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Always believed they are semi automatic rifles, one shot per trigger pull. But I see them depicted in computer games or in animation like angels of death and the appear to be depicted as fully automatic.

What’s the truth

I’m pretty sure they are variable; single, short burst, or full auto.

With the destructive power of each round and the accuracy of a marine, one shot is all most targets need. But the 40k universe being what it is, sometimes they need to empty that clip into something ASAP.

Flip a switch to make it single fire, burst fire or full auto. Same with Lasguns and Autoguns.

Depends on the model of Bolter.

Do I win £5?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Depends on the model of Bolter.

Do I win £5?

I'd have to agree with this - I can't see the bolters used by baseline humans being full auto even if they are scaled down a bit.

You do know that means you owe £5?

Also don't forget computer games often have to adjust the lore a bit for visual effect. Partly because visuals in games means that a Marine isn't fighting 10,000 hormagaunts, but 10.

So whilst chances are in the lore against 10 gaunts the marine would likely use a single shot and the explosive force of each round would likely mean they could get two or more with one shot; in a computer game those 10 gaunts represent 1000 so the marine fires like a machinegun and the gaunts get hit by way more than 1 round each and still survive.

Given the amount of clever kit in power armour, I can see marines just thinking about how many rounds to fire at any given target, and thats what comes out. Peter F Hamilton's books are great for that kind of ultra-tech pre-programmed fire patterns. The consciousness of the person is just there to confirm targets that have been pre-designated by threat assessment software, and the body is enhanced to precisely and automatically service one target after the other.

Either that, or the power armour fingers could pull the trigger faster than the bolt could cycle, so why bother building in automated trigger groups

Astartes shows some nice images about auto-fire from bolters, with multiple fire rates depending on how much you pull the trigger.

 Flinty wrote:
Peter F Hamilton's books are great for that kind of ultra-tech pre-programmed fire patterns. The consciousness of the person is just there to confirm targets that have been pre-designated by threat assessment software, and the body is enhanced to precisely and automatically service one target after the other.

I've not read anything by him in ages and I really should. I love how he manages to achieve a very "hard science" feel to his stories, but backs it up with a very visual descriptive language. You at once feel that its a strong science story but you don't need several degrees in astrophysics, physics, chemistry, advanced weapons or anything to keep up.

mrFickle wrote:
Always believed they are semi automatic rifles, one shot per trigger pull. But I see them depicted in computer games or in animation like angels of death and the appear to be depicted as fully automatic.

What’s the truth

Yes, next question?

I thought they could only go rapid fire if you stood still

Good one

mrFickle wrote:
I thought they could only go rapid fire if you stood still

Game mechanics are not fluff/background.

You could fire full auto on the move, but not hit anything. And the recoil when not braced might knock you over. But that’s a tactics/user issue, not the gun changing how it works if moving.

I can see the Imperium adding extremely pointless limitations on their weaponry maybe Mordian las guns dont even work unless there are lots of them in close proximity

I think it’s better thematically that space marines are armed with a high powered single shot weapon that they can use more effectively that a human with heavy bolter on a sentry point because they are absolute masters of their art that being armed with spray and pray type weapon

Given the humble ammo count of a single clip, I'm inclined to think they fire either one shot a time or in bursts of three, like certain modern automatic rifles. Full auto would drain the mag too fast, and last time I checked, Marines only seem to carry a few clips of ammo with them to battle.

 tauist wrote:
Given the humble ammo count of a single clip, I'm inclined to think they fire either one shot a time or in bursts of three, like certain modern automatic rifles. Full auto would drain the mag too fast, and last time I checked, Marines only seem to carry a few clips of ammo with them to battle.

They subscribe to the Hollywood theory of ammunition. You are fine just leaning on the trigger unless it would be cinematically appropriate to run out. GW is bad at both math and reality. Best not to think about it too hard or look at the numbers. It unravels pretty fast.

They don’t spray and pray, but sometimes I imagine that a target will sometimes warrant full auto fire. Again I’d point to Astartes as an excellent example, but the paywall hath cometh.

 Flinty wrote:
They don’t spray and pray, but sometimes I imagine that a target will sometimes warrant full auto fire. Again I’d point to Astartes as an excellent example, but the paywall hath cometh.

This.

Cultists are one shot, one kill executions. But someone has some psychic barrier you need to try to overwhelm? Brace and empty the mag.

I’ve always thought that boltguns were semi-auto and storm bolters were full-auto.

Stormbolters and Combi-bolters have a higher RoF because its two Bolters stuck together.

Spray and Pray likely does happen

Eg when fighting actual Tyranid Swarms

 Gert wrote:
Stormbolters and Combi-bolters have a higher RoF because its two Bolters stuck together.

Combi bolters do not have a higher rate of fire, just 2 bullets per shot. Storm bolsters are different weapon and I agree I always thought they had a higher rate of fire and haven’t we seen examples of the chain fed as opposed to magazine

2 bullets per shot is a higher RoF mrFickle. RoF is rounds/unit of time.

 Overread wrote:
Spray and Pray likely does happen

Eg when fighting actual Tyranid Swarms

I just realised what I said… these are marines we are talking about… they are always praying!

 Gert wrote:
2 bullets per shot is a higher RoF mrFickle. RoF is rounds/unit of time.

Ok fair enough but there is the same delay between shots as a single bolter, you knew what I meant you cheeky monkey

That's not how Combi-Bolters and Stormbolters work though. There is a miniscule delay between each barrel firing, they don't fire both rounds at the same time.

 Gert wrote:
That's not how Combi-Bolters and Stormbolters work though. There is a miniscule delay between each barrel firing, they don't fire both rounds at the same time.

I thought combi weapons were just 2 weapons stuck together that could either be fired independently or together

mrFickle wrote:

 Gert wrote:
That's not how Combi-Bolters and Stormbolters work though. There is a miniscule delay between each barrel firing, they don't fire both rounds at the same time.

I thought combi weapons were just 2 weapons stuck together that could either be fired independently or together

Combi-plasma, combi-melta, etc, yes. Combi-Bolters, no. Every time you pull the trigger both barrels go "bang". Or "brrrrtt", if you're using full auto/select fire.

Astartes Chapter Terminators use Storm Bolters, the more advanced (although it's never said why) version of the Twin-linked or Combi-Bolter. They look like this:

The Legiones Astartes used Combi-Bolters that look like this:

Combi-Weapons are different and are a Bolter plus a Special Weapon mount, like this: