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vodo40k wrote:The reason i said the thing about technological "magic" is that its likely the imperium have some kind of ridiculously high yield battery or some kind of localised fusion (SM backpacks work on this principle I think) and i dont think theres any limit to the amount of energy one can inject into a beam. The issue with a railgun as mentioned is the heat generated, for them to become feasible requires the invention of some kind of cheaply disposable "rail" which can be replaced in between battles (anyone whos played the game "EV Nova" knows where im coming from).

QFT.

On a related note, the humble lasgun is one of the most amazing pieces of technology in the Imperial Guard, at least as far as modern weaponry is concerned. In-game they are exactly the same profile as an Autogun (probably comparable to various modern 5.56x45 weapons) and are humourously described as 'angry flashlights' due to their low strength and AP.

In the fluff, however, the lasgun is a marvel of technology:

1) It's an energy weapon with the same (or greater) stopping power than a modern kinetic rifle and theoretically no recoil.
2) It has the range of a ballistic weapon (500m) and a similar rate of fire.
3) It has rechargeable power packs that can be charged from almost any energy source (including dropping them in a fire).
4) It is extremely portable and assumed to be comparably the same size and weight as a modern assault rifle.
5) They are considered cheap, easy to manufacture, and mass-produce on a huge scale.

The energy required to satisfy #1 is huge. Modern lasers can probably produce the same effect, over time, they are massive, require huge amounts of power, and only work at very close range due to focussing issues. The energy required to be able to produce a single pulse that can kill a man or (as described in several sources) vitrify sand/punch through flak vests/make holes in rockcrete/etc. is near mind-boggling.

One of the biggest factors is atmospheric interference and attenuation/scattering of the laser beam. The ABL has a huge problem with any form of dust/precipitation/atmospherics preventing it from functioning over large distances and that thing requires an entire aircraft's worth of power generation. To get a coherent beam to maintain the effectiveness of #1 over a distance specified in #2 in anything other than clear, dry air is (almost) physically impossible with what we understand about laser technology.

Talk to any battery manufacturer about #3 and #4 and they will tell you how heavy, cumbersome and annoying the weight and recharging limitations of modern battery technology. To produce a magazine that can power a weapon like a lasgun for 20-30 shots would be incredible and would require batteries with several orders of magnitude greater storage capacity than today. We're talking laptops that last for years before needing a recharge.

#5 just speaks to the impressive manufacturing ability of the Imperium. To make, maintain, and replace quite literally billions of lasguns would definitely require the forge worlds and cyclopean manufactoriums described in the fluff. Those, in themselves, would be a marvel of technology, administration and material usage.

Sorry for the length, I just feel the humble lasgun needs defending every now and then! Everyone seems to be in love with Bolters but, quite frankly, we have the capability to produce one of them today, if someone really wanted to.

DoW

I think Relic done goofed there, because the Godwyn-pattern bolter is listed as a .75-cal in pretty much every other publication that mentions this weapon (it's the most common pattern of bolter in use today) and its calibre.

Bolters are 0.75cal. Have been since RT. Relic "done screwed up but good" on that one.

It is most likely that, sometime during the Dark Age of technology, a battery was developed that could store energy within crystal lattices. Thus giving a super dense energy storage system.

The crystals would be able to trap energy in all forms, which explains why the laspacks can be recharged by sunlight and fire in addition to electricity. The packs probably get ruined not because the crystals get burned but because the other parts of the pack get fried.


It may seem far fetched that a simple fire could charge a pack to give multiple energy bursts in the Megawatt range but you would be surprised how much energy is actually in certain substances. Cars barely use 10% of the energy stored in the gas they burn to actually move the car. Everything else is lost as heat, sound, etc...

A way to capture energy with 90%+ efficiency would be an amazing feat and could give outstanding outputs with relativly little input.

Actually, I thought lasgun powerpacks were supposed to be liquid metal or something? That's what I remember from the codexes and stuff anyohw (even lascannon are, at least one of the Dark Angels codex mentioned that...)

Also energy storage is not the only important factor as far as a laser weapon goes (especially if you are favoring a multi-MW heat ray) - the rate at which it charges/discharges that energy - not all batteries discharge the energy they store at the same rates, and you can have a battery that is great on storage but lousy on discharge (if its discharging at say 100-200 watts, your 2 MW laser will only be firing once every few hours...)

It also bears mentioning HOW the laser uses the energy matters as far as output goes. Burning the target is one way, but that actually is the most energy intensive and LEAST efficient way to do it. It can also depend on whether or not the 'laser' actually is a laser (in the sense we understand it, rather than say some sort of funky particle beam weapon.)

As a rule I'd say power packs for lasweapons are already pretty impressive given the versatility with how they can be recharged - they not only managed to pack in the energy storage capability in a rechargable format (that can also discharge that energy quite rapidly), but they also worked in the capability to recharge it from virtually any source of heat or light (Throwing it in a fire or sunlight are only SOME of the options you could use. Setting it next to a fire. Or next to any sort of lamp, or heck even body heat probably would work.. That's an amazing degree of versatility.)

From the various descriptions, I think Las weapons may actually be some sort of Partical projector that simply uses a Laser in its operation. It would explain why the weapon fires a shot instead of being a continious beam.

So it has a laser as part of it, but its not quite that simple.

It takes a bit of handwavium to work, but at least 40k keeps things vague enough so that we don't break reality unlike other sci-fis that seem to enjoy open violation of the laws of physics(and try to explain it away with some rediclous made up junk)

From the various descriptions, I think Las weapons may actually be some sort of Partical projector that simply uses a Laser in its operation. It would explain why the weapon fires a shot instead of being a continious beam.

It fires a shot because it's kinda based on the idea of a blaster from Star Wars.

Almost, SW blasters are plasma weapons(Tibanna gas is energized which creates the plasma)

Las weapons are true direct energy weapons, not matter stream or anything. Pure energy.

TermiesInARaider wrote:

vodo40k wrote:Just to say something about the "vagueness" of the fluff in regards to laser, melta and plasma weaponry if we actually knew in detail how it worked, we would be using it today. Baring in mind that the majority of the imperiums tech are fragments of what humanity used during the golden age of tech, a time where much technology would be in our eyes akin to "magic".

Maybe not exactly, but with the right know-how, you can estimate things like wattage for lasers, and assorted other measurements. Not scientific in any regard, but an estimation, for sure.

Maybe, but it's impossible to know if a 40K laser is anything like a modern laser, or more like that stuff that shoots out of Cyclops eyes in X-Men.

Unfortunately, there are actually many sources that quote weapon specifications for 40k weapons, and said specifications are generally pathetically bad, as they were based on specifications for vehicles from World War Two! Going by Forge World's standards, even a Land Raider's armor is radically inferior to that of an M1 Abrams tank, autoguns are significantly worse than modern assault rifles, etc.

Fetterkey wrote:Unfortunately, there are actually many sources that quote weapon specifications for 40k weapons, and said specifications are generally pathetically bad, as they were based on specifications for vehicles from World War Two! Going by Forge World's standards, even a Land Raider's armor is radically inferior to that of an M1 Abrams tank, autoguns are significantly worse than modern assault rifles, etc.

I generally just go with the idea that "the people who make the stats don't know about modern military equipment" and justify it fluffwise as non-mechanicus members speculating and being way off because they don't know squat about technology.

Buttons wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:Unfortunately, there are actually many sources that quote weapon specifications for 40k weapons, and said specifications are generally pathetically bad, as they were based on specifications for vehicles from World War Two! Going by Forge World's standards, even a Land Raider's armor is radically inferior to that of an M1 Abrams tank, autoguns are significantly worse than modern assault rifles, etc.

I generally just go with the idea that "the people who make the stats don't know about modern military equipment" and justify it fluffwise as non-mechanicus members speculating and being way off because they don't know squat about technology.

This.

We can make estimations, however. I remember reading a bit of fluff (I can't, for the life of me, recall where), in which a standard IG lasrifle on its standard power setting, could sever the arm of an unarmored human. In terms of modern weaponry, that's equatable to a NATO 12.7x99mm/.50 BMG round. And these things are depicted as pinging harmlessly off of SM power armor, when fired in massed, colonial-era musket-lines. So we can easily assume that Land Raider armor is sufficiently RIDICULOUS for the setting.

If your looking for specs try

IA - a lot of specs on vehicles, well in the one's i'vre read.

Dark Heresey - This gives a lot of detail about equipment, but as other have said there is not 40K canon and these books are made by Fantasy Flight.

If it helps in the munitorium guide says the standard IG las gun is said to work in the 19 Mega-Thule range (i have no idea if that is a real measurement, I did not do well at sceince)

Grey Templar wrote:Almost, SW blasters are plasma weapons(Tibanna gas is energized which creates the plasma)

Las weapons are true direct energy weapons, not matter stream or anything. Pure energy.

There is an individual online who attempts to take the Star Wars movies as canonical evidence of how the actual weaponry/ships/shields literally work in the world and prove them using current physics/electromagnetics/etc.

One of his theories is that since the beam on most energy weapons is clearly not moving at the speed of light, that it doesn't actually represent the actual weapon firing. The red/green streaks are actually artificially added tracers to allow the pilots to have feedback on where they are actually shooting (since ordinarily the weapon would not produce any visible trail).

Kind of an interesting idea and I'd be curious to see how it might fit in with 40k.

DoW

To be perfectly honest, some of the weapons in the setting are fairly accurate to stuff we have today. Take the Eversor Assasin's neurogauntlet, as an example. The description of it, how even a single scratch can be lethal due to the poisons inside, isn't far off from some of the more lethal compounds humanity has devised.

Take sarin as an example. QFT from wikipedia, The LD50 of subcutaneously-injected sarin in mice is 172 μg/kg.[15] Treatment measures have been described.[16]

In other words, really freaking lethal.

Edit: A bit of terminology, LD50 is a measurement of toxicity that represents the dose required to produce an even 50% rate of fatality in test subjects. That is, if my high school chemistry class is remembered correctly. YMMV.

Grey Templar wrote:Almost, SW blasters are plasma weapons(Tibanna gas is energized which creates the plasma)

Las weapons are true direct energy weapons, not matter stream or anything. Pure energy.

There are a few other directed energy weapon possibilities for lasgun-type weapons (I clearly think about this too much):

- Ultra short pulse lasers, which don't directly burn through a target but destroy the target layer by layer by stripping off molecules, cutting through materials with little heat and lower power requirements. They also apparently can be used to create "laser induced plasma detonation" on a target or in the air near a target. All this stuff is very small scale, but scaling those up might somehow produce viable weapons. They wouldn't shoot a visible "beam" or a slow-moving "bolt" of light, but the impact on the target might look and feel like a kinetic weapon punching through, so it could be a plausible explanation.

- Electrolasers, which use a laser pulse to create a laser induced plasma channel, an ionized pathway through the air that can conduct electricity easily. Then you send what is essentially a bolt of lightning down this path at your target. Cool as this is, and it would definitely look and sound cool (like an arrow-straight bolt of lightning, complete with thunder, hitting your target) this probably wouldn't work in a vacuum, so I guess we can scratch it off the list, as lascannons and the like appear to work in space.

How the SW blasters work is irrelevant to how they *look* when they're working, which is more important when it comes to the Rule of Cool.

What's cooler: Han Solo running down a hallway, yelling some incoherent warcry and then stopping to emit a solid beam from his Luger-like laser pistol that he sweeps around at the Stormtroopers he's chasing... or Han Solo running down a hallway, yelling some incoherent warcry and loosing random bolts of lethal energy from his Luger-like blaster pistol at the Stormtroopers he's chasing?

CalgarsPimpHand wrote:
- Electrolasers, which use a laser pulse to create a laser induced plasma channel, an ionized pathway through the air that can conduct electricity easily. Then you send what is essentially a bolt of lightning down this path at your target. Cool as this is, and it would definitely look and sound cool (like an arrow-straight bolt of lightning, complete with thunder, hitting your target) this probably wouldn't work in a vacuum, so I guess we can scratch it off the list, as lascannons and the like appear to work in space.

The 'snap-crack' often used to describe lasgun reports is probably very similar to what you're talking about. Superheating the air around the 'bolt' to create a mini-thunderclap.

Exactly how is up in the air somewhat, but your description seems closer to reasonable explanation than any.

DoW

TermiesInARaider wrote:So I've been bouncing around the 40k wiki, and something just occured to me. Aside from the bolter, which is apparently of .998 caliber ( ), little is said about the technical specifications of the weapons of the Imperium, or the 40k world in general. I can understand that, for most of us, this means little, but for a guy who understands and very much enjoys a little technicality, this can be frustrating.

To get this ball rolling, I'll make a quick assesment of the Imperial Autocannon. Based on it's relative size in pictures and drawings, and the ammunition capacity of the Predators that carry it, I'd be willing to wager it's somewhere in the 40-57mm range. For those who don't understand, a shell of 30mm in diameter, with a proper tungsten carbide or DU penetrator and a high rate of fire, is a reliable AT weapon against modern MBTs (T-90, M1 Abrams, Merkavah Mk. IV, Leclerc, ect.). So 40mm or 57mm, the two most common calibers in that range, are FETHING BIG.

No, the bolter is .75 caliber, and the Heavy bolter is around .998 caliber.

From what i know of energy weapons today (modern lasers/ anti - missile systems) and las weapon fluff. a las weapon that fires a beam of directed energy doesn't slice or burn into its target. the energy and heat at the contact site becomes so intense in such a short amount of time that it causes explosive vaporization. The weapon would literally blow the targets arm off or blow a chip off power armor.

Psienesis wrote:How the SW blasters work is irrelevant to how they *look* when they're working, which is more important when it comes to the Rule of Cool.

What's cooler: Han Solo running down a hallway, yelling some incoherent warcry and then stopping to emit a solid beam from his Luger-like laser pistol that he sweeps around at the Stormtroopers he's chasing... or Han Solo running down a hallway, yelling some incoherent warcry and loosing random bolts of lethal energy from his Luger-like blaster pistol at the Stormtroopers he's chasing?

I think you mean "mauser-like" blaster pistol.

razor5647 wrote:From what i know of energy weapons today (modern lasers/ anti - missile systems) and las weapon fluff. a las weapon that fires a beam of directed energy doesn't slice or burn into its target. the energy and heat at the contact site becomes so intense in such a short amount of time that it causes explosive vaporization. The weapon would literally blow the targets arm off or blow a chip off power armor.

QFT.

The Ultra short pulse lasers sound a helluva lot like the Necron Gauss tech!
Practically flaying the target to bits!

Speaking of Weapon Specs, and to change the focus a little onto melee weapons,

Power fields in/on hand-to-hand weapons and monomonecular edged blades-
If those could be reproduced in today's wars it would deffinately change the way
battles are fought! We fight at close range, but mainly with kinetic delivery weapons,
mainly just to wound the opposition. If we could say, maul a battle tank with a powerfist,
I think the focus would shift dramatically, especially since most 'wars' are now being
fought in Cities and in enclosed environments (buildings and such). And that defenses
against said weapons would be next to impossible to field en masse! (Since cheap,
mass produced armor is the only likely-hood the majority of soldiers/law enforcement will
ever see!)

You can't tell me that something like a power weapon (or a fist!/ lightning claw) would not
intimediate the hell outta ya!

Back on topic-I suppose such tech could be modern, barring the obvious lack of portable
energy catalyst, we have the capability to harness the way molecules act, right? Generating
an anti-body (for lack of a better term) field that encourages tissues and material to practically
dissolve or at least become 'frail'/soft enough to part with a material blade shouldn't be that hard.
Hells, we could at least manage a vibro-blade or a chainsword to some viable effect! The chain
sword might be a smidge messy though

The bigger question would be how to keep the weapon from suffering from the field being
generated over it and preventing that material from being used in armor against the weapon?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also in response to Power armor resilence;

Having seen and played a little with cermite stone it's practically
super hard, heavy dense stone.

Last time I checked, some stones react rather stubbornly against
heat, explosions and in general to most forms of kinnect driven energy-
and if we're talking about the stuff that the Adaptus Astartes use, it's no
bloody wonder that the armor requires an endo-skeleton/fibre-bundles
to move! That stuff is super heavy! And if in 40k that sort of stone was
further modified/grown and reinforced with something like a crystal lattice
(like diamonds!), it would be everything like it's described to be in the fluff!
Especially if you factor in have hard it is for the IoM to manufacture
equipment from the Golden Age in thier so-called Dark Milleinum!

Bloody Adair wrote:The Ultra short pulse lasers sound a helluva lot like the Necron Gauss tech!
Practically flaying the target to bits!

Speaking of Weapon Specs, and to change the focus a little onto melee weapons,

Power fields in/on hand-to-hand weapons and monomonecular edged blades-
If those could be reproduced in today's wars it would deffinately change the way
battles are fought! We fight at close range, but mainly with kinetic delivery weapons,
mainly just to wound the opposition. If we could say, maul a battle tank with a powerfist,
I think the focus would shift dramatically, especially since most 'wars' are now being
fought in Cities and in enclosed environments (buildings and such). And that defenses
against said weapons would be next to impossible to field en masse! (Since cheap,
mass produced armor is the only likely-hood the majority of soldiers/law enforcement will
ever see!)

You can't tell me that something like a power weapon (or a fist!/ lightning claw) would not
intimediate the hell outta ya!

Back on topic-I suppose such tech could be modern, barring the obvious lack of portable
energy catalyst, we have the capability to harness the way molecules act, right? Generating
an anti-body (for lack of a better term) field that encourages tissues and material to practically
dissolve or at least become 'frail'/soft enough to part with a material blade shouldn't be that hard.
Hells, we could at least manage a vibro-blade or a chainsword to some viable effect! The chain
sword might be a smidge messy though

The bigger question would be how to keep the weapon from suffering from the field being
generated over it and preventing that material from being used in armor against the weapon?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also in response to Power armor resilence;

Having seen and played a little with cermite stone it's practically
super hard, heavy dense stone.

Last time I checked, some stones react rather stubbornly against
heat, explosions and in general to most forms of kinnect driven energy-
and if we're talking about the stuff that the Adaptus Astartes use, it's no
bloody wonder that the armor requires an endo-skeleton/fibre-bundles
to move! That stuff is super heavy! And if in 40k that sort of stone was
further modified/grown and reinforced with something like a crystal lattice
(like diamonds!), it would be everything like it's described to be in the fluff!
Especially if you factor in have hard it is for the IoM to manufacture
equipment from the Golden Age in thier so-called Dark Milleinum!

I think I could sum this up with the simple term, miniaturization. Basically, much of the stuff in 40k is similar to stuff we can make today... Except the stuff we make today takes and entire building worth of generators to power, and another building or two to house equipment and instruments.

Which would make alot of 40k's tech possible, but not perhaps, viable.

Look at the dangerous level radiation that lasers and most other
heavy-duty electronics put out...most of the weapon systems would
give you cancer or degenerative diseases! And while arguebly, we
could insulate and shield, that really only delays the effects of
continued exposure, not contain it. Even if say the user intially resists,
whose to say that sort of contanimenation wouldn't spread to any
children or the like down the line?

A little more on topic, The Gellar field....makes FTL travel possible,
but obviously fails at really protecting the 'cargo' from the warp-worse
the use of that version of FTL travel positively taunts mankind's greatest
foe and invites them to do something about the intrusion!

Bloody Adair wrote:Which would make alot of 40k's tech possible, but not perhaps, viable.

Look at the dangerous level radiation that lasers and most other
heavy-duty electronics put out...most of the weapon systems would
give you cancer or degenerative diseases! And while arguebly, we
could insulate and shield, that really only delays the effects of
continued exposure, not contain it. Even if say the user intially resists,
whose to say that sort of contanimenation wouldn't spread to any
children or the like down the line?

A little more on topic, The Gellar field....makes FTL travel possible,
but obviously fails at really protecting the 'cargo' from the warp-worse
the use of that version of FTL travel positively taunts mankind's greatest
foe and invites them to do something about the intrusion!

I'm... Not sure about the science behind the whole degenerative disease thing. While I've heard a few theories about high intensity electromagnetic fields causing... Something, it's certainly not concrete. As far as I know, though I may be wrong, lasers and assorted electronic devices produce negligible levels of particulate radiation (Alpha particles, Beta particles, or Gamma waves). In fact, I'm lead to believe those theories have been proven false, since, after an unfortunate car accident, I was given extensive EM-field treatment, which, apparently, promoted bone growth, and I'm told it was near-miraculously successful.

And yeah, the Gellar field is entirely the fiction side of sci-fi. xD Alternate dimensions exist only on a theoretical level, when it comes to modern science, and those theories are seldom discussed by most scientists, due to the fact that out side of the most obscure theoretical fields, they have virtually no practical application.

Gentlemen. Consider that in the rules system a human hitting someone else with a chainsaw sword is exactly as effective as shooting them with a laser rifle. A genetically-modified super-soldier hitting someone with a chainsaw sword is less effective than shooting them with his fully-automatic rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

I move to declare all weapons in 40k "absurdly overpowered" by today's standards and move on.

AnomanderRake wrote:Gentlemen. Consider that in the rules system a human hitting someone else with a chainsaw sword is exactly as effective as shooting them with a laser rifle. A genetically-modified super-soldier hitting someone with a chainsaw sword is less effective than shooting them with his fully-automatic rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

I move to declare all weapons in 40k "absurdly overpowered" by today's standards and move on.

It's already been established that the performance in game doesn't match the fluff, which is what we're speaking of. Yes, weapons in 40k are ridiculously overpowered. They need to be, since they face enemies who could hardly be touched by your standard, modern weapon.

Modern assault rifles today would be like a strength 2 on tabletop and in the fluff would tickle an ork. overpowered by our standards is just bearly surviving by 40k standards.

And don't forget we are designing weapons and tactics to fight each other whilst the IOM must consider fighting xeno's races with tech and physiology far beyond our own, not to mention interdementional warp entities.

GW wrote:"there is little standardization across Forge Worlds and many different patterns exist".