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Hey all, I've been wondering since I've started reading some 40K fiction again about marine armour and the lack of laser weaponry. We all know that laser weaponry is once of the cheaper and more reliable weapon systems in the 40K universe and a technology the Imperium has a very good grasp on. The reliability and easy of use of the standard Imperial Guard lasgun is legendary.

The other ubiquitous aspect of 40K is of course Space Marines, who use the comparatively clunky, difficult bolters and wear power armour. Now not that I think they shouldn't use bolters but coming back to 40K it seems there's a few things that have changed and it's got me thinking. Since marines appear to have small power plants on their backs- nigh unlimited ones- and they seem to often run out of bolter ammunition (let's face it at .75 cal even a marine can carry only so much) there seems to me like an obvious answer.

Why don't marines have any integrated laser weaponry? Not as main weapon- leave that to the more powerful armour piercing bolters- but just as a secondary or backup? A laspistol, or rather the relevant parts of one are incredibly small- perhaps no more than 2-3" long. A marine could have one strapped to the side (or better yet integrated into) his helmet or the back of those monstrous power armoured gloves. Given the neural linkage of the armour and the way a marine can control its systems there would be no difficulty in firing the weapon. You could do away with everything but the emitter, lens and a small armour interface. The marine would gain an additional weapon he could fire up close, possibly for some surprise value but more importantly he'd have a secondary weapon with nigh unlimited ammunition. Bolt rounds are valuable, you may not want to use them on that cultist or grot when you know the real threats are nearby.

The tech is cheap, well known and would add an utterly insignificant amount of weight to a marine. If they don't get used on mission the cost is negligible. On the other hand a brother marine who finds himself out of ammo (or merely needing to conserve it) or his bolter jammed/damaged is still left with a ranged weapon. So why doesn't marine armour have any laser (or for that matter any) integrated weapons?

In the codex, some units have the option of taking digital weapons, which are described as being small, easily concealed projectile weapons, usually in the form of lasers in a ring. Other than that, I can only think of las cannons, but nothing in the mid range.

Digital weapons though are a high end, rare tech. What I'm talking about here is taking the guts of a laspistol or lasgun, doing away with the casing, handle, trigger and power supply and latching or integrating it with a marines armour. The very existence of digital weapons is a proof of concept, I just can't see why, given the cheapness of the requirements and the value of the marines it wasn't done long ago. There's nothing heretical about laspistols, nothing expensive and nothing difficult.

Cop out fluff justification?

Power Armor was designed for the Great Crusade, when logistics were easy. In the 40K universe, they just make the stuff the way they know how to, and don't mess with the formula too much.

Another rationale might be that Marines are shock troops, and rarely get involved in drawn out conflicts. That's the realm of the Imperial Guard. Deploy, smash, consolidate. Re-supply and attack again, or withdraw.

Remember how strong tradition is in 40k. Bolters are the consecrated weapon of the Astartes, so that's what they use. Many Marines would consider it beneath their dignity to use a lasgun/laspistol outside of a desperate situation. As for a laspistol being enough to take out a cultist or grot, the damage is localized enough that a hasty shot may not immediately incapacitate, while a bolt round anywhere in the body (or really anywhere in the vicinity) is guaranteed to do so. If you can put down the grot with a quarter-second hip-fired bolt round rather than a half-second aimed laspistol shot, you've got a whole quarter-second head start on the Nob bearing down on you.

I can actually think of one example of Marines using lasguns, and that is Scout Snipers. I believe it mentions in the Codex that some Chapters use projectile rifles but others use long-las. Scouts are the most likely to be out of contact with resupply for any length of time, so it makes sense they would be issued with an ammo-free weapon.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Power Armor was designed for the Great Crusade, when logistics were easy. In the 40K universe, they just make the stuff the way they know how to, and don't mess with the formula too much.

I did consider that but it's it's almost the very bottom of the tech tree and it requires absolutely zero new materials. There already are a host of marines running around with wrist mounted weapons so it isn't even a new idea.

Another rationale might be that Marines are shock troops, and rarely get involved in drawn out conflicts. That's the realm of the Imperial Guard. Deploy, smash, consolidate. Re-supply and attack again, or withdraw.

I can see that but it does fly in the face of other marine abilities, like the suspended animation, half sleeping, super digestion and poison spitting, all of which would only possibly be useful under circumstances where the marine is isolated/unarmed and resupply isn't an option. If these can be justified a laspistol surely can't be too much.

Bludbaff wrote:
Remember how strong tradition is in 40k. Bolters are the consecrated weapon of the Astartes, so that's what they use. Many Marines would consider it beneath their dignity to use a lasgun/laspistol outside of a desperate situation.

As I said, don't ditch the bolters as a rule (we can debate whether they should have always been using hotshot weapons but that's another tangent) but you're making my point for me. When the situation gets desperate, a laspistol might make the difference, and it's cost is so trivial that it's worth it, especially if it saves a marine life.

As for a laspistol being enough to take out a cultist or grot, the damage is localized enough that a hasty shot may not immediately incapacitate, while a bolt round anywhere in the body (or really anywhere in the vicinity) is guaranteed to do so. If you can put down the grot with a quarter-second hip-fired bolt round rather than a half-second aimed laspistol shot, you've got a whole quarter-second head start on the Nob bearing down on you.

That'll be up to the marine to decide- as I said don't lose the bolter. If you need to use it, use it but it won't always be necessary- at times a las shot will do the job but cost the marine nothing. Again, bolter ammunition is huge and for a lot of targets a fair amount of overkill so conserving ammunition where possible is never going to hurt you. But to use your example, what if you're on your last magazine? Or out entirely? Or you haven't had a chance to reload yet? If you're going to carry an infinite ammo source and the gun that fires it is cheap, reliable and readily available you might as well carry one.

I can actually think of one example of Marines using lasguns, and that is Scout Snipers. I believe it mentions in the Codex that some Chapters use projectile rifles but others use long-las. Scouts are the most likely to be out of contact with resupply for any length of time, so it makes sense they would be issued with an ammo-free weapon.

As I said above, I don't think it's just scouts who find themselves away from resupply. Marines clearly come built with that in mind even if it's not ideal.

Here's why Marines don't use Lasguns.

Bolters are more powerful, and given the context of marine engagements the extra maintenance of a bolter is worth it.

A bolter can also have its ammunition altered to different situations(special issue ammo) while a lasgun can't.

Marines are not meant to fight prolonged engagements, or only rarely.

One might say that because the Codex Astartes (for those Chapters that use it) favors bolters, they continue to use them. Marines are pretty heavy on the tradition. I think it boils down to them viewing las weaponry as a Devastator squad role as heavy fire support, or used by Scouts when they need to supply weapons that don't need constant ammo stocks, as was mentioned.

Very interesting concept though

Bolt rounds are FUN. They EXPLODE.

But yeah, I'd agree that Marines use Bolters over Las weaponry because of their purpose in combat; where guardsmen are the "Hammer", designed for long drawn out conflicts involving millions of expendable men, Space Marines are more of a "Sword", designed to strike fast and hard.

Traditionally, when dealing with a foe who is easily dispatched with a stray laspistol shot, Marines default to melee combat, saving their bolter ammunition for hardier foes, or at least densely packed groups of chaff.

Similarly, in situations where the collateral damage of bolter fire is undesirable, such as securing the bridge or engenarium of a starship, they press their melee advantage.

From a damage standpoint, a bolter is going to be more nasty, as has been discussed. But to answer what I think is your original question, "why don't they have a laser backup?" I think the answer is two-fold:
1) These guys have drop pods, so in a protracted engagement they could resupply fairly quickly.
2) More importantly, Space Marines will just fight you hand-to hand if they can't shoot. Fluffwise, all that stuff about crushing skulls with their bare hands and being mountains of fused bone and muscle means that even with an empty bolter and a combat knife a Space Marine can and will dish out some serious damage.

 greyknight12 wrote:
From a damage standpoint, a bolter is going to be more nasty, as has been discussed. But to answer what I think is your original question, "why don't they have a laser backup?" I think the answer is two-fold:
1) These guys have drop pods, so in a protracted engagement they could resupply fairly quickly.
2) More importantly, Space Marines will just fight you hand-to hand if they can't shoot. Fluffwise, all that stuff about crushing skulls with their bare hands and being mountains of fused bone and muscle means that even with an empty bolter and a combat knife a Space Marine can and will dish out some serious damage.

Especially when said knife is as long as a sword for the average person

So far as I can tell, they do. Some marines carry backup las weapons, and others have ancient and esoteric suits with integrated las and chain weapons. Thunderhawks also release airborne nanomachines that give marines auspex readings through their senses of smell.


These details are also essentially irrelevant though. I mean, of course your telion and shrike and harath shen have gadgets in their armor. I cannot see why it would be worth mentioning though. The relevant details are that they survived alone on planet x, methodically destroying promethium pipelines, for seventeen years and then dropped from a space station with a kill team of thirty onto a floating sentient weapons facility built at the dawn of time by crab monsters. Of course they have dual lasrifles mounted on one shoulder and a laser range finder in their codpiece. Whatever.

The sorts of space-born horrors that Space Marines regularly face are not phased by a piddly lasgun. For that, you need hyperpenetrating mass-reactive explosive rounds,

Plus, its easier to walk through a pile of bodies when they are in little chunks as opposed to full sized...

 Kojiro wrote:
Digital weapons though are a high end, rare tech.

No they aren't.

They're trinkets. Like Rings. They're called "Digital" because they go on your "Digits" (fingers)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
The sorts of space-born horrors that Space Marines regularly face are not phased by a piddly lasgun. For that, you need hyperpenetrating mass-reactive explosive rounds,

Which are surpassed in strength by weapons made by a bunch of herbivores.

Okay Sure, Fire Caste members are pretty brutal, but I mean, look at them. They're basically cows and yet their long rifles far surpass anything the imperium has in the way of standard armament.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

Which are surpassed in strength by weapons made by a bunch of herbivores.

Okay Sure, Fire Caste members are pretty brutal, but I mean, look at them. They're basically cows and yet their long rifles far surpass anything the imperium has in the way of standard armament.

Wat.

I'm sorry, but how does herbivore mean...anything? I mean...wat? I hate to pull this off topic, but this statement boggles my mind on so many levels. Is it meant that herbivores are not dangerous?

That doesn't even make logical sense in the real world.

 curran12 wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

Which are surpassed in strength by weapons made by a bunch of herbivores.

Okay Sure, Fire Caste members are pretty brutal, but I mean, look at them. They're basically cows and yet their long rifles far surpass anything the imperium has in the way of standard armament.

Wat.

I'm sorry, but how does herbivore mean...anything? I mean...wat? I hate to pull this off topic, but this statement boggles my mind on so many levels. Is it meant that herbivores are not dangerous?

That doesn't even make logical sense in the real world.

One would only have to look at an elephant to see an example of a potentially dangerous Herbivore. However, my statement was not "Herbivores are not dangerous", but "Tau are passive herbivores. Why does their technology surpass that of giant mutant men who can eat brains to learn valuable information" In writing that, I ask you to not attack straw men, they don't like it. I will take note that most herbivores have defensive capabilities. An Elephant, for example has its large size, hide and intimidating tusks. Sure, you can potentially impale a man on the tusk, but an elephants primary protective measure is to rampage - to literally run around, until its attacker is scared off.

Well, I'd say because the giant mutant men who eat brains belong to an organization to whom advancement and innovation are frowned upon to the point of it being quashed out, and the passive herbivores fully embrace change and advancement.

Y'know. Imperium.

To be honest, I'm sure a Space Marine would much rather have a failsafe that makes him explode at the last second (like some battlesuits) than some crappy, built in laspistol, with little range, area of effect or damage.. I could understand it if they gave them a hot-shot weapon, but that'd use up a hell of a lot of power in a short amount of time, and is more built to be a primary weapon and would be hard to mount on a helmet or gauntlet. Anyway, fluff-wise, a space marine could pound a normal man into mush with his pinky, so, in desperate situations, he'd turn to unbelievably one-sided (towards the Space marine) combat

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 curran12 wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

Which are surpassed in strength by weapons made by a bunch of herbivores.

Okay Sure, Fire Caste members are pretty brutal, but I mean, look at them. They're basically cows and yet their long rifles far surpass anything the imperium has in the way of standard armament.

Wat.

I'm sorry, but how does herbivore mean...anything? I mean...wat? I hate to pull this off topic, but this statement boggles my mind on so many levels. Is it meant that herbivores are not dangerous?

That doesn't even make logical sense in the real world.

One would only have to look at an elephant to see an example of a potentially dangerous Herbivore. However, my statement was not "Herbivores are not dangerous", but "Tau are passive herbivores. Why does their technology surpass that of giant mutant men who can eat brains to learn valuable information" In writing that, I ask you to not attack straw men, they don't like it. I will take note that most herbivores have defensive capabilities. An Elephant, for example has its large size, hide and intimidating tusks. Sure, you can potentially impale a man on the tusk, but an elephants primary protective measure is to rampage - to literally run around, until its attacker is scared off.

But the Tau are readily accepting on technological advancements, where the Imperium is VERY slow to adapt new technology. The use the patterns that have been used for years and years and its tradition to them. Their vehicles are thought of the same way. In the SM codex under one of the Land Raiders (Crusader, I believe?), the plans went into larger desimination only after the Tech Priests of Mars gave it the thumbs up.

No herbivore will ever rise to dominance.

It takes no cunning to sneak up on a leaf. Evolution of intelligence favors the carnivorous.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:
Digital weapons though are a high end, rare tech.

No they aren't.

They're trinkets. Like Rings. They're called "Digital" because they go on your "Digits" (fingers)

I think the best answer is that they would just rather jump right into melee when they run out of ammo. A barehanded SM is more deadly then a lasrifle.

 HisDivineShadow wrote:
No herbivore will ever rise to dominance.

It takes no cunning to sneak up on a leaf. Evolution of intelligence favors the carnivorous.

This could be a really epic thread derail because it is wrong on so many levels, but mostly Ill let it pass. I am sure a herbivorous Mountain Gorilla could quite dominate you though, and in many ways that would be approved by slaanesh.

Anyway, for the most part, digital weapons are often described in the background as coming from xenos designs or are captured from xenos. They are not part of the widely approved martian made technology that is supplied to marines.

The REAL reason tha bolter shells are not a limiting logistic factor is because the game was designed around a smallish conflict at the level of a skirmish. No one was really thinking ahead to supplying marines for some extended campaign. It is NOT a detail that the game needs to deal with.

Virtually none of the logistics of a real war are dealt with in 40k and people just discuss a few that they find fun and ignore a million others that are equally or more important. Its a game after all not a simulation of war in the far future.

Its just as well because it would be quite tedious and what few logistics or statistics do make it into the background are so awkwardly crazy as to be just laughable and not worth discussion.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:
Digital weapons though are a high end, rare tech.

No they aren't.

They're trinkets. Like Rings. They're called "Digital" because they go on your "Digits" (fingers)

Actually, yes, they are. They are produced solely by the Jokaero, a non-intelligent (as humans understand it) Xeno species that exists because it produces digital weaponry for the Inquisition.

Because heresy./thread

Bolters are a better weapon for the Space Marines because they are, in effect, shock troops. They rely on psychological terror for a lot of their work. Bolters are loud, flashy and their effect on the human body is downright terrifying. Las weapons would not have the same effect.

What looks more dignified and powerful?

This?



or this?

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:
Digital weapons though are a high end, rare tech.

No they aren't.

They're trinkets. Like Rings. They're called "Digital" because they go on your "Digits" (fingers)

Actually, yes, they are. They are produced solely by the Jokaero, a non-intelligent (as humans understand it) Xeno species that exists because it produces digital weaponry for the Inquisition.

That's not quite true jokaero are very smart mechanically and are very dexterous.

They are not rare; something available to a space marine captain is not all that rare.

While fluff is fluid, and changes and get re-written and overlaid all the time, I quote here from page 78 of the Rouge Trader rulebook, second paragraph:

"The Jokaero make digital versions of the needle pistol, laspistol, and hand flamer. Each has exactly the same effects as its larger counterpart. Jokaero weapons are very rare - most people would never see one and they are they are almost imposible to buy. When offered for sale they command just about any price the owner cares to name. These weapons would never find their way into general service, but personality models might be equipped with them - if they are lucky!"

Bolding is not mine, it's from the original text

Now, I've not personally read the GK codex where the Jokaero were reintroduced; this may have been re-conned. But I like my fluff old-school. I'll also point out that space marine captains are among the very best equipped people in the imperium.

As to the main point of this thread, I think that's been well covered. Combat style and tradition keep us using bolters; and a marine is plenty deadly with his bare hands, with a "knife" he's far better then anything lesser beings can do with a laspistol.