Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The Bolt Pistol is a pretty ludicrous example...

The barrel is so short and the magazine is positioned so far forward that if you were to chamber a round, it would be sticking out past the end of the barrel. Brilliant...

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I think the bigger question is why Lascannons have such long barrels. Light doesn't really need a barrel to focus it.

There are various physical considerations in the design of a laser tube. To make a generalisation it needs to be "long and thin" in order to properly generate and collimate the beam.

However, GW have never worried about realistic engineering to design the equipment in 40K. Many of the vehicles could not fit a crew or ammunition in the places they need to be.

Don't forget that the vehicles are on a different scale because back in the day they decided it shouldn't take two turns to walk from the back to the front of a Rhino.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 viewfinder wrote:
not really... but ok, I guess everyone's gotta have a reason to whine about GW...

Just like you apparently need reasons to whine about people not blindly accepting everything GW does or having conversations about things they don't like?

Quit trying to play "Secret Police" and acting like you have any right to censor everyone already, yeesh.

Mystery Science 3000 wrote:
If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
And other science facts,
Just repeat to yourself "It's just a show,
I should really just relax"

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I think the bigger question is why Lascannons have such long barrels. Light doesn't really need a barrel to focus it.

Telescopes!

I think I have a harder time dealing with how they describe ROF of weapons that look like they could hold maybe 5 rounds, such as a bolter.

It's all action movie nonsense. There are always a few things that make me lose it completely. The thought of a Storm Raven trying to fly is a game breaker for me. I bought a kit once to add to my GK and I ended up just selling it off without cracking it. It's just too dumb looking.

 TheKbob wrote:
I think I have a harder time dealing with how they describe ROF of weapons that look like they could hold maybe 5 rounds, such as a bolter.

It's all action movie nonsense. There are always a few things that make me lose it completely. The thought of a Storm Raven trying to fly is a game breaker for me. I bought a kit once to add to my GK and I ended up just selling it off without cracking it. It's just too dumb looking.

A bolter mag holds 15 rounds iirc.
The Storm Raven is able to fly thanks to technology that we do not understand. aka magic.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:
I think I have a harder time dealing with how they describe ROF of weapons that look like they could hold maybe 5 rounds, such as a bolter.

It's all action movie nonsense. There are always a few things that make me lose it completely. The thought of a Storm Raven trying to fly is a game breaker for me. I bought a kit once to add to my GK and I ended up just selling it off without cracking it. It's just too dumb looking.

A bolter mag holds 15 rounds iirc.
The Storm Raven is able to fly thanks to technology that we do not understand. aka magic.

Don't worry, per the fluff, they don't really understand it either.

When I played Space Marine™: The Video Game I about died laughing when I got the Storm Bolter. Was HILARIOUS. And I don't know why more Space Marines don't use Stalker patterned boltguns.

GorillaWarfare wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I think the bigger question is why Lascannons have such long barrels. Light doesn't really need a barrel to focus it.

Telescopes!

I thought the reason telescopes were long was because they needed to focus a lot of light onto a single point using carefully positioned mirrors.

I didn't know that lasers needed barrels to ensure that the photons were all moving in the proper direction. I just assumed they needed a photon projector of some sort and a lens to focus the light which, I presumed, wouldn't need a gun barrel like Lascannons have. Learn something new everyday.


Perhaps the reason Stormravens are able to fly is because they actually use anti-gravity tech instead of airlift to get around. Sure, this is a solution to a unnecessary problem but since when has that stopped the Imperium?

There you go... Science!

Not that it has anything to do with 40K of course!

Things done,t work like rhino will not fit 10 marines in.

jhe90 wrote:
Things done,t work like rhino will not fit 10 marines in.

Vehicles are made at a different scale so that it doesn't take two turns to walk from the back of a Rhino to the front.

OK, that makes sense. + a land raider even to that scale is not small. Bigger would be like mobile building.

Yup. Though it means it's easier to hide vehicles that it probable should be.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Yup. Though it means it's easier to hide vehicles that it probable should be.

And Games Workshop wouldn't be able to sell you so many Rhinos and Land Raiders.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Yup. Though it means it's easier to hide vehicles that it probable should be.

And Games Workshop wouldn't be able to sell you so many Rhinos and Land Raiders.

That was less of a concern back when they were making Rogue Trader.

Vaktathi wrote:Length and rifling have some correlation, but not in the way you think. Longer barrels will always (up to a point) generate higher velocities as the propellant is acting on the projectile for a longer period of time before dispersing than a shorter barrel.

This is true.

ClockworkZion wrote:I've always assumed the Demolisher cannon was akin to a kind of massive mortar more than a proper cannon.

But so is this.

A firearm doesn't need a long barrel to be able to fire, it only needs it to fire a solid, propelled mass over long distances at relatively flat trajectories. That doesn't mean that that's what russes are about. As mentioned, the demolisher has a tiny turret, but it only fires 24", which, at scale, is about 120 feet or about 36 yard/meters. Furthermore, we don't have proof that they fire the same kind of ammunition either. We just know they're "shells", but that's super vague. For all we know, a demolisher cannon is just a mortar that lobs a giant melta bomb equivalent, or perhaps the shells are self-propelled (like rockets or bolt weapons). In that case, there might not be any recoil at all, the barrel length could be super short, and nothing would be the worse.

Some weapons have long barrels to increase performance, but not all of them must.

NuggzTheNinja wrote:The barrel is so short and the magazine is positioned so far forward that if you were to chamber a round, it would be sticking out past the end of the barrel. Brilliant...

A bolt would be able to fit into a chamber, especially since not all magazines are created the same way, even if they look similar on the outside.

As for the ludicrously short barrel, they're called "blowback" weapons (which bolt weapons usually seem to be):





If you took either of these weapons and chopped the barrel down you'd have a profile similar to a bolt pistol at the front. Given that they're self-stabilizing rocket-powered explosives, having a long barrel would be less necessary.

Rule of Cool is all that matters.

Just look at bolt pistols. How Colonel Commissar Gaunt manages to holster not one but two of those things plus spare clips is beyond understanding.

Maybe he keeps them in his hat. Judging by the new Commissar mini there'd be plenty of room up there.

It is an old rule of 40K that the larger your hat, the more important and powerful you are.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It is an old rule of 40K that the larger your hat, the more important and powerful you are.

It's a rule in most works of fiction:

It was true in real-life, too. Peasants often went hatless, knights had helmets, kings had big-ass crowns and the Pope had that huge, feth-off mitre.

Actually, wearing a helmet automatically makes you unimportant to the story. Even if you are the commander you will die so that our plucky protagonist's victory can look even more impressive.

TLOS rules are being changed in 7th ED and I hear gun barrels on tank kits are being modified to fire air soft pellets. If you can't hit your target with the air soft pellet then no dice.

IF ONLY THAT WAS TRUE!

I like the leman russ cutaways that show up in some of the FW books. You can tell how frustrated the artist is, trying to make sense of the thing.


"i know tanks have suspension but... uh... fukkit, I'll just draw some springs here."

Can I just add something here?
Who says the world of 40K has the same laws of physics that govern our world?
Just a though.
Also, the gravity is different on each planet, I'm sure this has some bearing on different lengths of barrels? (Hey, I could be wrong. I know nothing about guns or how they work)

 Ond Angel wrote:
Can I just add something here?
Who says the world of 40K has the same laws of physics that govern our world?
Just a though.
Also, the gravity is different on each planet, I'm sure this has some bearing on different lengths of barrels? (Hey, I could be wrong. I know nothing about guns or how they work)

Because we can recognize their reality as being similar to our own. If the laws of physics were different their universe would be different.

And if the gravity of the planet was different it wouldn't affect the length of the gun. It would affect the load on the engine, though.

 Peregrine wrote:
I'm not going to nitpick the weapon designs too much because there's an important constraint on them: you have to be able to tell which gun is which from across the table. Realistic barrel sizes would all look the same and you'd have to keep asking which tank is which. As long as they don't look too obviously unrealistic that's a tradeoff I'm willing to make.

That's a good point, Peregrine. It's not so bad with the vanquisher and the normal battle cannon, and most of the more exotic leman russ, it's really the demolisher that irks me. The barrell could stand to be a little longer, or mounted on a chimera chassis as a bombard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 McGibs wrote:
I like the leman russ cutaways that show up in some of the FW books. You can tell how frustrated the artist is, trying to make sense of the thing.


"i know tanks have suspension but... uh... fukkit, I'll just draw some springs here."

WHERE THE FETH DOES THE DRIVER SIT?

HOW DOES THE CAPTAIN STAND OUTSIDE THE MAIN TURRET, WHILE FIRING THE MAIN CANNON.

WHO MANS THE SPONSONS!? HOW DOES THE HEAVY BOLTER EVEN FIT?!

Thoughts of an every day madman. I.e; one working for GW's concept design department.

The driver sits right there where the control panel thingy is. The Heavy Bolter is probably a shorter variant.

The Commander ducks back into the tank when it's action time. That's the smart thing to do anyway.

The sponsons are welded to the sides of the tanks and their crewmen pretty much sit in them.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

WHERE THE FETH DOES THE DRIVER SIT?

That sad looking chair on the right is where he sits.

Hah okay the cutaways are good fun to look at and laugh.
But models were made long before the curways were dreamed of.

Really the cut aways did make me laugh at least so their worth it hehe