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BaconUprising wrote:
As you've said 40k equipment is hard to understand for instance bolter weaponry. How do the bolts detonate inside their targets? Surely they detonate at a set point?

Really?

Thats very easy to accomplish with an delayed impact fuse. the fuse is triggered to detonate after penetration, with a sensor to determine if its inside a target. if its not, the round doesn't detonate. If it penetrates something and is inside it, it will detonate.

Very very simple. A bolter would be well within our modern capabilities to make. Of course it would be expensive and impractical, nobody today needs rounds that blow the target up from the inside out.

Fair point well argued. Surely the gigantic calibre would be next to impossible to use though?

.75 caliber isn't as big as it sounds.

We're talking something only about as big as the average man's thumb. Its a big round as far as small arms go, but its not like an artillery shell. A bolter would be quite manageable for a normal human.

There are .50 caliber pistols. .75 caliber is only a small jump away.

A 50 cal magnum can break your wrist easily if fired incorrectly, scale that up one and a half times and you have something that could seriously damage you if fired wrong. Doable yes but inconvenient and dangerous.

Actually plasma does not necessarily need to be hot to damage something. Even cold it would still be a similar to a potent acid. Heat just magnifies the damage and speeds up the process. There is not even a guarantee that the plasma used in these weapons would be hydrogen, however it is difficult to envision such a plasma.

Plasma weaponry would be extremely complex by modern standards. We can more or less make impractical versions of las, bolter, and obviously auto gun weaponry (very practical those) but plasma we have not been able to "shoot" unless through a vacuum. Even then it is not easy and tends to expand like a spray gun.

Boltgun trigger mechanisms are fairly standard. The real challenge is a reliable mini rocket launcher the size of a boltgun shell. Remember bolters are actually mini rocket launchers.

BaconUprising wrote:
A 50 cal magnum can break your wrist easily if fired incorrectly, scale that up one and a half times and you have something that could seriously damage you if fired wrong. Doable yes but inconvenient and dangerous.

Yes, but that may be why bolters are so large. The extra space allows for larger recoil absorption, both by actual mechanisms and actual mass.

a .75 caliber weapon is well within the real of possibility, making that .75 cal round explode after penetration is also well within possibility.

Not necessarily practical of course. No human target needs a .75 caliber round to take down, yet...



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ansacs wrote:

Boltgun trigger mechanisms are fairly standard. The real challenge is a reliable mini rocket launcher the size of a boltgun shell. Remember bolters are actually mini rocket launchers.

Its putting all the components together thats an issue.

There have been rocket assisted guns before(Gyrojet) but they had stability problems as well as close ranged lethality problems. The first is solved by being rifled and better rocket engine in general. The second is solved by keeping the initial charge of a normal bullet.

Then you put in a small, but powerful, explosive that detonates after impact(delay on the fuse) inside that round(.75 cal is some space to play with) and you have yourself a bolter.