Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I’m looking up what megathules are, and I only come up with lasgun schematics. Are megathules a 40K invention? Do they have a “real world” equivalent? I would really like to know what kind of power is packed into a hot-shot lasgun if they can operate in the 60 megathule range.

I suspect its a made up unit of measurement so that the writers don't make fools out of themselves and end up making the lasgun as powerful as a weak laser pointer. Or a star destroying death laser.

Its probably inspired from Joules, which is a unit of energy.

Real world lasers are sometimes caracterised by their energy output in joules. Lasers in the megajoule range are typically used to trigger nuclear fusion reactions (for research purposes, not bombs).

For reference, 60 megajoules are equivalent to 16.66 kilowatt hours. But who knows what a thule is equal to...

Just recently I saw a video on YouTube (Can't recall the name) comparing various sci-fi armies with a short asian-looking guy that messed this up and claimed Lasgun shoots with energy of 19 megajoule instead of megathules, which is actually more than L/55 120mm Rheinmetall tank canon has. (It has about 15MJ)

Imagine a handheld gun stronger than a tank cannon. (5th edition Grey Knights anyone?)

To be fair, its an honest mistake to make. I got confused as well, until I looked it up and found that Thule is not, in fact, a unit of measurement.
That said, lasguns are supposed to pack a punch, making big craters in concrete and removing limbs.

It is, but he actually said what I wrote here about the rifle strong as a tank cannon.

And speaking of energy, I imagine lasgun being somewhere between 7.62mm (3kJ) and 0.50 BMG (18kJ). Too weak for the former, but too strong for the latter. I'd say, about 7-11kJ a shot.
AA cell battery holds about 12kJ of energy, for comparison.

Yeah, it's corruption of 'joule' letting the writers at once do 'wink, wink, it's that strong' and to have excuse if something is wrong with calculations.

Hawky wrote:Just recently I saw a video on YouTube (Can't recall the name) comparing various sci-fi armies with a short asian-looking guy that messed this up and claimed Lasgun shoots with energy of 19 megajoule instead of megathules, which is actually more than L/55 120mm Rheinmetall tank canon has. (It has about 15MJ)

You realize energy of weapon and the amount of energy it can impart to a target aren't even remotely the same thing, eh?

Moreover, it's trivial to reach absurd energies in lasers by simply shortening the pulse length (see NIF) but due to the issue above, it doesn't make them better weapons...

Hawky wrote:Imagine a handheld gun stronger than a tank cannon. (5th edition Grey Knights anyone?)

All right, I'll bite. Let's laugh, what GK weapon exactly was "stronger" than a tank cannon?

Hawky wrote:And speaking of energy, I imagine lasgun being somewhere between 7.62mm (3kJ) and 0.50 BMG (18kJ). Too weak for the former, but too strong for the latter. I'd say, about 7-11kJ a shot.
AA cell battery holds about 12kJ of energy, for comparison.

Wot?

You know lasers in 40K flash boil litres of internal fluids caising miniature steam explosions inside the body blowing apart the limbs? How the hell is that even remotely comparable with something as puny as 12.7 mm? Hint - boiling one liter of water is hellishly difficult task. Really, look up the amount of energy needed to raise 1 kg of water from 30 c to steam and repeat 'kj' range with a straight face. It's way more than that, actually.

Kinetic energy of projectiles at muzzle velocity doesn't carry perfectly over to whatever it is impacting. Firstly, kinetic energy is lost during flight as air resistance (and possibly gravity depending on angle) bleeds the projectile's velocity. Secondly, when the projectile impacts, it is neither a perfectly elastic nor perfectly inelastic collision. Some of the energy goes into deforming both the bullet and whatever material it is hitting (including a human body), some energy is transferred into moving the impacted object in the same direction as the projectile was moving.

A laser with a certain energy output (IE 60 MJ) would also have energy bleed due to diffraction in whatever medium it was being fired through, and it applies it energy as heat to a very small area instead of kinetic energy.

But, it's an apples to oranges comparison, you cannot just compare the energy output of a laser to the kinetic energy of a projectile and say they will do the same amount of damage.

How powerful do we think a hot-shot lasgun is?

 Apple Peel wrote:
How powerful do we think a hot-shot lasgun is?

Going by general 40k standards at ST3 its probably exactly the same power as a normal lasgun however probably a different type of laser. maybe longer wave to penetrate deeper, or shorter wave considering the range is shorter. i dunno im not a laser wizard.

It's powerful enough to explosively detach a limb. I can't be bothered to work out a number, it makes no difference.