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tsz52 wrote:the recoil-axis is pretty high, so there's a lot of mass moving suddenly backwards and forwards high up

Wouldn't the blast compensator grill on top of the bolter's frame account for this? At least partially, and assuming we're going by that 3E schematic now, ofc. Or am I interpreting recoil axis wrong now?

(though the schematic was of a Stormbolter - could be a feature only found on them, to better deal with the "double" recoil of 200% RoF?)

tsz52 wrote:Obviously it won't be exactly that simple (still need to get from muzzle velocity up to ~290 m/s etc) but this is just a friendly chat and not an epic patent application.

All that matters is that it ends up sounding believable enough to the reader, anyways.

tsz52 wrote:[EDIT: Yup, it isn't a fragmentation grenade. But there will still be some shrapnel/fragmentation. And just as explosive and shrapnel effect drops off massively with increased distance, it also increases massively with decreased distance... especially if in direct contact where the target itself (rather than mere air) conducts the shockwave.]

... which is what flak armor is specifically designed to prevent damage from.

Melissia wrote:

Jefffar wrote:Also, since the primary kill mechanism of the bolter is the explosive power

If a bolter shell doesn't penetrate flak armor, it's not killing a guardsman. Flak armor is specifically designed to work well against small blasts and shrapnel. A bolter shell exploding without penetrating flak armor will, at best, cause a broken rib or two, probably just bruising more likely.

This is true, if it can't get through the armour there will be limited effect. That is why in the game permits someone wearing Flak Armour an armour save against bolters.

However given the weight of the projectile and it's partially armour piercing design (I would say that the bolter round is an example of what we term SAPHEI or Semi-Armour Piercing high Explosive Incendiary), the odds of it successfully getting through flak armour before detonation are relatively good (say 2/3rds of the time), even with low muzzle velocities.

The former soviets designed an entire line of subsonic large calibre sub-machineguns and rifles that are described as being very effective at penetrating body armour and even disabling vehicles. The reason for the effectiveness of the weapons at such a low velocity was that they fired a very long, heavy bullet, much like the bolter does. A combination of high sectional density and good momentum allows the rounds to push through what normally would require a high velocity round. The bolter would do much the same, followed by the detonation of the charge to cause maximum wounding potential.

Melissia wrote:The weapon does not produce much shrapnel. It is not a fragmentation grenade. Furthermore, the groin is covered by flak armor-- and flak armor is resistant to fragmentation weapons.

Flak armor is designed SPECIFICALLY to protect against shrapnel and blasts. Using a fragmentation effect is the least efficient way to get through flak armor. Lasguns are more efficient at getting through flak armor than fragmentation. Your point is moot.

Quoted only one of your repetitions, for brevity.

You keep saying that, and it keeps being both 1) unprovable and 2) irrelevant.

First off; it's a .75 caliber round. That's pretty damn big; plenty big enough to have a sufficient amount of explosive to make pieces of the metal attain lethal velocity. Score the casing; that guarantees that it'll break apart along those specific lines, since the round is weakest there, ensuring that every fragment will be deadly sharp. That IS one of the most basic designs for a frag grenade. So no, actually, you're wrong; a bolter shell, by every description of them that we've been given, IS a small fragmentation grenade with armor-penetrating qualities, or can be made into one very, very easily. As in, with a sharp hand tool and ten minutes of work, max.

And second; do you know what the kill radius of a modern frag grenade is? About five meters. That is the KILL radius, ie the radius within which anyone, INCLUDING SOMEONE WEARING BODY ARMOR, can expect to die. A bolter round isn't a frag grenade; it doesn't have to be, because it explodes right next to the target. It isn't five meters away, it's not even 12 inches away, it's literally in contact. Of course it will produce shrapnel; it's explosive wrapped in metal, which will burst when the explosive goes off. Not as much as a purpose-built frag grenade, sure, but it will still exist, and it doesn't really matter if there's 'much' shrapnel when all those red-hot shards of metal are flying apart at high velocity right next to your extremely-permeable skin.

And, furthermore, before you bring up 'flak armor is designed to protect against this', modern military body armor is ALSO designed, specifically, to protect against this. That does not prevent frag grenades from killing, on average, anybody who ends up within 5 meters of one when it goes off. That is because grenades are - gasp! - designed to defeat armor! Since it's not, you know, totally unknown to people doing weapons design work that those they're attacking will probably be protecting themselves. I don't see any particular reason to assume that in Warhammer 40k armor design has greatly outpaced weapons design; rather the opposite, actually, given the vast numbers of weapons that are capable of blowing straight through flak armor and even defeating Space Marine power armor.

So. . . a purpose-built frag grenade will kill most of the people who are within a little over fifteen feet, even when those people are wearing body armor specifically designed to defeat exactly that thing. Why on earth would you assert that a slightly-smaller explosive shell can't kill a person who's half an inch away? The lesser power is more than compensated for by the much, much shorter distance; the fragments have no chance to spread out, and a large fraction of them will go straight into the target's body. Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Melissia wrote:

tsz52 wrote:[EDIT: Yup, it isn't a fragmentation grenade. But there will still be some shrapnel/fragmentation. And just as explosive and shrapnel effect drops off massively with increased distance, it also increases massively with decreased distance... especially if in direct contact where the target itself (rather than mere air) conducts the shockwave.]

... which is what flak armor is specifically designed to prevent damage from.

A distant explosion rapidly diffuses its lethal effect as its force is spread out over the surface area of an ever expanding (for simpliclty) sphere. Further, air isn't very good as a medium to propagate force since it's so thin. Flak is designed to protect against this plus the shrapnel riding the fairly slow blast wave.

An explosion in contact can set up a supersonic shockwave through what it hits - which is a whole different bag of bones. Plus the force per square cm (and shrapnel density) is much higher since the radius of the expanding sphere is much smaller (ie zero radius if in contact). Flak isn't designed to protect against this. And again this isn't just an isotropic dispersal but the force is focused in driving the tip forward deeper into the armour - armour being shredded by a supersonic shockwave going through it just before the tip. Even without hard penetration, if that shockwave hits your innards you're in trouble.

Not perfect analogies but think of: throwing a handful of sand at a balloon with all your might (bounce) vs touching it with a pin powered only by your finger tips; a large artillery shell exploding near a tank vs a small HESH round hitting it; a huge explosive going off in the air near a ship vs a smaller explosive going off in contact or even not in contact but under water (water better medium, breaks keel; in air minor damage).

A) Flak armor is designed to protect from explosions like an altilery shell landing a couple of meters away, not blowing up in one's face. Realisticaly, its not going to stop a bolter round so it can explode outside any way.

B) Bolters fire a .75 cal projectile (anyone notice that cal, which is a fraction of an inch, so .50cal = .5 inch(to my understanding) but everything else is in metric.) a .50 cal can put a round through a car, engine block and all. Any amount of armor you could put on a man's chest to protect him from a round like that would crush him.

C)As it has been stated, many types of bolt gun rounds are available, is it not possible that they do have a fragmenation grenade like round, an armour peircer like the one i described earlier, and the hollow point described earlier(by Melissia i think, quotes box doesn't look that far back)

D) Bolt guns are going to have very little recoil. Recoil is infact the force applied to the fire arm in the direction opposite travel of the bullet, you experience recoil because every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Basicaly the firearm has to push you to push itself, hence recoil. Now given that most of the bolt gun's velocity is added after it leaves the barrel( by the rocket) unlike a modern fire arm where the fastest the bullet will ever go is experianced as it leaves the muzzle.

E) Anyone notice the futility of using a flash hidder on a bolt gun, the trail left by the rocket would revial ones position would lead anyone strait to the shooter. Besides every animation I have seen of a bolt gun firing has a massive muzzle blast.

Edit: I could go on about how I think the bolter works for days, including how it cycles, how fast it would potentialy cycle, how reliable it would be based on how it cycles( you would be surprised)...

Vice_Grip:-

B) Yup a .50 BMG is pretty fierce but it's got loads of velocity too. The .75 Bolt will have the mass bit covered but may be lacking a bit in velocity (why it has a warhead). Don't forget that kinetic energy goes up only linearly with mass but at ^2 velocity. A Desert Eagle's .50 would have a hard time getting through armour, for instance.

C) I think that folks are more concerned about the standard Bolt at this point, since that's the one most often described and seen in games etc.

D) Agree about the recoil, but as mentioned up there somewhere, the experience of recoil felt by a shooter isn't just down to simple Newtonian reaction but also affected by things like how the action operates (height of recoil axis above hand, mass of reciprocating parts of the action, length of stroke, where reciprocating parts are in relation to centre of balance and grip etc).

E) Think it's more likely a muzzle brake than flash hider (on standard Bolter): reduces felt recoil and muzzle climb.

BeRzErKeR wrote:You keep saying that, and it keeps being both 1) unprovable

Dark Heresy page page 144 states exactly what I have stated. In fact, against shrapnel and blasts, flak armor is equivalent to carapace armor.

"Comprised of layers of ablative and impact-absorbent material, flak armor is effective against small arms, shrapnel, and proximity blasts. Flak armor counts as [Armor Point 5, equivalent to carapace] against any hit from a weapon with the Blast quality". And this is against weapons which have far better blast power than a boltgun does, such as grenades, rocket launchers, and so on.

BeRzErKeR wrote:2) irrelevant.

So what if it's a big round?

The armor protects against the shrapnel. That is what it is specifically designed for. You can argue the impact would cause broken ribs or somesuch, but the armor itself is more than enough to block the very small explosion and limited from a bolter round which is not designed as a fragmentation weapon, and therefor inefficient at it.

But this is irrelevant because it is NOT low velocity despite what older lore says. There's no depictions of it in lore as low velocity upon exiting the barrel except for that one statement. In fact, its recoil is notable in mediums where you see animations, and that's with a power armored marine holding it. Its initial velocity after the gun fires is enough to penetrate flak armor.

Melissia wrote:
The armor protects against the shrapnel. That is what it is specifically designed for. You can argue the impact would cause broken ribs or somesuch, but the armor itself is more than enough to block the very small explosion and limited from a bolter round which is not designed as a fragmentation weapon, and therefor inefficient at it.

Do try to at least read the whole post you're responding to, or you risk repeating a point that's already been countered and making yourself look quite foolish.

BeRzErKeR wrote:And second; do you know what the kill radius of a modern frag grenade is? About five meters. That is the KILL radius, ie the radius within which anyone, INCLUDING SOMEONE WEARING BODY ARMOR, can expect to die. A bolter round isn't a frag grenade; it doesn't have to be, because it explodes right next to the target. It isn't five meters away, it's not even 12 inches away, it's literally in contact. Of course it will produce shrapnel; it's explosive wrapped in metal, which will burst when the explosive goes off. Not as much as a purpose-built frag grenade, sure, but it will still exist, and it doesn't really matter if there's 'much' shrapnel when all those red-hot shards of metal are flying apart at high velocity right next to your extremely-permeable skin.

And, furthermore, before you bring up 'flak armor is designed to protect against this', modern military body armor is ALSO designed, specifically, to protect against this. That does not prevent frag grenades from killing, on average, anybody who ends up within 5 meters of one when it goes off. That is because grenades are - gasp! - designed to defeat armor! Since it's not, you know, totally unknown to people doing weapons design work that those they're attacking will probably be protecting themselves. I don't see any particular reason to assume that in Warhammer 40k armor design has greatly outpaced weapons design; rather the opposite, actually, given the vast numbers of weapons that are capable of blowing straight through flak armor and even defeating Space Marine power armor.

So. . . a purpose-built frag grenade will kill most of the people who are within a little over fifteen feet, even when those people are wearing body armor specifically designed to defeat exactly that thing. Why on earth would you assert that a slightly-smaller explosive shell can't kill a person who's half an inch away? The lesser power is more than compensated for by the much, much shorter distance; the fragments have no chance to spread out, and a large fraction of them will go straight into the target's body. Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Melissia wrote:
But this is irrelevant because it is NOT low velocity despite what older lore says. There's no depictions of it in lore as low velocity upon exiting the barrel except for that one statement. In fact, its recoil is notable in mediums where you see animations, and that's with a power armored marine holding it. Its initial velocity after the gun fires is enough to penetrate flak armor.

Fair enough. I never said bolters were low velocity. I was disputing your statement that "If a bolter shell doesn't penetrate flak armor, it's not killing a guardsman".

BeRzErKeR wrote:Do try to at least read the whole post

I did. The shrapnel is still not going to penetrate flak armor.

Yes, modern body armor is designed to protect against it... but modern body armor is vastly inferior to flak armor, both in coverage, weight, and arguably effectiveness as well. Flak armor can be made out of clothing too, it's just that the hardened version (IE the "armor") is better against small arms. Both the clothing and the armor parts are equally effective against blasts and shrapnel. Those cadian sniper models with camo cloaks? Those cloaks are flak armor. And for weight, a full suit of flak armor, including boots, greaves, breast and back plate, helmet, pauldrons, and gauntlets/bracers, weights less than a modern body armor vest, and covers far more, nevermind the lighter and more mobile clothing style of flak armor.

Melissia wrote:I did. The shrapnel is still not going to penetrate flak armor.

Yes, modern body armor is designed to protect against it... but modern body armor is vastly inferior to flak armor, both in coverage, weight, and arguably effectiveness as well. Flak armor can be made out of clothing too, it's just that the hardened version (IE the "armor") is better against small arms. Both the clothing and the armor parts are equally effective against blasts and shrapnel. Those cadian sniper models with camo cloaks? Those cloaks are flak armor. And for weight, a full suit of flak armor, including boots, greaves, breast and back plate, helmet, pauldrons, and gauntlets/bracers, weights less than a modern body armor vest, and covers far more, nevermind the lighter and more mobile clothing style of flak armor.

This is, of course, leaving aside the point that bolter shells are likely to be just as superior to modern explosives as flak armor is superior to modern body armor. That was the point of the sentence about weapon vs. armor development; they're both going on all the time, and there's no sign that one has outstripped the other in 40k. It's almost certain that by the year 40,000, material sciences have vastly advanced; and those advances are going to apply just as much to bolter shells and grenades as they are to body armor.

That being so, probably flak armor provides no more RELATIVE benefit against far-future weapons than modern body armor provides against modern weapons.

BeRzErKeR wrote:That being so, probably flak armor provides no more RELATIVE benefit against far-future weapons than modern body armor provides against modern weapons.

It provides HUGELY more benefit merely by the nature of how much of the body it covers for how much it weighs.

We're comparing a modern body armor vest to an entire suit of armor and clothing which weighs less than the vest. Even if they are equivalent (I see no reason to believe that) the latter is still better.

Melissia wrote:It provides HUGELY more benefit merely by the nature of how much of the body it covers for how much it weighs.

We're comparing a modern body armor vest to an entire suit of armor which weighs less than the vest. Even if they are equivalent (I see no reason to believe that) the latter is still better.

RELATIVELY equivalent. A bolter would blow through a modern vest like it was made of tissue paper. So, probably, would an Imperial frag grenade.

Yes, in general, armor that weighs less is better for a multitude of reasons. That doesn't mean that it's capable of stopping (equally advanced) weapons any better.

I don't think you're getting it.

It weighs less AND covers more. There's less vulnerable space on a guardsman for shrapnel to hit (in fact, on Cadians, only the face is vulnerable, as they are wearing the full body armor including flakweave clothes).

Yes, even if a modern vest stops shrapnel directly hitting it, the shrapnel could very well hick an artery on a leg or arm., because those places aren't armor. But hitting the same places on a Cadian? Those spots are armored. The shrapnel would have to cut through both body armor and skin, not just clothes and skin, to get to the extremities unless the guardsman was from a unit whom didn't have full body armor like the catatchan. And even they have flakweave pants, so the shrapnel flying towards their legs would face off against body armor on the legs.

This is precisely why the bolter explodes after penetrating rather than before. It's almost 100% lethal that way, the "pop" of the bolter adding to the hydrostatic shock effect along with greatly damaging local tissue and organs.

Those all look very much to me like very limited areas of hard-shell plates which will certainly stop high-speed, low-weight, non-penetrative fragments quite effectively, and large areas of loose cloth, which will not. Cloth or thin wire, pretty much regardless of material, is quite hard to break by pulling along the length of the strand (high tensile strength) but very easy to cut (low shear strength). A fast-moving piece of low-weight metal, the kind of thing that a frag grenade throws out, is hardly ever going to be stopped by cloth of basically any kind. Even if it was woven out of metal threads, the aggregate would still have less deflective power against this kind of a hit than a solid plate.

Now, a low-velocity but high-mass BULLET might not break through cloth, funnily enough, because a bullet is not sharp and so stretches the cloth rather than cutting it. There are confirmed accounts of people surviving musket-balls in the 1700s and 1800s because of silk undergarments; the bullets went into the flesh but did not snap the cloth, and so could be taken out easily by just pulling the cloth out of the wound. But when we're talking about shrapnel, we're referring to a low-weight, high-speed cutting or piercing wound; it's more like a sword-slash than a bullet, in many ways. That's exactly the kind of trauma that flexible cloth will NOT protect against.

EDIT: Fixed the pictures.

I suppose interpretations concerning flak armour will vary as much as those on bolt weapons.

Here's some stuff from the ole' RT book and another bit from 2E Wargear, both written directly by the guys at GW:

"This is a common type of body armour often worn by civilians with dangerous manual jobs. It has an outer layer of ablative material. If struck by an energy weapon this will burn away, dissipating most of the damaging heat. The middle layer comprises a honeycomb of interconnected air bubbles, which absorb the energy of a physical blow. The inner lining is a special, thick plastic. Under normal conditions this is fairly pliable, somewhat like canvas, but it responds to physical pressure by becoming hard and tough. It is very effective at stopping shots already slowed down by the outer layers."

"Flak armour comprises several layers of different ablative and impact absorbent materials which should absorb the majority of energy from a shot or blow. The protection it offers against a direct hit is somewhat questionable at the best of times, but it is more effective against proximity blasts and the shrapnel from explosions. Flak armour does have the advantage of being vastly cheap and easy to produce, requiring a very low technology base."

Unfortunately, the more recent studio material gets more and more vague with the tech stuff - either due to GW simply wanting to save space or actively encouraging personal interpretation rather than proposing hard facts, or simply because it's easier for them to keep stuff in line (less detail means less potential conflicts). This is all the 5E Guard 'dex has to say about flak armour:

"Cheap and easy to produce, flak armour comprises several layers of ablative thermoplast materials and impact absorbent carbifibres."

BeRzErKeR wrote:
My pictures look broken to me, although I can still see them if I right-click and open another tab. Is that happening for anyone else?

Just red-exes for me.

Can you see them now?

BeRzErKeR wrote:Can you see them now?

Yup, cheers.

BeRzErKeR wrote:Cloth or thin wire, pretty much regardless of material, is quite hard to break by pulling along the length of the strand (high tensile strength) but very easy to cut (low shear strength).

Eeeexcept for flak-weave which is designed to be resistant to shrapnel, and has the same effectiveness against shrapnel as full flak armor plates. The armor plates provide better protection against direct fire ballistic weapons and energy weapons like lasguns, compared to the flak-weave, but both are equivalent against blasts and shrapnel.

That is to say, this is the ACTUAL effectiveness of it regardless of our theoretical understanding of it.

Melissia wrote:Eeeexcept for flak-weave which is designed to be resistant to shrapnel, and has the same effectiveness against shrapnel as full flak armor plates. The armor plates provide better protection against direct fire ballistic weapons and energy weapons like lasguns, compared to the flak-weave, but both are equivalent against blasts and shrapnel.

That is to say, this is the ACTUAL effectiveness of it regardless of our theoretical understanding of it.

All of these discussions, when we're talking about technical details or effectiveness of thus-and-such against so-and-so, can only go one of two ways.

1) We can make statements and assumptions based off of physics as we understand them, and so can reasonably talk about how these things might work. In this case, if there's a piece of fluff that contradicts what we know about reality, we have to reject it or at least find a different way to interpret it. For instance, in some places it's stated that Imperial warships are powered by fusion reactors. However, these ships also possess both shielding and weaponry far, far more powerful than could be powered by any conceivable fusion reactor that would fit inside the hull. That means we MUST reject the assertion that the ships are powered by fusion, if we're using the laws of physics.

2) We take every piece of fluff at face value, unless they contradict each other, and simply ignore the fact that many things don't fit our understanding of the physical sciences. The problem with this is that technical discussions are no longer possible. If we go this route, we cannot use our own understanding of science to back up our positions; we can't say that bolter rounds are or are not like frag grenades, simply because the words 'shell' and 'grenade' and indeed 'fragmentation' no longer have any objective points of reference. The laws of physics have been revoked, under this system; Imperial technology is magic, it does exactly what it says it does but we don't know how, and that's all we can say. It's no longer possible to make any inferences at all, and so discussion is not really possible.

I prefer the first method, simply because if we use the second method there's no point talking about these things, and that's really, really boring. But if we're applying real physics to this fictional universe, that means that we have to reconcile our understanding of the universe with what we are told and shown, even if that means reinterpreting some of the fluff. In this particular case, that does necessarily mean that we have to say that cloth-covered portions of human anatomy are going to be more vulnerable than plate-covered portions of anatomy to high-speed, sharp-edged projectiles; that's an inevitable consequence of how the density and makeup of a flexible cloth interacts with a cutting action versus the density and makeup of a solid, rigid plate. As long as the materials in question are anything LIKE comparable, that's inevitable; a plywood breastplate will stop an arrow, or a fragment of shrapnel, better than a single layer of titanium-weave cloth will.

So, in this discussion; are we applying physics, or magic? So long as we stick with one explanation consistently, either is fine; but we've been going with 'physics' so far, and that was the assumption I was proceeding under. If we switch to 'magic' now, then this entire thread is a waste of time.

Brother Coa wrote:Bolter has in itself an exploding ammunition, logic is that when round hit something it can't penetrate with ease ( power armor or tank armor ) it explode regardless. Just like an RPG or exploding bullets explode on impact because they carry much more charge then ordinarily ammunition.

And in Space Marine Bolters are like ordinary machine guns, not mini rocket launchers. In "Ultramarines" Severus kills Chaplain with bolt round in the head, I was expecting that head will explode when hit by Botler round.

The explosion isn't massive, in fact it's quite small. You wouldn't see it through power armour. The sheer size of a bolt is what would give it it's stopping power, because a .50 bullet can blow an entire arm off easily, and is just not something you survive direct hits from on anything that isn't redundant. This is .75.

Also, your video is wrong. The tip of a bolt is not adamantine, it is diamantine.

I think they portrayed the bolt correctly in space marine the video game, but ultramarines was kinda plot-armour-ish and warped.

I do, however, disagree with how Storm Bolters are done in Space Marine. They made them faster but weaker per bolt than other bolt weapons, which is incorrect. The reason they are so fearsome is that they are faster, deadlier versions of bolters, which is also why there are vehicle mounted storm bolters.


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Melissia wrote:

BeRzErKeR wrote:Cloth or thin wire, pretty much regardless of material, is quite hard to break by pulling along the length of the strand (high tensile strength) but very easy to cut (low shear strength).

Eeeexcept for flak-weave which is designed to be resistant to shrapnel, and has the same effectiveness against shrapnel as full flak armor plates. The armor plates provide better protection against direct fire ballistic weapons and energy weapons like lasguns, compared to the flak-weave, but both are equivalent against blasts and shrapnel.

That is to say, this is the ACTUAL effectiveness of it regardless of our theoretical understanding of it.

Their clothing appears to be normal uniform though, I don't remember any reference to the actual uniform being flak-weave. That would make it closer to fire warrior armour in terms of protection, which is decidedly better.

BeRzErKeR: You're almost certainly correct about the fusion plant in ships and I agree with the general point that you made, but just out of interest have you ever tried to do the numbers on that one? Matter and antimatter annihilation is technically fusion, and if they'd found a way to use 100% of the products (them pesky gammas etc), they might just be able to squeak it (though if even a Destroyer blew up it'd take out everything within at least a million miles radius... which the fluff doesn't have them doing...).

Hmmm, might have a crack at that as a little project....

Sorry folks, carry on.

tsz52 wrote:BeRzErKeR: You're almost certainly correct about the fusion plant in ships and I agree with the general point that you made, but just out of interest have you ever tried to do the numbers on that one? Matter and antimatter annihilation is technically fusion, and if they'd found a way to use 100% of the products (them pesky gammas etc), they might just be able to squeak it (though if even a Destroyer blew up it'd take out everything within at least a million miles radius... which the fluff doesn't have them doing...).

Hmmm, might have a crack at that as a little project....

Sorry folks, carry on.

I was paraphrasing, actually; I believe the quote I'm referring to mentioned plasma reactors specifically, which even cuts out that small potential loophole. If you want me to find the specific quote, I'll look for it after I get home tonight; I'm on-campus right now, and don't have access to any of my 40k resources.

There are people on different sites who have run numbers; I believe there was a series of very long and involved threads about analyzing 40k physics on stardestroyer.net a couple of years back. The universal conclusion was that either physics is radically different in the 40kverse (in which we must fall back on 'magic', and can't have technical discussions) or there are words in Imperial Gothic that simply don't mean what they mean in English. If 'plasma' is actually High Gothic jargon for 'controlled miniature white holes', then that solves the problem neatly, since modern physics simply has no idea how much energy white holes radiate; they're only theoretical at present. Incidentally, that also provides a possible answer for why plasma weapons are so destructive, since in reality firing a blob of plasma any distance should dissipate the heat through the atmosphere and leave you with only a thin fog of relatively harmless particles.

I am not, of course, suggesting that this IS the answer; I'm merely giving an example of one possible way to reconcile what we know of reality with what we're told about 40k, and thus a way to continue holding these kinds of fascinating technical discussions without having to simply throw up our hands, announce that the Imperium of Man is run by wizards, and be unable to advance arguments.

Lynata wrote:I've never, ever seen a GW miniature that features a bolter with a stock.

Most of the models just had them cut off because the old arms fit so poorly that there was no room for them. But there were several single piece models over the years that had the stocks intact.


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tsz52 wrote: Even without hard penetration, if that shockwave hits your innards you're in trouble.

THis is pretty much what most people don't realize. Explosions kill as often with concussive force as they do with shrapnel. Flak armor may stop the fragments (ie, the flak) from tearing into the body, but overpressure can still jelly your internal organs. Less risk of such with a frag grenade given its smaller charge, but he is correct, the kill radius of modern frag grenades is 5m, whether or not the target is armored. Sure, certain variables like slope of the ground, the grenade landing in a depression (or you being in a depression), and just blind, stupid luck can influence individual survivability, but we're talking a law of averages here.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Most of the models just had them cut off because the old arms fit so poorly that there was no room for them. But there were several single piece models over the years that had the stocks intact.

Yes, Kanluwen already cleared that up earlier - thanks for providing these new pictures, though. A "blast from the past" is always interesting, imo.

Shame they did away with it. It actually looks kind of cool.

That said, how common were they actually in GW's line? These look older and they don't have stocks, in fact even the ancient 1st Edition Rogue Trader rulebook shows stockless bolters. Was that just some sort of "quick fashion wave" that disappeared as quickly as it came somewhere during 2E? Would probably explain why I've never noticed it before.

That sprue is actually mine. Found it cleaning some stuff out recently. The old arms were terrible. I used to shave the front of the shoulder off of the right arm just so the model could properly grip the bolters with a shoulder pad sitting on it. I also have that old Captain model but didn't have a picture of it handy.

Though I do miss one thing about the old sprues. Lots of extras, and the weapons weren't molded to them so you weren't stuck with having to heavily convert if you didn't like the default weapon arrangements. Those Marines are from Space Crusade and are about as old as it gets, lol. Can't really tell you about the stocks. Seems like someone thought they would be a good idea so put them on the sprues. Then later, they decided they weren't a good idea since most players just had to cut them off anyway. These days the bolters would probably look more functional and "realistic" if they had them. After all, plasma guns come with stocks for some unknown reason, lol.

I love these threads as it give me an excuse to post this.

Yes, spin stabalized!

Veteran Sergeant wrote:

tsz52 wrote: Even without hard penetration, if that shockwave hits your innards you're in trouble.

THis is pretty much what most people don't realize.

I know it, but the flak armor absorbs the impact and shockwave, or at least most/some of it..