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I've heard the claim multiple times, and being the mindless drone I am have repeated it myself.

Said claim being that a lasgun can punch through two meters of concrete (Or is it three?) in a single shot.

But I realised I have no idea where this claim originates, at all, be it a novel or a codex.

So I am asking the people of Dakka, does anyone know the origin of this claim?

Las cannon maybe but not sure of a lasgun. I shall ask my local Commissar.

If a lascannon has even the slightest bit of trouble punching through tank armor, its never going to get through 3 feet of concrete.

Hmm...Wychsuit, basically a spiky bikini and thong...Nope, lasgun can't ignore that armor save.

Gun wearing 1.5m of concrete...Lasgun can ignore that armor save?



I think whoever has said that might have confused a quote about lascannons with lasguns...To quite an unfortunate effect. Maybe it was about a hotshot lasgun? Still impropable...Maybe they took fanfiction as canon.

Catachans can deflect las rounds with their pectorals.

Pretty hardcore.

No but, I've heard this claim a lot, is apparently some novel. Don't know which.

I'd like to hope a Lascannon could penetrate more than 2 meters of concrete.

It was one of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels. Which one it is eludes me, but I want to say it was "Sabbat Martyr".

This idea that Lasguns somehow have "trouble penetrating armor" is troubling. Are they punching clean through powered armor or vehicles? No. But neither are most weapons in 40k.
Combat situations where a wound is inflicted in such a way to cause a casualty does not mean some horrific damage is done to the target.
It can be as dramatic as a limb being blown off, to striking the femoral artery and causing a target to bleed out.

Kanluwen wrote:It was one of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels. Which one it is eludes me, but I want to say it was "Sabbat Martyr".

This idea that Lasguns somehow have "trouble penetrating armor" is troubling. Are they punching clean through powered armor or vehicles? No. But neither are most weapons in 40k.
Combat situations where a wound is inflicted in such a way to cause a casualty does not mean some horrific damage is done to the target.
It can be as dramatic as a limb being blown off, to striking the femoral artery and causing a target to bleed out.

Ah, okay thanks.

I haven't gotten around to reading Gaunt's Ghosts as of yet, will do so.

Maybe a single full-powered setting could penetrate concrete like that, but a Guardsman would run out of ammo quickly that way. Most Lasguns probably have a penetrative power akin to .50 Cal rounds today.

Considering it can't even fully penetrate the layered T-shirt armor of Wyches and Orks, probably not.

Few ranged weapons have the possibility of letting you bleed out. Bolt weapons would explode inside you, and a las weapon would cauterize the wound on its own. So most kills are generally bloody and dramatic (from the imperial side, which I would understand most.)

But while the claim a lasgun shot could take a normal human's arm off, I highly doubt it could penetrate 2 meters of concrete.

... especially given that lasgun rounds are supposed to explode on impact. Or do simple lasguns have a 2 meter blast radius now?

Something to add to my growing list of examples of weird ideas from licensed material, I guess.

Void__Dragon wrote:

Said claim being that a lasgun can punch through two centi-meters of concrete (Or is it three?) in a single shot.

Corrected the typo of the original author.

Would the IG erect bunkers of said materials if standard infantryman guns of their own could cut through?
Usually the defensive works are able to withstand the weapons the respective army has.
They wouldn't carry all these artillery pieces with them if they could 'lasgun' it.

Harriticus wrote:Maybe a single full-powered setting could penetrate concrete like that, but a Guardsman would run out of ammo quickly that way. Most Lasguns probably have a penetrative power akin to .50 Cal rounds today.

This. Lasgun on high power can go trough concrete ( not sure how much deep ) and can probably penetrate Astartes armor. But Guardsman can only fire up to 20-60 shots before they replace pack.
On the other hand we have Medium setting that can go up to 150 shots, that have solid damage ( can't kill an Astartes but it can kill and Ork with ease ). And of course that Guardsman would use Medium or even low power output than High in any combat situation.


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Mr. Self Destruct wrote:Considering it can't even fully penetrate the layered T-shirt armor of Wyches and Orks, probably not.

Repentias don't even have armor and they can take Chaos Space Marine bolter rounds and still get close to them and do some damage

lasgun, doubt it
lascannon, more than likely

But seriously guys.... AK-47 with AP ammunition can go trough solid concrete wall. And we are talking about energy weapon that makes mini plasma explosions on hit and that is 38.000 years in the future.

Brother Coa wrote:
Lasgun on high power can go trough concrete ( not sure how much deep ) and can probably penetrate Astartes armor.

No.
Imperial fortifications wouldn't make sense if lasguns fallen into traitor hands could penetrate them.

Lasguns are still S3 for a reason.

Brother Coa wrote:Repentias don't even have armor and they can take Chaos Space Marine bolter rounds and still get close to them and do some damage

Unarmored humans are not surviving boltgun rounds. The last ditch effort is part of a successful act of faith and thus 'magical'.

Brother Coa wrote:But seriously guys.... AK-47 with AP ammunition can go trough solid concrete wall. And we are talking about energy weapon that makes mini plasma explosions on hit and that is 38.000 years in the future.

The Guard gets AK47 ? how about an example?

Brother Coa wrote:But seriously guys.... AK-47 with AP ammunition can go trough solid concrete wall. And we are talking about energy weapon that makes mini plasma explosions on hit and that is 38.000 years in the future.

That depends on how thick the wall is.
Theres no wat an AK round is going throught 2-3 feet of concrete.

Maybe a hot-shot lasround but even then it would probably be a fluke

Mr. Self Destruct wrote:Considering it can't even fully penetrate the layered T-shirt armor of Wyches and Orks, probably not.

Uhm.

No.

Orks wear "thick slabs of steel". Wych-suits are very strong armor, the fact that ti's 6+ is because of the suit's coverage (it only covers the arm the wych most commonly reveals to her opponents, a la gladiator style shoulder pauldron)-- same with the Ork armor. For Tyranid armor, the chitin is specifically designed to resist the lasgun shot, and it still only gives 6+ in most cases.

Elector wrote:a las weapon would cauterize the wound on its own.

Actually it'd cause the blood around the wound to flash boil, giving an effect like hydrostatic shock.

1hadhq wrote:Would the IG erect bunkers of said materials

THey erect bunkers of some future wonder-material called plasticrete reinforced with flakboard, not concrete.

1hadhq wrote:
No.
Imperial fortifications wouldn't make sense if lasguns fallen into traitor hands could penetrate them.

Lasguns are still S3 for a reason.

I didn't say: "Lasgun can penetrate 5km of solid Titanium" I said that on High power setting it can penetrate solid concrete wall ( by wall I mean 20cm - 50cm thick wall ). And Imperial bunkers don't have only concrete to protect themselves you know. And we all agree that Guard don't use high setting at all, they use medium setting all the time.

1hadhq wrote:
Unarmored humans are not surviving boltgun rounds. The last ditch effort is part of a successful act of faith and thus 'magical'.

Ok, we all know that magic>>>science.

1hadhq wrote:
The Guard gets AK47 ? how about an example?

I didn't say that, I just give an example of how standard modern assault rifle with right kind of ammo can do that kind of stuff ( You are behind wall, next thing bullets came right trough it, and you ). And that's today assault rifle, now imagine a energy based weapon in the far future... wouldn't be logical that it is more powerful?

It's the high power setting. Anytime a lasgun dose something it shouldn't do it's because it's been set on high power. The setting is used as flimsy way to justify why such a weak weapon can do such impressive things.

Actually where dose it say that lasguns have power settings?

"Lasguns have several lethality settings that adjust the damage of each shot in order to conserve power (weaker settings use less energy) or disable rather than kill a target. The weapon can also be fitted with a "Hotshot" pack, providing more powerful but less numerous shots."

-Warhammer 40,000 3rd Edition Rulebook page 61.

Melissia wrote:

1hadhq wrote:Would the IG erect bunkers of said materials

THey erect bunkers of some future wonder-material called plasticrete reinforced with flakboard, not concrete.

Locally they will use whatever is accessible.
But thats not the main point.
40k contains urban warfare. You are free to assume all of these buildings man may erect anywhere are made out of some future wonder material, but seriously some will not have a higher resilience than 2m of concrete.
Fortifications are in the same boat. Local materials, standardized stuff from the IoM thrown into the mix, and youre battlefield is filled with
cover that isn't as resilient as 2m concrete. But still there is no such thing as Guard not hiding behind walls because the enemy may shoot some stolen lasguns right through them. I am willing to bet you couldn't find a quote where a target was hit right "through" something equivalent to 2m concrete with a lasgun.

Brother Coa wrote: I said that on High power setting it can penetrate solid concrete wall ( by wall I mean 20cm - 50cm thick wall ). And Imperial bunkers don't have only concrete to protect themselves you know. And we all agree that Guard don't use high setting at all, they use medium setting all the time.

Guard face things that make saving ammo not an option.
Training and discipline is all nice and dandy, but sometimes self-preservation may generate the urge to switch to high power....
The issue is not if a lasgun may penetrate wood or thin walls on max power setting. The problem is the thickness of 2m.
2m could stop a lot of different types of ammo.
Plus the munitorum wouldn't transport so many ammo types if everything could be brought down with lasguns.

I think that real question should be: trough how much concrete can today's laser punch?

1hadhq wrote:Locally they will use whatever is accessible.

Which is a makeshift bunker, and therefor made of inferior materials, and therefor not as good-- and they wouldn't expect it to be as good. What you're saying is essentially the same as someone saying "normally guardsmen use flak armor, therefor carapace armor also isn't very good".

When the Imperium specifically make bunkers, they'll use a mixture known as plasticrete, which is reinforced concrete that's stronger than normal concrete, and then furthermore they'll reinforce it with flakboard, a relatively cheap material which has properties capable of diminishing a lasgun shot's power (similar to Flak Armor's own properties, as they're made of the same material).

1hadhq wrote:But still there is no such thing as Guard not hiding behind walls because the enemy may shoot some stolen lasguns right through them.

So? You could say the same thing about autocannons, or even lascannons. Part of the benefit of cover is that the cover will diminish the dangers of shrapnel, and obscure the shooter's aim.

Melissia wrote: What you're saying is essentially the same as someone saying "normally guardsmen use flak armor, therefore carapace armor also isn't very good".

No. youre missing the point I was trying to make.
- There is plenty of cover which may provide as much protection as 2m concrete do.
- There is nothing in the background that states this type of cover is penetrated by lasguns.

1hadhq wrote:
- There is nothing in the background that states this type of cover is penetrated by lasguns.

On the other side, it is the 41'st millennium. There are probably lot of elements unknown to us today. Maybe they mix concrete with some of them to make it stronger then usual, how many examples are there for Astartes attacking those fortifications and they are able to withstand even bolter fire.

Melissia wrote:When the Imperium specifically make bunkers, they'll use a mixture known as plasticrete, which is reinforced concrete that's stronger than normal concrete, and then furthermore they'll reinforce it with flakboard, a relatively cheap material which has properties capable of diminishing a lasgun shot's power (similar to Flak Armor's own properties, as they're made of the same material).

Melissia has the right point, though it's laced with assumptions (we don't know if plascrete is in any way materially related to concrete, bar the last syllable).

However, the building materials of the far future seem to be plascrete, rockcrete, flakboard, etc. And we have armour made of ceramite amongst other things. Which means that a lasgun may well be able to penetrate 2m of concrete, because we have no idea how strong plascrete is in relation to it.

Don't worry about it as long as faith is your shield.

Brother Coa wrote:I think that real question should be: trough how much concrete can today's laser punch?

An important thing to remember is that 40k futurespace lasguns don't work like today's lasers - they don't cut through, they explode upon contact with a solid surface, hence they could also never penetrate something (which is probably why the weapon has a Penetration value of, duh, 0 in the game). If at all, it would be the blast itself that punches through armour. But I really don't see lasguns making explosions three times larger than the people that use them, although it would be sorta funny to have the IG's basic weapon insta-gib entire squads, splattering bloody remains all over people.

... come on now, it's not the first time Abnett wrote something funny.