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Nobody says that, standard Imperial sniper rifles (Needle Rifles) and their pistol version are railguns.

According to my totally robust research (i.e. Google) and calculation methods (an online calulator I found that does radiation based stuffs) then 1.5 grams of Radium 226 would give a dose of 100Sv/hour at a distance of 1cm.

So firing a few grams of radium into people as part of a bullet would seem to introduce a pretty major radiation hazard.

I note Mantorok's great post above, but based on what I've read, I don't think a 10Sv acute dose would kill you instantly. Wiki lists a 21Sv acute dose that took 9 days to kill the poor bugger.

Anyone got anything more reliable on instant-kill doses?

Standard Radium dosage + 4.3 tbsp of Space Magic = Insta-kill rad-bullets.

 Psienesis wrote:
Standard Radium dosage + 4.3 tbsp of Space Magic Archaeotech = Insta-kill rad-bullets.

Fixed that for you

 Harriticus wrote:
It's a gun that shoots radioactive bullets. Over time the wielder gets cancer from residual effects.

There's not much to it than that. 40k weapons are not high in science.

Yes but still I am curious to know if there is a substance that could be used as bullets in space combat. it's fun to ask questions!

Would the barrels be uranium then? or just the bullets? and how long would it take if you got hit by a radioactive bullet thats other than radium?

 Flinty wrote:
According to my totally robust research (i.e. Google) and calculation methods (an online calulator I found that does radiation based stuffs) then 1.5 grams of Radium 226 would give a dose of 100Sv/hour at a distance of 1cm.

So firing a few grams of radium into people as part of a bullet would seem to introduce a pretty major radiation hazard.

I note Mantorok's great post above, but based on what I've read, I don't think a 10Sv acute dose would kill you instantly. Wiki lists a 21Sv acute dose that took 9 days to kill the poor bugger.

Anyone got anything more reliable on instant-kill doses?

Thanks for the complement. I'm curious as to what online calculator you're referencing, Is it something from EPA or www.radprocalculator.com? Neither of those have Radium list as far as I know.
What does it mean by acute dose? Isolated bodily location?

Regardless, regarding Sievert death rates I was quoting the following image:





So I thought the 8Sv meant instant death, I suppose instead it means ASSURED death.

 Mantorok wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
According to my totally robust research (i.e. Google) and calculation methods (an online calulator I found that does radiation based stuffs) then 1.5 grams of Radium 226 would give a dose of 100Sv/hour at a distance of 1cm.

So firing a few grams of radium into people as part of a bullet would seem to introduce a pretty major radiation hazard.

I note Mantorok's great post above, but based on what I've read, I don't think a 10Sv acute dose would kill you instantly. Wiki lists a 21Sv acute dose that took 9 days to kill the poor bugger.

Anyone got anything more reliable on instant-kill doses?

Thanks for the complement. I'm curious as to what online calculator you're referencing, Is it something from EPA or www.radprocalculator.com? Neither of those have Radium list as far as I know.
What does it mean by acute dose? Isolated bodily location?

Regardless, regarding Sievert death rates I was quoting the following image:

Spoiler:

So I thought the 8Sv meant instant death, I suppose instead it means ASSURED death.

Spoiler:

8Sv RADS FOR THE RAD GOD!!!

Whilst 8Sv does mean you're going to die, it could take around a week of agony... iirc you can get doses high enough to kill you really quickly (within minutes) but don't quote me on that.

With a preliminary check on google, apparently a 5,000 rads or 50 Sieverts dose would incapacitate within minutes (your nervous system shuts down and you go into a coma) but not kill for up to 48 hours.
The US military apparently believes that 80 sieverts (as delivered from being anywhere near a neutron bomb(if you survive the blast ofc)) will instantly and permanently incapacitate.

So whilst we may not achieve instant death... we can achieve instant incapacitation which will be soon followed by guaranteed death.
In effect, you can cause instant casualties with radiation so I believe that's what's happening when models are removed by the radium guns in game.

 Otto Weston wrote:

 Mantorok wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
According to my totally robust research (i.e. Google) and calculation methods (an online calulator I found that does radiation based stuffs) then 1.5 grams of Radium 226 would give a dose of 100Sv/hour at a distance of 1cm.

So firing a few grams of radium into people as part of a bullet would seem to introduce a pretty major radiation hazard.

I note Mantorok's great post above, but based on what I've read, I don't think a 10Sv acute dose would kill you instantly. Wiki lists a 21Sv acute dose that took 9 days to kill the poor bugger.

Anyone got anything more reliable on instant-kill doses?

Thanks for the complement. I'm curious as to what online calculator you're referencing, Is it something from EPA or www.radprocalculator.com? Neither of those have Radium list as far as I know.
What does it mean by acute dose? Isolated bodily location?

Regardless, regarding Sievert death rates I was quoting the following image:

Spoiler:

So I thought the 8Sv meant instant death, I suppose instead it means ASSURED death.

Spoiler:

8Sv RADS FOR THE RAD GOD!!!

Whilst 8Sv does mean you're going to die, it could take around a week of agony... iirc you can get doses high enough to kill you really quickly (within minutes) but don't quote me on that.

With a preliminary check on google, apparently a 5,000 rads or 50 Sieverts dose would incapacitate within minutes (your nervous system shuts down and you go into a coma) but not kill for up to 48 hours.
The US military apparently believes that 80 sieverts (as delivered from being anywhere near a neutron bomb(if you survive the blast ofc)) will instantly and permanently incapacitate.

So whilst we may not achieve instant death... we can achieve instant incapacitation which will be soon followed by guaranteed death.
In effect, you can cause instant casualties with radiation so I believe that's what's happening when models are removed by the radium guns in game.

This could also explain what the codex means when it is talking about "Localized rad-storms" - something that 'hot' would likely irradiate more than just a being it hit, possibly the atmosphere and the ground. Depending on what it precisely is, this could cause anything from nothing at all to bizarre atmospheric effects and literal storms as the radiation shreds molecular bonds and damages atoms, filling the air with constantly shredding and recombining ions.

 Otto Weston wrote:
The US military apparently believes that 80 sieverts (as delivered from being anywhere near a neutron bomb(if you survive the blast ofc)) will instantly and permanently incapacitate.

So maybe the Radium Carbine doesn't fire radiation as such, it fires a bullet that activates when it hits a target and emits a large dose of radiation? The radiation that killed/incapacitated the target would still be there but it wouldn't cause problems for forces moving through unless they handled the bodies or ate them.

@Mantorok - I was using this site

http://www.radprocalculator.com/Gamma.aspx

It lists Radium 226 as one of the isotopes for the gamma check. Of course, all I've done is fiddle with numbers in the calculator unitl it spits something out that looks vaguely recognizable, so definately take it witha pinch of (radioactive) salt

My interpretation of acute exposure, means that someone gets that dose over the course f a few minutes, in line with Otto's assumption that we're trying to cause battelfield casualties here, rather than lingering deaths.

I'm pretty sure that radium weapons are a nod to the Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars books. http://barsoom.wikia.com/wiki/Radium

Like a lot of AdMech Skitarii stuff, they are a reference to science fiction from around WWI to the 1930s.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Especially stuff involving Mars.

Is what I was thinking, and those weapons do not kill by radiation, they just fire extremely long-range and hit with extreme stopping power, intended (as they are) to kill the massive green men of Mars.

It's been ages (decades) since I read those books. I wonder if there are other references that I'm not catching.

The most practical way of killing via radiation is with lasers. X-ray lasers are certainly possible.

In relation to "radioactive bullets" you may as well just use regular bullets. Most radium isotopes are either massively unstable, and so would most likely decay before being fired, or are "too" stable. Also, the shielding required to protect the user would be a huge drawback.

How much radiation do you really need for your body to start falling apart and turn black?

is that even possible?

 Desubot wrote:
How much radiation do you really need for your body to start falling apart and turn black?

is that even possible?

I believe pure gamma and beta radiation still raises the temperature. So its probably just the target getting cooked on top of the radiation.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I believe pure gamma and beta radiation still raises the temperature. So its probably just the target getting cooked on top of the radiation.

All radiation raises temperature. At the energy levels required to give near instantaneous blackened burns you really may as well just use a laser rather than radioactive decay. It would be orders of magnitude simpler and safer for the one using the weapon.

Alcibiades wrote:
It's been ages (decades) since I read those books. I wonder if there are other references that I'm not catching.

A lot of the AdMech units look like something out of War of the Worlds or something out of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
It would be orders of magnitude simpler and safer for the one using the weapon.

What is this Heresy you speak.

I could look this up myself, but cba, but what is the atomic weight of radium compared to, say, uranium? Specifically, depleted uranium?

Theorizing that radium may add mass to the bullet which, coupled with whatever whiz-bang science the AdMech uses to propel the rounds downrange, might account for increased lethality.

Well, Radium has an Atomic Weight of 226 while Uranium is 238. Depleted and "regular" Uranium will have negligible differences in atomic weights if I am reading the info correctly.

Radium bullets would definitely be quite heavy. For reference, Iron has an atomic weight of 55.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well, Radium has an Atomic Weight of 226 while Uranium is 238. Depleted and "regular" Uranium will have negligible differences in atomic weights if I am reading the info correctly.

Radium bullets would definitely be quite heavy. For reference, Iron has an atomic weight of 55.

That would be a very hard hitting bullet

It would be the same principle behind having anti-tank SABOT rounds made out of Depleted Uranium.

 Psienesis wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
It's been ages (decades) since I read those books. I wonder if there are other references that I'm not catching.

A lot of the AdMech units look like something out of War of the Worlds or something out of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Or Flash Gordon. Or other things Mars-related...

Im gonna say the bullets explode in the air near the target (like the SM special bolt shells that have ignores cover) releasing a radioactive cloud that spreads into the nearby vicinity. Because of the high RoF (they have a high rate of fire because in crunch terms, they're Assault 3) it means several clouds of radioactive gas would instantly assail the target either by breathing it in, or the penertration of the Gamma Rays (and because it is a cloud, it can explain the 'Localized Rad-Storm' that the bullets are said to develop)

For targets like Necrons, i expect they use a specialized shell that has more stopping power and explode on impact, rather than a proximity detonation

What if they found a radiation catalyst for radium? like a 2 compund glue it gets mixed with the radium and the radium starts to emit much, much more radiation. The catalyst is within the bullet, the radion in the outer part. The target get hit, both compounds "mix" and we get a radiation explosion within the target.

If it was that much radiation emanating then wouldn't it more likely just heat up and fry everything instead of ark of the covenant there faces off?

There is alot we have to just look the other way when it comes to fantasy and sci-fi fluff. The Radium girls used it every day and it took years for it to kill them, so something else would need to be going on here that only the imagination and fictional sci-fi genre can explain. otherwise there are carbines that don't have radiation that would make better weapons on the battlefield.

also Chernobyl workers who fought the meltdown had a very short life spans, but lived long enough to stop the meltdown, some of them lived for months before medical complicationd. They were under protected and untrained in the use of radiation suits, most were considered terminal after a few minutes but still lived for weeks, so radiation weapons just don't make sense.

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:
There is alot we have to just look the other way when it comes to fantasy and sci-fi fluff. The Radium girls used it every day and it took years for it to kill them, so something else would need to be going on here that only the imagination and fictional sci-fi genre can explain. otherwise there are carbines that don't have radiation that would make better weapons on the battlefield.

also Chernobyl workers who fought the meltdown had a very short life spans, but lived long enough to stop the meltdown, some of them lived for months before medical complicationd. They were under protected and untrained in the use of radiation suits, most were considered terminal after a few minutes but still lived for weeks, so radiation weapons just don't make sense.

Did you even read the rest of the thread?