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A .50 caliber rifle round has enough recoil to break your shoulder if you do not attach a muzzle brake to your rifle. Bolters fire a larger round and have no such device to reduce recoil.

Recoil does not depend on caliber alone. Some muzzle-loading black powder pistols in our history fired caliber 1.00 balls and people had no problem using them.

The AA-12 automatic shotgun, my favorite real life equivalent to a boltgun, fires caliber 0.73 ammunition. Advanced recoil compensation means you can easily dual-wield them without breaking a sweat. It is quite possible that the Imperium has even more advanced technology to deal with the kinetic energy, especially since bolt rounds are discharged at a slow speed, only accelerating to their intended velocity after they have left the barrel thanks to their built-in rocket motor.

If bolters would be problematic in terms of recoil, the first that the Imperium would do would be to add a stock to them. How many boltguns with a proper stock have you seen?

Also, every Commissar carries a bolt pistol, and their ammunition is identical to that of a boltgun.

It's been stated many times but yes, The Imperial Guards are the defenders of humanity but the Bolter is more or less the professional's weapon. Think of the difference between a crazy sniper on the roof of a college and a trainned killer. It comes down to resources and manufacturing as the Imperium is thousands of worlds. The easiest thing to do is produce a viable weapon that has the strength of a pointblank shot gun at range and make it rapid fire. It's not prone to weapon jams and normally it just requires handing the gun off to let another squad-mate figure out where he needs to smack it in order to get it operational again. The Fire resupply [b]IS[b] a viable tactic for the Imperial guard but not without risk it has about a 5-10% chance of no longer working (that ammo clip that is) the preferred way is recharge stations but this neat little quirk allows the guardsmen to fight in the ruins of an imperial city without having to worry about supply lines or the like, this is a fundamental strength the Imperial Guard have over Space Marines and it makes sense as both factions have nearly opposite uses in battle.

Space Marines are to normally get into intense battle quickly and harshly complete an objective and find extraction taking untold numbers with them. The Imperial Guard are most often used for extended warfare in the god emperor's name Thus it presents the costly bolter would be best used in a mission that is short lived but of vital importance while the resilent and reliable lasgun is for the month, year and decade long battles a guardsmen might be tangled in for the Emperor. The specs of a bolter are manufactured by the Adeptus Mechanicus primarily and they are still considered the peak of physical weaponry given to a good solider, any other weapons are awarded to someone with great status, plasma pistols to captains, Plasma guns to the best marksmen, rocket launchers to the soldier with the finest stance. These armaments selection methods are similarly employed by Imperial Guard Command as well for their better soliders.

In the hivecity novels most of humanity still uses things like stub automatics, or revolvers as these guns are even simpler than las guns, the main character of the book gets jumped in a dark alley by thugs toting these primitive guns and he pulls out a nice little las pistol and it scares the zog out of these poor little men. It cuts deeper hits faster and it a much more menacing weapon collectively, most people in 40k forget the grand scale of things often dumbs down the power of these guns. We get so use to thinking bolters aren't much harder to come by when we see an entire army using them but in the grand scale those are shock troopers.

Though bolters are not normally issued to the Imperial guard ironically people of interest that aren't the guard normally do have an ability to obtain them. these are normally outdated models of Astartes Bolters which are no longer in use purchased through black markets or held by powerful underhive bosses. The Ammuntion isn't cheap but most people who come looking for them are financial power houses. That is why every now and then you will sill strange equipment like a bolter in the hands of a criminal this would be the equivalent of a gas station robber have a sniper rifile you've jsut never heard of it till you heard of it. It can happen but it's rare

I think ultimately the concept of Imperial guard isn't in their men but their hardware, so to most of Imperial Command the guards who can keep themselves alive with cheap weaponry is a bonus to protecting the weaponry that will make the large difference on the battlefield.

Lastly, Bolters do fire larger calibers rounds in a semi auto to even full auto capacity but the technology of the bolter is percisely mastercrafted to fire these as the previous poster before me stated. It also uses rudamentary targeting computers in the bolter to compensate for human error in the aim by making minor adjustments. It really is an anti tank gun turned into a small rifile, amped up damage and penetration with no know recoil that the power army doesn't automatically absorb.

Recharge Stations? I thought you recharged laspacks with sunlight.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Recharge Stations? I thought you recharged laspacks with sunlight.

You can yes. But recharging bya recharge station is faster.


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Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:people of interest that aren't the guard normally do have an ability to obtain them. these are normally outdated models of Astartes Bolters

That is most assuredly false.

It might physically resemble a Godwyn pattern boltgun, but they aren't Godwyn patterns.

Melissia wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Recharge Stations? I thought you recharged laspacks with sunlight.

You can yes. But recharging bya recharge station is faster.

Please note a recharge station is more or less OUR recharge stations... a plug in the walll normally anyway... thus why on the battlefield it's normally revert to fires and sunlight if it's intense enough both methods take longer fire is faster than light of course. Also the clips on a lasgun are HUGE normally most guardsmen don't even need to fire their guns till something has broken through their lines at that point it's recharge till something else shows up or they exchange clips ect.


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Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:people of interest that aren't the guard normally do have an ability to obtain them. these are normally outdated models of Astartes Bolters

That is most assuredly false.

It might physically resemble a Godwyn pattern boltgun, but they aren't Godwyn patterns.

The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer actually states that the basic soldier could be armed with a better weapon, but the cost of upkeep would just be too unrealistic. For example autoguns probably have more punch than a lasgun, but they waste a lot of bullets, whereas lasguns ammunition can be recharged and takes up less space.

People ask some silly questions at time. =/

It's do with ammunition... Lasgun ammo replenishes when exposed to any form of energy. Solar, thermal, electrical.... Producing the ammo for 12 zillion troops would cost too much.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:

Melissia wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Recharge Stations? I thought you recharged laspacks with sunlight.

You can yes. But recharging bya recharge station is faster.

Please note a recharge station is more or less OUR recharge stations... a plug in the walll normally anyway...

Of a chimera. In fact, a single chimera can basically be converted in to a mobile recharge station that can recharge an entire platoon's worth of laspacks (just as a chimera can be and is used as a medivac vehicle).

Using a chimera's recharge stations is much more common than throwing it in the fire. Throwing a laspack in the fire permanently damages it, and is discouraged except in emergency situations.

Melissia wrote:

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:

Melissia wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Recharge Stations? I thought you recharged laspacks with sunlight.

You can yes. But recharging bya recharge station is faster.

Please note a recharge station is more or less OUR recharge stations... a plug in the walll normally anyway...

Of a chimera. In fact, a single chimera can basically be converted in to a mobile recharge station that can recharge an entire platoon's worth of laspacks (just as a chimera can be and is used as a medivac vehicle).

Using a chimera's recharge stations is much more common than throwing it in the fire. Throwing a laspack in the fire permanently damages it, and is discouraged except in emergency situations.

Never really thought about that part, but completely confirmed. Yeah the Fire method is in a pinch but entire platoons have done in the past obviously in war-torn situations with less than optimal circumstances. Hmmm this little comment gives me a few ideas for my rogue Trader game; namely due to the fact I had someone with an incessant request to recharge his lasgun when the party had better weaponry to offer. Always a pleasure to learn new bits of fluff and your contributions are by no means infrequent

McNinja wrote:A .50 caliber rifle round has enough recoil to break your shoulder if you do not attach a muzzle brake to your rifle. Bolters fire a larger round and have no such device to reduce recoil.

Bolter rounds are rocket propelled, they don't have much recoil.

Palindrome wrote:

McNinja wrote:A .50 caliber rifle round has enough recoil to break your shoulder if you do not attach a muzzle brake to your rifle. Bolters fire a larger round and have no such device to reduce recoil.

Bolter rounds are rocket propelled, they don't have much recoil.

They still have the same explosive charge a regular bullet has. 2 stages if you will, explosive initial stage and secondary rocket stage.

They have a large recoil, but it isn't something a normal human can't handle, although it is significant enough to hamper an unaugmented/untrained human's ability to use it effectivly. The thing would be uncontrollable on full auto.

Then we have the cost factor which is the real issue.

Your average guardsmen makes roughly 25 crowns a month in wages paid. A single bolt round costs nearly 30 crowns in materials and labour.

EDIT: fun fact

Grey Knights using psybolt ammunition. To create a single round of psybolt ammo, a psyker of some measure is sacrificed, killed, and their psychic death scream imprint honed into the round.

according to the short story from the last section in "The legends of the space marines" book, I think they only used psykers to make the armor and weapons but they did need the blood of innocents to make the bullets or did I get that confused with something else? They did not mention that the sacrifice victum was a psyker for making bullets or if they did, I could not find it in the story. As far as I know, that's the only place they actually discussed how they made bullets. The codex just says "psychically charged" though no specifics on how.

Grey Templar wrote:They still have the same explosive charge a regular bullet has.

Thing is, how much recoil has the regular bullet? This varies wildly depending on what gun you're looking at.

If we really want to get technical and look at what GW has printed, we know that the velocity as well as projectile caliber and length are more or less equivalent to an AA-12 full-auto shotgun. Actually, a bolter's initial stage is even slightly slower, as some bolt round types such as Stalker ammo are subsonic, meaning below 330 m/sec compared to an AA-12's 350 m/sec. Of course, you could always argue that bolter rounds are much, much heavier, but there's only so much leeway you have. And then we still have the issue of the missing stocks. Obviously, someone thought they just aren't needed.

In the end, bolters have as much recoil as you as a reader/gamer want - though it is noteworthy that heavy recoil is only ever mentioned in licensed material such as Black Library publications, and never by GW themselves. It should also be kept in mind that some humans are perfectly fine with carrying and using heavy bolters (who operate on full-auto and utilize even larger ammunition) without help from a fellow comrade-in-arms or even the support of a tripod/bipod/other means of bracing it. And I'm not even just referring to muscle-heavy brutes such as Ox and Harker (who can't just carry them, but are said to carry them like other men carry their rifle) but all those gangers in GW's Necromunda RPG. So, I don't know who started this, but the whole idea of heavy recoil is quite different from what the studio actually intended.

Now, personally, I like my bolters to have a good kick as well (it's quite simply a matter of style), but not something that would "rip off somebody's arm" as I have heard some people proclaim.

Well the issue also gets muddled because people lump regular bolters in with astartes bolters. They are not the same weapon and don't use precisely the same ammo.

Several sources have said that a regular, unaugumented human could not handle an astartes bolter, which has given rise to the idea that some espouse that bolters have crazy kick. However, descriptions of regular bolters typically describe the recoil as negligible.

It is easy to reconcile the differences if we just accept that a bolter designed for a super human in power army may behave slightly differently than one designed for a regular human.

Beyond that there are thousands of patterns of bolters and bolter ammo out there, so any further disparity can be chalked up to different patterns (like how some bolter rounds are described as caseless and others use a powder charge).

riplikash wrote:Several sources have said that a regular, unaugumented human could not handle an astartes bolter [...]

Yeah. Black Library sources. When GW themselves write that Sororitas bolters are identical in power to Astartes patterns I don't care the slightest what some BL or FFG guy comes up with.

So I would say that the issue gets muddles not "because people lump regular bolters in with Astartes bolters", but rather because people think there is a difference between the two and may have trouble accepting that there are some few things about the Space Marines that aren't so special. Aside from there being quite a few BL products that do not make this distinction either, actually - such as the Uplifting Primer.

Of course, that's just the version I'm following. If you folk prefer the ideas in some novels or the outsourced RPG over studio fluff and actual physics, that would be your decision alone. After all, as Gav Thorpe wrote, "none of these interpretations are wrong".

Lynata wrote:And I'm not even just referring to muscle-heavy brutes such as Ox and Harker (who can't just carry them, but are said to carry them like other men carry their rifle) but all those gangers in GW's Necromunda RPG.

Also the sergeant from DoW2 Retribution can do the same, though at first he has to set up to fire until you upgraded him.


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Lynata wrote:I don't care the slightest what some BL or FFG guy comes up with.

What if the FFG guy is, in fact, a GW guy?

Melissia wrote:What if the FFG guy is, in fact, a GW guy?

Then that'd be his personal, individual interpretation. I know some of them also write BL novels, but just like with the material from the Black Industry or FFG, it's a different circle of people than the studio - even if there may be some overlap.

I also deem it likely that they can't just write all they want but have to find consensus within their group, so even if the GW guy wants to push for the studio interpretation, he may still get overruled by the others (perhaps even by executive decision from the project lead). Somehow this discrepancy had to come into existance, anyhow. Though it is of course just as possible that the GW person may have wanted to write it like that all along but wasn't allowed to do so in studio material. I guess we all have our own opinions and preferences on these things.

Lynata wrote:Then that'd be his personal, individual interpretation. I know some of them also write BL novels

Actually some of them write rulebooks and army books.

McNinja wrote:A .50 caliber rifle round has enough recoil to break your shoulder if you do not attach a muzzle brake to your rifle. Bolters fire a larger round and have no such device to reduce recoil.

Bolters shouldn't have much recoil, they are fired at low velocity from the gun then the bolts propel themselves upto "full speed". Gyro stabilisers and other systems would also be common enough to help. Id think it was more to do with mass production and cost, most of your guardsmen are going to die anyway, so why waste the money?

The question is, why are lasguns so gak? That far in future i think they could make some more powerful laser weapons, certainly ones with selective levels of fire for different targets. Of course its all a moot point really as the real reason is balance in the game as others have said.

Why don't all IG just hop into Baneblades and blast everything?

Because it isn't practical. When you have hundreds of billions of soldiers at your disposal, you're going to choose the cheapest, most reliable gun that takes nothing to fix. Plus, they don't really use ammunition either. Just refillable magazines.

Boltguns are essentially grenade launchers, and shoot gigantic, heavy rounds. The handling is too much for most guardsmen too.

Melissia wrote:Actually some of them write rulebooks and army books.

Yeah, together with other GW writers and in accordance to a consensus reached within the studio. That's the difference. They can't just go and write whatever they want. This applies to every project where a team of people is working together on one product line - GW Codices, FFG RPG supplements, BL series. Gav Thorpe talked about this a little on his blog:
"As I mentioned in an earlier post, my latest effort, Raven’s Flight, had a greater impact on the HH mythology and timeline. While I can blissfully charge my way through the Warhammer 40,00 galaxy and scour the face of the Warhammer world, suddenly there were toes I might be treading on, so I had to watch my step."

In short, an individual's opinion may differ greatly from the consensus reached by the group - be it GW, FFG or any other team effort. This is not to diminish their individual interpretation and/or input on something, merely to explain the discrepancies between the various products, all based on who is in charge and what people are contributing. The discrepancy is even evident within the outsourced RPG itself, as there's a clear design change between Dark Heresy as released by Black Industries and the later books done by FFG. In terms of Sororitas, did you notice how the number of Sisters suddenly skyrocketed from an "unusual concentration" of 50 to several hundred being normal? And that's not even any changes in game mechanics, such as Marine equipment having been revised no less than three times already, its first iteration in the "Scourge the Unclean" adventure book actually not being that different from the stuff that everyone else gets. Lastly, none of the three designers of the first Dark Heresy rulebook that established the standards of the line had any history with GW whatsoever; studio resources were only advisors and contributors.

Skippy wrote:The question is, why are lasguns so gak? That far in future i think they could make some more powerful laser weapons, certainly ones with selective levels of fire for different targets. Of course its all a moot point really as the real reason is balance in the game as others have said.

Actually, I don't even think that lasguns are so gak. They only are in comparison to stuff like bolters and enemies such as 'nids. Selective fire lasguns have been mentioned, even in GW fluff. The Inquisitor RPG had patterns that could do burst- and full-auto fire, whereas another type was able to increase or decrease the damage by simply pulling more energy out of its cell beyond the nominal conversion efficiency rate hardwired into most rifles.

Actually lasguns are qutie good against tyranids even though Tyranids specifically evolved to resist lasguns.

It's only against the bigger creatures taht they aren't so good against. But then boltguns require several rounds to kill them, too.

Yeah, good point - I admit I took the first xeno race that came to mind. Bottom line: the lasgun is pretty damn impressive, it is only "dragged down" in public perception because it is standard issue and is amongst the weakest in a selection of weapons which are all incredibly deadly. It's all a matter of what one compares them to.

In fact, one only has to look at the TT rules to see the lack of a particularly enormous difference. Yeah, yeah, I know - the tabletop rules aren't to be taken literally as they are an abstraction. But still, they show what a lasgun is supposed to be able to kill, and the rules came before the fluff.

Yeah, the lasgun is basically meant to kill T3 creatures or T4 creatures with crappy armor saves-- so your humans, your eldar, your orks, your tyranids. IT's not meant to kill marines, but it CAN in large numbers (Which is definitely possible as guard can outnumber marines quite easily).

Lynata wrote:Yeah, good point - I admit I took the first xeno race that came to mind. Bottom line: the lasgun is pretty damn impressive, it is only "dragged down" in public perception because it is standard issue and is amongst the weakest in a selection of weapons which are all incredibly deadly. It's all a matter of what one compares them to.

In fact, one only has to look at the TT rules to see the lack of a particularly enormous difference. Yeah, yeah, I know - the tabletop rules aren't to be taken literally as they are an abstraction. But still, they show what a lasgun is supposed to be able to kill, and the rules came before the fluff.

and tbh the lasguns the IG use are pretty top-notch for lasgun standard. slow firing laslocks and lasmuskets have been mentioned in BL books

Lynata wrote:

riplikash wrote:Several sources have said that a regular, unaugumented human could not handle an astartes bolter [...]

Yeah. Black Library sources. When GW themselves write that Sororitas bolters are identical in power to Astartes patterns I don't care the slightest what some BL or FFG guy comes up with.

And if you don't want to accept BL or FFG in your personal interpretation of the fluff that is fine, but you know GW official fluff policy as well as I do, it is all official, it can all be wrong, and that means you have a lot of people who see SM bolters as being of different design and make, and they are not wrong for thinking that.

I am curious as to where in the codex fluff it is spelled out that SM bolters are identical to those used by the rest of the Imperium. Old witch hunder codex?

riplikash wrote:I am curious as to where in the codex fluff it is spelled out that SM bolters are identical to those used by the rest of the Imperium. Old witch hunder codex?

Yup. Though before someone points it out, "identical" is not entirely correct, "equal" is a far better descriptor.
And as previously mentioned, even some BL material is following this. It all depends what you read.

Of course you are correct in pointing out that all interpretations of the fluff are equally valid - as I mentioned earlier in this very thread. The only thing annoying me is that the "Marine bolters > everyone else" has now become so prevalent that it is nigh-universally stated in a way that makes it sound like the ultimate truth that everyone has to agree to, when in fact this is merely a trend started by some freelance writer on an outsourced product. And it hasn't even been that long since this started, compared to the many decades where seemingly everyone was fine with there being only one "class" of bolter. That said, I suppose all of this is part of the trend where Marines have to become awesomer by the year, just like Jes Goodwyn was joking that they seem to get bigger in size with each BL novel.

A general acceptance of the fact that no interpretation of the fluff is "righter" than another would go a long way indeed. That way we'd at least prevent new fans of the hobby from confusing personal preference with an official canon that does not exist.

As a sidenote: I've actually adopted parts of the licensed material into my personal view of the setting. They do have some cool ideas from time to time, and I don't want to be mistaken as generally condemning everything that comes from that direction. I merely dislike it when some author tries to override what I have always regarded as the original source, usually because he didn't bother to do his research or genuinely failed to become aware of some detail even though he didn't intend to diverge from the studio vision.

Bolters shouldn't have much recoil, they are fired at low velocity from the gun then the bolts propel themselves upto "full speed".

Suggested several times, in several sources, but is in no way possible given the combat effectiveness of the bolter. This is the "gyrojet" philosophy of bolter design. If this were how they operated, SM wouldn't charge into close combat with the enemy and kill them with point-blank shots. A rocket-propelled round requires travel distance in order to achieve lethal velocity. A bolter is lethal from the muzzle.

A bolter round uses a standard chemical explosive to drive the bullet down the barrel. A second-stage rocket kicks in later to provide range and accuracy. This two-stage munition would have all the recoil of a standard high-caliber rifle (since it's using the same mechanics as a regular bullet while inside the weapon's chamber) plus the range and accuracy of a gyrojet.

Also, if it were just a gyrojet, it wouldn't need a breech, as there'd be no brass to eject, yet we have plenty of sources showing shell casings spewing from SM bolters all over the place. Imperial citizens even keep such things as lucky charms.

"Low velocity" can also be a relative term. Low Velocity compared to once the rocket has gotten to full power, low velocity compared to an autocannon...

Bolters are still quite lethal at close range because of the chemical explosive stage and even more lethal at long range because the rocket has accelerated the bolt to a higher speed.