be more similar to RPG!

 Psienesis wrote:


The Teleportarium: This device opens an unshielded tunnel in the Warp to transport people from the device to a point within LoS of the ship or station the device is located on. Why you would ever want to make an unprotected Warp-Walk is beyond me. These devices are ancient and barely understood in the current era of 40K, and disappearances and accidents are common.

This does bring up an interesting fluff-point here. If it must be in the LoS of the ship, and there is a risk of losing the cargo, i.e primarchs, terminators, sacred space marine relic weapons, then why does the IoM use the teleportarium instead of a drop pod? Nobody/almost nobody can shoot down a drop pod, and you don't get the daemon risk with the Warp/Teleportation devices

SirSertile wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:


The Teleportarium: This device opens an unshielded tunnel in the Warp to transport people from the device to a point within LoS of the ship or station the device is located on. Why you would ever want to make an unprotected Warp-Walk is beyond me. These devices are ancient and barely understood in the current era of 40K, and disappearances and accidents are common.

This does bring up an interesting fluff-point here. If it must be in the LoS of the ship, and there is a risk of losing the cargo, i.e primarchs, terminators, sacred space marine relic weapons, then why does the IoM use the teleportarium instead of a drop pod? Nobody/almost nobody can shoot down a drop pod, and you don't get the daemon risk with the Warp/Teleportation devices

Voidshields?

SirSertile wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:


The Teleportarium: This device opens an unshielded tunnel in the Warp to transport people from the device to a point within LoS of the ship or station the device is located on. Why you would ever want to make an unprotected Warp-Walk is beyond me. These devices are ancient and barely understood in the current era of 40K, and disappearances and accidents are common.

This does bring up an interesting fluff-point here. If it must be in the LoS of the ship, and there is a risk of losing the cargo, i.e primarchs, terminators, sacred space marine relic weapons, then why does the IoM use the teleportarium instead of a drop pod? Nobody/almost nobody can shoot down a drop pod, and you don't get the daemon risk with the Warp/Teleportation devices

Its quicker, and at 30k time, there was no risk of Daemons or getting lost at such short a distance. At 30k time is was safest, and 40k sometimes means its the only option. However, Terminator Armour along is used for most chapters, to protect them, as opposed to 30k where they use PA and TDA for teleports.

Raven911 wrote:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0-esAq-pbd4
AA-12 loaded with frag 12 ammo. Boltgun mk1. Ammo also comes in armor peircing.

AA-12 Armour Piercing rounds are using shaped charges for their piercing ability. Whereas Boltrounds use their kinetic energy for armour piercing ability, and then explode inside. This is alot more effective for disabling armored targets, because you have an explosion inside the armor. A Heat round only makes a hole and has some fragmentation from the molten metal (which is also deadly/very dangerous, but not quite as deadly as a direct explosion). AA-12 also has very short range and very low kinetic energy. It does everything with the explosive. It's not a bad weapon, but the bolter would be better.

In fact, i think the best internal mechanism that would fit to a bolter/ heavy bolter is actually the WW2 MK108 30mm machinecannon in use in Late-War German Figherplanes. Obviously, it is has a larger caliber but i'm talking about the way how it works Why? Because it is very leightweight (for it's caliber) weapon, that fires at a high rate of fire. The muzzlevelocity is low, but this is no problem because the projectiles are have a rocketmotor that increase the velocity further. The bolt (the thing that moves the projectile and blocks the rear of the barrel)does not lock physically. As it slams forward with the projectile, the projectile is ignited by an electric fuze. The energy of the forward moving bolt must be overcome by the propellant expansion, before the bolt moves back again. At that time when it starts to move back, the projectile has already left the barrel. This allows a fast rate of fire (but only a low muzzle velocity), and has a short barrel. Alternatively it could have a higher muzzle velocity, longer barrel, but slower fire rate, because the weight of the bolt would have to be heavier.

The fast rate of fire and low weight (compared to other, more "conventional" designs) are not the only advantage. You have way less moving parts-> easier to manufacture and most important of all: Alot less material wear, which increases the lifetime and reliability.

As the ignition used in the mechanism is electric, implementing a lock-feature that prevents use from any other then the rightfull Spacemarine owner is very easy - just cut off the electric circuit.

Also see how compact (in length) the MK108 is. But at the same time it is fairly wide. Bolters/Heavy Bolters have similar optical traits. Fairly short, but high width, very short barrel

Here you can see how the Firing cycle looks. Wikipedia has a comprehensable article if you want to learn more...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/MK108_bolt_cycle_AB.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/MK108_bolt_cycle_CD.png

SirSertile wrote:This does bring up an interesting fluff-point here. If it must be in the LoS of the ship, and there is a risk of losing the cargo, i.e primarchs, terminators, sacred space marine relic weapons, then why does the IoM use the teleportarium instead of a drop pod? Nobody/almost nobody can shoot down a drop pod, and you don't get the daemon risk with the Warp/Teleportation devices

First of all Drop pods take some time to reach their target. Second of all, Drop Pods can't get through spaceship/building walls that easily. They can get through the outer hull/wall and fight inwards of course (basic boarding action) but you can't just fly straight into the command room with the pod. Therefore you have to pass every defence they put up. In case of teleporting you only have to deal with the command room itself.
So a lot of reasons why teleporting is tactically superior. But since it's dangerous you don't want/can't afford to to use it for everything (also would destroy almost every plot. Teleport, kill and done.)

Its also probably because of various shields

Teleportation also needs you to know exactly where you want to go and that's there's enough room for you not to end up with part of you in the walls or ceiling.

 Keep wrote:

Raven911 wrote:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0-esAq-pbd4
AA-12 loaded with frag 12 ammo. Boltgun mk1. Ammo also comes in armor peircing.

AA-12 Armour Piercing rounds are using shaped charges for their piercing ability. Whereas Boltrounds use their kinetic energy for armour piercing ability, and then explode inside. This is alot more effective for disabling armored targets, because you have an explosion inside the armor. A Heat round only makes a hole and has some fragmentation from the molten metal (which is also deadly/very dangerous, but not quite as deadly as a direct explosion). AA-12 also has very short range and very low kinetic energy. It does everything with the explosive. It's not a bad weapon, but the bolter would be better.

In fact, i think the best internal mechanism that would fit to a bolter/ heavy bolter is actually the WW2 MK108 30mm machinecannon in use in Late-War German Figherplanes. Obviously, it is has a larger caliber but i'm talking about the way how it works Why? Because it is very leightweight (for it's caliber) weapon, that fires at a high rate of fire. The muzzlevelocity is low, but this is no problem because the projectiles are have a rocketmotor that increase the velocity further. The bolt (the thing that moves the projectile and blocks the rear of the barrel)does not lock physically. As it slams forward with the projectile, the projectile is ignited by an electric fuze. The energy of the forward moving bolt must be overcome by the propellant expansion, before the bolt moves back again. At that time when it starts to move back, the projectile has already left the barrel. This allows a fast rate of fire (but only a low muzzle velocity), and has a short barrel. Alternatively it could have a higher muzzle velocity, longer barrel, but slower fire rate, because the weight of the bolt would have to be heavier.

The fast rate of fire and low weight (compared to other, more "conventional" designs) are not the only advantage. You have way less moving parts-> easier to manufacture and most important of all: Alot less material wear, which increases the lifetime and reliability.

As the ignition used in the mechanism is electric, implementing a lock-feature that prevents use from any other then the rightfull Spacemarine owner is very easy - just cut off the electric circuit.

Also see how compact (in length) the MK108 is. But at the same time it is fairly wide. Bolters/Heavy Bolters have similar optical traits. Fairly short, but high width, very short barrel

Here you can see how the Firing cycle looks. Wikipedia has a comprehensable article if you want to learn more...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/MK108_bolt_cycle_AB.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/MK108_bolt_cycle_CD.png

SirSertile wrote:This does bring up an interesting fluff-point here. If it must be in the LoS of the ship, and there is a risk of losing the cargo, i.e primarchs, terminators, sacred space marine relic weapons, then why does the IoM use the teleportarium instead of a drop pod? Nobody/almost nobody can shoot down a drop pod, and you don't get the daemon risk with the Warp/Teleportation devices

First of all Drop pods take some time to reach their target. Second of all, Drop Pods can't get through spaceship/building walls that easily. They can get through the outer hull/wall and fight inwards of course (basic boarding action) but you can't just fly straight into the command room with the pod. Therefore you have to pass every defence they put up. In case of teleporting you only have to deal with the command room itself.
So a lot of reasons why teleporting is tactically superior. But since it's dangerous you don't want/can't afford to to use it for everything (also would destroy almost every plot. Teleport, kill and done.)

Bolts are not short, this is an actual proper model of a bolt that isn't just slowed in design like the tiny bolts seen in the Ultramarines movie.




Actual proper bolts would resemble something akin to 20mm anti aircraft rounds used in autocannons in WWII, which would also explain the range and potency of bolters.

the video is just another artists version...
But i agree, yes it makes more sense to have bolts that are longer -> can contain more explosive and also more propellant. Just look at the Mk108 shell the dude is holding there - i think it makes a good bolter round (proportions wise at least. Size is likely smaller)

The images we know from FW and other sources (like the one above) Would make it fairly weak. Plus remember how big marines are and that the bolt is just of ~20mm diameter. If it was that short as well, it would be like a pistol round to them... Then the reallife Bolter would be out of proportion in relation to the ammunition it uses. Using pistol sized rounds (relative to marine your size) but wielding a huge chunk of metal around thats not awesome.

Jumping in late here but...

Chainswords: have you ever used an electric chainsaw? super torquey, really light. I wouldn't want to wield one though. Only practicality i could see is getting through kevlar armor.

Power "blades": The closest thing I think we have are vibroblades/microtomes. Small dissection tools that vibrate so fast they saw and gently peel into tissue. Doesn't work so great scaled up though I would think.

Power "hammer/maul": Now I think this is doable in a cool way! Make a giant chunk of an object that has a rediculous capacitor inside. Swing it and the current grounds out through the target. It would be like hitting someone with a sledge hammer and lighting. Just insulate yourself and the system REALLY well so you don't go pop!

Ceramite: if you can manipulate the molecular structure of carbon you can get super strong material that is very light. We can make diamonds for goodness sake. Look at what we are doing with carbon composites in ar-15 parts all the way to $600 road cycling shoes. need impact absorption and flexibility? Look at hockey sticks. Slap this all over a Ratheon Sarcos exo skeleton and BOOM, power armor...at least hardware wise...

skysky wrote:

Power "hammer/maul": Now I think this is doable in a cool way! Make a giant chunk of an object that has a rediculous capacitor inside. Swing it and the current grounds out through the target. It would be like hitting someone with a sledge hammer and lighting. Just insulate yourself and the system REALLY well so you don't go pop!

Even the finest insulant won't protect you from the momentum that is a fast swung giant ball (or cube) of mass...

 lcmiracle wrote:

skysky wrote:

Power "hammer/maul": Now I think this is doable in a cool way! Make a giant chunk of an object that has a rediculous capacitor inside. Swing it and the current grounds out through the target. It would be like hitting someone with a sledge hammer and lighting. Just insulate yourself and the system REALLY well so you don't go pop!

Even the finest insulant won't protect you from the momentum that is a fast swung giant ball (or cube) of mass...

The insulator I believe is for the wielder to protect them from the electrical discharge from the capacitor in the weapon. I think that's what skysky meant.

 ImAGeek wrote:

The insulator I believe is for the wielder to protect them from the electrical discharge from the capacitor in the weapon. I think that's what skysky meant.

I know, but even if the fluff meant that powered hammer/mauls are electroshock weapons, if you compare the practical effect of the concussive impact to electrical shock, you'd realize to the infantry, that extra bit of energy flow meant very little. Once made impact, the weigh and speed of the weapon would have meant instant death if not massive internal bleeding. Making it an incredible waste of resource to construct such a thing (barring the Arbites Power Maul, which might be of a lesser mass and its electricity would sever a double purpose of incapacitating rioters -- then again, we already have electric shock baton).
I never said if power hammers/mauls are electric shock weapons, they cannot be made; I was just (half-jokingly) pointing out how few sense it'd make to make such weapons (again, excepting electric shock baton)

if you compare the practical effect of the concussive impact to electrical shock, you'd realize to the infantry, that extra bit of energy flow meant very little. Once made impact, the weigh and speed of the weapon would have meant instant death if not massive internal bleeding.

Well lets not forget that there are more dangerous and resilient things in 40k then humans. It's also usefull against vehicles...
The same applies to power and chain fists... For killing humans and oder small crop, there are better weapons. And i think even the tabletop rules represent that fairly well.

Sorry to raise an old thread, but I figured since I was the one who made it and didn't want to start an entire new one since this has some good posts I'd just renew it.

I'm currently in a physics course in college, and I've been seriously considering attempting to make a real life bolter. This thread has really helped me get the basic info I've needed but the main thing that I've been talking to my professor about and that he said he'd be willing to help me with (I told him about my idea for the weapon design, he thought it would be really cool and coming from a Russian physicist who does know a considerable amount about weapons that was pretty cool, plus he said he'd be willing to help me implement it). Since I know the idea of how a bolter works, and how an assault rifle works, the obvious issue is figuring out how I'd be able to make the parts required, since a .75 caliber assault rifle wouldn't be able to use the same size parts and whatnot as a different rifle. Right now, my main concern is making something that actually works, so I'm only taking the "science" part of the lore that actually makes sense and ignoring all the mumbo-jumbo. If I need to make changes to the design that contradict something in the lore that's fine.

I was also thinking about the thunder hammer, and from what I've seen in Space Marine and DOW it basically seems like a shockwave effect occurs upon impact (perhaps that's why it's called a thunder hammer). I'd like to know if there would be some way to actually create something like that.

Again, keep in mind that for this thread, fluff is only important in terms of what the technology DOES - the fluff behind how it does it isn't relevant unless it actually makes sense.

You should probably start with the bolts to see if it would even be viable (range and accuracy wise and if the rocket part does a damn) then build around that.
The rifle part of it basically works like a automatic grenade launcher that already exists.

Start with just making the rifle part. Once you have a working .75 cal gun and ammo then you can work on the rocket ammo and the exploding round.

If you need more space for the internal workings of the bullet, make it longer. Basically the difference between a .50 cal for a desert eagle and a M2 is the length of the casing and the bullet. thats where you'll need to experiment.

Awesome! Thanks. The main thing I need to figure out in terms of the rifle part itself is how the individual parts of the actual mechanism need to be scaled up or altered in order to accommodate the larger size of the bolt. That's essentially what my physics professor said he could help with - he was actually very close to a lot of Nuclear physicists (who may or may not have been doing atomic weapons research at some point), and at one point during our class he was telling us about the applications of what we were learning and one of the ones he mentioned was "calculating the trajectory of a missile launched from Russia towards the US" or something along those lines, so I think if he considers the core concept worthwhile enough to devote some of his time to helping me with it, it's probably pretty good.

I'll admit I'm no gun expert, but I learn things VERY quickly and if I have access to relevant information I can figure things out fairly rapidly. Hopefully, if I can make a regular bolter successfully, I could even try to make some of the other forms of boltguns like storm bolters and bolt pistols.

.75 cal isn't that huge. We have many larger sized weapons in existence.

Size isn't an issue beyond the caliber not being used by existing weapons meaning all parts related to that will need to be designed from scratch.

 Grey Templar wrote:
.75 cal isn't that huge. We have many larger sized weapons in existence.

Size isn't an issue beyond the caliber not being used by existing weapons meaning all parts related to that will need to be designed from scratch.

That's what I meant - since each of the parts would need to be designed from scratch I don't know what the sizes of those custom parts would be (or specifically which parts need to be altered in relation to the caliber, as opposed to in relation to the difference in shape/size of the gun itself). I've been trying to find that information but haven't had much luck.

I'm not a gunsmith but you might begin with .50 cal parts and scale them up 50%.

Codex: Blood Angels's entry on the Hand Flamer makes mention of casings in relation to the weapon. Seeing as how it's both a handheld flamethrower and has no obvious ejection ports, this makes absolutely no bloody ( ) sense.

It think it refers to the promethium tank.