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 Hawky wrote:
I think Lasguns can be disabled/destroyed with super-strong electromagnetic field, which generates unwanted currents in internal wires. It may fry some components, making it useless...
Imagine this at global scale... Entire IG army fethed up.
But I haven't heard about any cases of electronic warfare in 40k. (Maybe it's because I havent read not enough books.)

Auroguns are most likely immune.

It probably wouldn't take much more than your average magnet to screw with a lasgun. The only way you'd need a "super-strong electromagnetic field" is if you plan on taking out the entire army and it's mother's worth of equipment. Or SH vehicles...


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 Melissia wrote:
Lasweapons wouldn't cauterize to begin with. It would cause wounds that violently explode as blood gets superheated. Anything weak enough to merely cauterize isn't likely to kill someone.

Regarding this, in either Helsreach or Rynn's World (I can't remember which), a comissar (IIRC) shoots another man in the face with a laspistol. The wound is described as having burned his face off, and killing him. It is fairly plausible that it causes the flesh to detonate somewhat, before cauterising from the heat, but not before [fatal to human] damage occurs.

Additionally, somewhere in the fluff section of the 6E rulebook it describes the medical procedure for treating a man who has taken a las-shot to the chest. The procedure is to wrap him up in bandages to cover the wound, as organ failure is considered inevitable, and treating it serves only to keep morale up.

 Lynata wrote:
Once again going solely by Inquisitor, ballistic sniper rifles have a higher damage profile, whereas las snipers have a greater accuracy.
Sounds okay to me.

Hawky wrote:I think Lasguns can be disabled/destroyed with super-strong electromagnetic field, which generates unwanted currents in internal wires. It may fry some components, making it useless...
Imagine this at global scale... Entire IG army fethed up.
But I haven't heard about any cases of electronic warfare in 40k. (Maybe it's because I havent read not enough books.)
Auroguns are most likely immune.

It could also simply be that lasguns are shielded against this sort of interference. It would make sense, precisely because otherwise this would be a major disadvantage locking down entire armies, and it's not too hard to do, given that we're already doing this today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_shielding

Corrected that for ya

So basically, what the IG really need is a waterproofing option...

In most cases, I'd stick with the lasgun. While rainy weather may cause severe range/accuracy difficulties, from the evidence we have, lasguns are an energy based weapon, and as such, they may be able to send a charge through water, and electrocute the target.

I have not much evidence to back this theory up, though.

 Exergy wrote:

 Maniac_nmt wrote:


A lasgun would have issues with particularly wet or rainy environments, due to refraction. Also, the power might recharge, but it isn't truly a laser without an excited gas, which would run out. So, if they are actually laser weapons, you'd have two ammo sources, the gas that you excite to fire the laser, and the power cell to do it with.

The real problem would be every army would start running around in reflective material. 99% reflective mylar or aluminium isnt hard to come by. Cover your armor in the stuff and the most of the energy is going to bounce right off. (if the shot's durration is long enough, you could eventually vaporize the mylar with the 1% that gets through and then the rest of the shot goes through)

Well I guess that explains why lasguns almost never do anything in small numbers, despite being able to blast chunks out of the target's flesh...

Armour by race:

Orks - Metal/leather, partially reflective
Space Marines (most kinds of) - Metal(ish), partially reflective
Eldar - 99% bling, probably reflective
IG - Flak armour, not reflective.
Necrons - all metal, won't give a flying rabid monkey's uncle's ass anyway.

EDIT: I feel I must mention that most forces are unlikely to always use reflective materials such as that, as they make the wearer easy to spot, and may not be the most effective way to protect them from the IG artillery.

Hmm...

So the real question is, how can we rate the effectiveness of a lasgun in any given situation?

 Exergy wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Also many of the things which supposedly make lasguns weak-- dust, dirt, rain, mist, etc-- would also make reflective armor weaker to lasguns.

Reflection isn't really a good way to defend against lasguns.

No dust in the air, rain, mist, fog, and smoke would be very effective at diffusing the laser beams going in. Worse each hit on something would just create more dust, smoke, and mist. I have worked in the aerospace field and every time directed energy weapons are considered the comically easy ways they can be defeated are brought up.


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 Selym wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 Maniac_nmt wrote:


A lasgun would have issues with particularly wet or rainy environments, due to refraction. Also, the power might recharge, but it isn't truly a laser without an excited gas, which would run out. So, if they are actually laser weapons, you'd have two ammo sources, the gas that you excite to fire the laser, and the power cell to do it with.

The real problem would be every army would start running around in reflective material. 99% reflective mylar or aluminium isnt hard to come by. Cover your armor in the stuff and the most of the energy is going to bounce right off. (if the shot's durration is long enough, you could eventually vaporize the mylar with the 1% that gets through and then the rest of the shot goes through)

Well I guess that explains why lasguns almost never do anything in small numbers, despite being able to blast chunks out of the target's flesh...

Armour by race:

Orks - Metal/leather, partially reflective
Space Marines (most kinds of) - Metal(ish), partially reflective
Eldar - 99% bling, probably reflective
IG - Flak armour, not reflective.
Necrons - all metal, won't give a flying rabid monkey's uncle's ass anyway.

EDIT: I feel I must mention that most forces are unlikely to always use reflective materials such as that, as they make the wearer easy to spot, and may not be the most effective way to protect them from the IG artillery.

If you dont want to use a reflective material you can instead go for something that smokes. As the shot comes and starts to vaporize it, it creates a dark, light absorbing smoke that hangs around and obscures the target. The laser cannot penetrate the smoke and instead just harmlessly makes the air hotter rather than heating up the target.

And this, then, is probably why the only truly effective IG firepower comes from their vehicles/artillery/Orbital Bombardement etc.

It may be fairly safe to say that a seemingly infinitely-ammo'd lasgun is as much for morale purposes as it is for killing things.

 Melissia wrote:

 Exergy wrote:
dust in the air, rain, mist, fog, and smoke would be very effective at diffusing the laser beams going in.

And any of the above would also reduce the armor's reflectiveness, rendering it less and less effective.

Ablative armor such as flak is far more effective and reliable than reflective armor, with none of reflective armor's drawbacks.

Depends on what kind of "Flak armour" we mean.

Feral worlds versions of it could be just animal hide, the steel legion use metal plating, normal IG look like they use some kind of kevlar, and the DKOK just have dress uniforms and greatcoats.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well the ships are many kilometers in length. Plenty of space for even non-magical heat sinks if you give them submarine levels of crampness.

Not to mention superspace technology, better methods of sinking heat.

Really all you need is a way to efficiently transfer the heat into radiative energy which can be dumped into space. Most novels featuring space battles show ships track each other by their heat signature, and they'd definitely have a big one. There could be an as yet unknown element which reacts to temperature by giving off some form of radiant energy. That would be one way of dumping heat.


As for actual power sources, the Imperium does have access to an alternate universe which is nothing but energy, and ships are powered by Warp Reactors. It could be that their ships are partially getting their energy from the Warp itself, with a safe and sanctioned way of course.

It could also be that lasguns have a small fragment of warp energy, that just needs to be unlocked with a continuous charge from a battery.
If that is the case, this would explain why lasguns are capable of even existing, having visible bolts, and only requiring some sun-charged battery power to run.

Oh for gawds sake...

The argument so far:

-Lasgun/autoguns technical specifications and related efficiencies

-lasgun = pew pew layzors, therefore it is really ineffective

-lasgun = sci-fi magic, is effective.

-lasgun = heat based damage, sometimes effective

-lasgun = exactly the same as sunlight, reflective armour is lasgun-proof

-dust = lasguns are useless

-dust = reflective armour is useless, lasgun still useful

-dust = both are useless, what was the point?

- [related circular arguments]

-reflective armour is capable of perfectly reflecting 99% of a lasgun's heat damage

-reflective armour is not capable of doing the above.

-this post.

Just so we all know where we are in this... thread.

 Psienesis wrote:

It's described as an energized beam of ionized particles that cause the targets to undergo rapid nuclear fusion.

Oh gak.

 Selym wrote:

It could also be that lasguns have a small fragment of warp energy, that just needs to be unlocked with a continuous charge from a battery.
If that is the case, this would explain why lasguns are capable of even existing, having visible bolts, and only requiring some sun-charged battery power to run.