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 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Funny you should say that. Originally - those vents were for flying. You can see it illustrated in Rogue Trader era books and catalogs. Later on they developed a different jetpack for them to use instead and made the regular backpack just a powerpack with cooling vents.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
The first marines came with rules treating their backpacks as jump packs, at least that's what I recall from the back of the first plastic marine box.

Absolutely bloody wow. Before I called Bullgak on these two statements I decided to go away and do my research properly. I rarely get caught on on RT-era stuff... But this time...

Although there are zero pictures of the power packs being used as jet packs in the Rogue Trader rulebook, and there is, in fact, a picture of what would now be considered a heresy-era jump pack on page 104, on page 115 there is a diagram of Astartes armour that shows the pack as having stabilising jets. The pack as a whole is not labelled as a jet/jump pack, and in fact has air purifiers, solar panels, soolar convertor, reserve air, etc, taking up most of the space, there is this implication that it can act in at least a small way as a jump pack. My suggestion would be that the designer/author's intention would be as a slight aid to a natural jump rather than a full on jump or jet system, or to stabilise someone who is falling from a great height, but I had never spptted it before.

I also had the RTB01 box, but had never spotted that on the back, the power pack is, in fact, labelled as a jet pack: http://www.solegends.com/citrt/rtb01marines.htm Whilst I consider that as probably an error made by a graphic designer of the packaging rather than a member of the actual design team, there is a significant chance I am wrong.

Now, in support of the idea that the power pack was originally excatly that, not a jump pack, are the original Bob Naismith GW marines, (one of which I own) which have the nozzle at an angle suggesting it could never possibly be a jet/jump pack. http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/zhu/miniatures/warhammer-40k.htm

I've been through quite a few old GW's from 90 onwards, and can find no images showing regular power packs acting as jet packs, but I'd actually love to be shown one.

So, much to my surprise, I find there is something of a case that at least some people working on the game saw the power pack as at least partially capable of acting as a jump/jet pack.

Well, the first of those is from Slaves to Darkness, and I now remember it well. Surprised I didn't remember it when this first came up.

The second is the exact image from Rogue Trader I was referring to in my own post.

Here is a a thread from the website you linked to with, as someone said, another good image from either Space Marine or Adeptus Titanicus http://the-lost-and-the-damned.664610.n2.nabble.com/Chaos-Space-Marine-backpacks-td6872696.html

ALTHOUGH - that image from the Ultramarines dropship has actualy been cropped, thereby not showing marines with clearly larger than powerpack sized jump packs from a side angle, so that image is effectively a fake. I am struggling to find the original again on Google though...

And another image I remembered then found more easily than expected on Google, which then linked back to here...
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/387197.page

As I say, I was going to call bullgak, but glad I did my research. It is nice to find out new stuff.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111204191738/es.warhammer40k/images/8/8e/StormBird_001.jpg

Found a fuller version of the pic. I would argue that the oen who is sideways shows that those guys have much fuller jump packs.

Still, as I said, I have been shown to be wrong in my assertion that this was bullgak. I don't think all members of the design team saw them as jet packs, but some almost certainly did, even if not for very far into the development of marines.

The comment regarding Bob Naismith's design sketches also seems valid, as the nozzles moving round would make sense too.