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 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:
Lasguns are depicted wildly differently in different sources. Sometimes they shoot laser beams capable of shearing off limbs. Sometimes they shoot energy projectiles that have recoil, ricochet off surfaces and take several shots to bring down determined human attackers.

The most consistent thing about them in the fluff is that they are extremely reliable and easy to support logistically.

While what you say is true, the general consensus across the majority of the black library novels is that the lasgun is roughly analogous in "stopping power" to a modern day ballistic assault rifle.

Lasguns also have distinct advantages over modern ballistic weaponry and 40k autoguns:

-Ammunition is essentially free by placing the recharge packs near a heat or light source, it is also weightless outside of the weight of the power pack itself. This means that the average soldier can carry much more ammo into a battle than he/she would normally be able to if using a modern ballistic rifle or an autogun.

-Lasguns have almost zero moving parts apart from the trigger assembly so that they are extremely durable (even more so than aforementioned modern rifles and autoguns).

-They are literally "laser accurate" because the shot moves at the speed of light and has negligible time to target, and is not affected by wind, bullet drop, or any other factor that affects the accuracy of ballistic weapons. Increasing the accuracy of the average soldier considerably.

-Some sources claim that lasgun powerpacks can contain as many as a hundred shots, reducing the need to reload in the middle of a firefight in comparison to modern ballistic assault rifles or autoguns.

If lasguns existed in real life, they would be a logistics officer's wet dream.

and rememebr at the end of the day it's the guys running logistics who make the decisions on who gets what kit

w1zard wrote:
While what you say is true, the general consensus across the majority of the black library novels is that the lasgun is roughly analogous in "stopping power" to a modern day ballistic assault rifle.

Um, no. Just no. It's roughly equivalent to 10 mm autogun, which, even without considering advances in propellants and material science, would be vastly stronger than any modern assault rifle. In fact, it would probably be equivalent to modern heavy machine guns (yes, it's because GW writers put first number that looked cool, but still, 10 mm battle rifle will have ammunition more powerful than even high powered modern sniper rifles by virtue of simple volume increase, even if it contains proportionately less powder).

w1zard wrote:
-Ammunition is essentially free by placing the recharge packs near a heat or light source, it is also weightless outside of the weight of the power pack itself. This means that the average soldier can carry much more ammo into a battle than he/she would normally be able to if using a modern ballistic rifle or an autogun.

And this here meme needs to die. Seriously. Not only the source for this stated doing so is desperiation measure which will damage the battery, there is also the fact that unless that fire was made out of hypergolic rocket fuel, there simply will be not enough energy absorbed for more than 1-2 shots, and that's if you burn that fire for hours...

 Irbis wrote:
Um, no. Just no. It's roughly equivalent to 10 mm autogun, which, even without considering advances in propellants and material science, would be vastly stronger than any modern assault rifle. In fact, it would probably be equivalent to modern heavy machine guns (yes, it's because GW writers put first number that looked cool, but still, 10 mm battle rifle will have ammunition more powerful than even high powered modern sniper rifles by virtue of simple volume increase, even if it contains proportionately less powder).

Firstly, what you are saying doesn't make any sense. The only 10mm round that exists today to my knowledge is a pistol round (feel free to correct me if I am wrong) and it is much weaker in terms of kinetic energy than a standard 7.62 round fired from an AK-47 or a 5.56 NATO. While it is possible to theoretically design a 10mm rifle round, the power of such a round would be entirely dependent on the powder charge behind it. Therefore it is impossible to say that a lasgun is as strong as a "10mm battle rifle round" because such a round does not exist.

10mm is smaller than a .45 round anyway, and even if it was "made into a rifle round" as you say, would not nearly have as much power as a .50 BMG round which is what heavy machine guns fire.

 Irbis wrote:

w1zard wrote:
-Ammunition is essentially free by placing the recharge packs near a heat or light source, it is also weightless outside of the weight of the power pack itself. This means that the average soldier can carry much more ammo into a battle than he/she would normally be able to if using a modern ballistic rifle or an autogun.

And this here meme needs to die. Seriously. Not only the source for this stated doing so is desperiation measure which will damage the battery, there is also the fact that unless that fire was made out of hypergolic rocket fuel, there simply will be not enough energy absorbed for more than 1-2 shots, and that's if you burn that fire for hours...

That isn't me stating that, I am quoting multiple black library novels and even the Guard codex. I agree, it is scientifically dubious but it is part of the lore whether you like it or not.

 Irbis wrote:

w1zard wrote:
-Ammunition is essentially free by placing the recharge packs near a heat or light source, it is also weightless outside of the weight of the power pack itself. This means that the average soldier can carry much more ammo into a battle than he/she would normally be able to if using a modern ballistic rifle or an autogun.

And this here meme needs to die. Seriously. Not only the source for this stated doing so is desperiation measure which will damage the battery, there is also the fact that unless that fire was made out of hypergolic rocket fuel, there simply will be not enough energy absorbed for more than 1-2 shots, and that's if you burn that fire for hours...

The KE of a bullet (5.56mm NATO) is about 1800 J, a candle burns at about 80W (which is 80J/s). So assuming the energy transfer is 100% efficient in charging, then firing, you could get enough energy from 22.5s of candle flame to power 1 shot. Obviously its not that efficient, but even if future tech is 50% efficient both times, you're still looking at ~90 seconds to power 1 shot from a candle flame. Not great, but not terrible either, a more 'energetic' fire would be faster.

Sure, current day thermoelectric chargers are horribly inefficient (like 8% tops, so you could charge 1 shot in about 5 minutes!) its not beyond the realm of possibility that they could be better in 38,000 years.

Putting the actual science aside (aka all 40k), even if it would be damaging to the battery, a gun that I could get to fire more shots either by solar power or a camp fire would completely the game.

Even assuming the above is a last resort, the las gun would be a game changer in logistics. It's mechanically simple, doesn't need much in the way of maintenance, it's ammo is rechargeable (it's most massive benefit) and like another poster said, it's like a crossbow, I can train anyone from any world the basics in a a few hours.

Put that with that fact that we have it being strong enough to ripe apart concrete or swear off limbs and I would not want to fight a squad with that kind of weapon with modern day weapons.

Indeed, the recoil, wind, leading a target and parabolic trajectory are non issues with a laser weapon.

Truly point and click. The Lasgun is a fantastic and fantastical weapon, if it existed in real life. With decent sights or a scope of some kind, one day of practice would make a marksman or at least half of the people. And since half the people die in the first day, after 24 hours you get a platoon of veteran guardsmen with BS 3+

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Put that with that fact that we have it being strong enough to ripe apart concrete or swear off limbs and I would not want to fight a squad with that kind of weapon with modern day weapons.

Fun fact, modern day assault rifles are fully capable of ripping apart concrete and shearing off limbs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8ileQ2l_rM

Yep, that's accurate. Although outright cutting off a limb would require you to repeatetly fire at it.