Why are lascannons such effective anti-armour weapons? How could/should that change?

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Spoiler:

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:
In the context of other laser weapons in the game (e.g. lasguns, multilasers) that are AP0, and going by the theorised operation of such weapons (high-powered lasers that transfer so much energy, so quickly, that they explosively vapourise/ionise material they impact), then why do lascannons (and their equivalents like Eldar lances) have such a good AP values in-game?

If a lascannon were to hit a target, it would (to my understanding) transfer all its energy into the target's surface, whether that be flesh or armour. That surface material would then ablate... explosively. Not only would armour (any armour, even a thick jacket), protect you from the laser by absorbing its energy and ablating instead of you, but the ensuing cloud of steam, plasma, whatever that erupted would then also impair the laser from penetrating further via atmospheric bloom... i.e. the cloud itself would occlude or refract the laser, absorbing its energy and reducing its focus.

Yet las weapons span a huge range of AP values, and lascannons seem to be the Imperium's go-to long-range, anti-armour ground weapon.

Part of me thinks that las weapons as a rule should have terrible AP, and that other weapons could perform a lascannon's current role in ways that makes more sense, e.g:
- Missile launchers (improving the krak missile, or even giving launchers something more exotic like plasma or melta missiles and making krak small blast/Heavy D3). Missile launchers should also be able to fire flakk anti-flyer missiles IMO, but that's a different issue.
- Autocannons, which might need a rework anyway given their similarity to heavy bolters. Lore-wise their rounds are supposedly armour-piercing, and some wikis describe them as being like 'twentieth-century tank guns'... which definitely have a range of armour-piercing ammo options. Maybe switch the current profiles of the lascannon and autocannon (potentially renaming the latter)? The new lascannon – instead of being S7, AP1 like the autocannon – could alternatively be S8 AP0 (like a more powerful, two-shot multilaser).
- Potentially even a new long-range plasma weapon (existing Imperial plasma guns have the same AP profile as a lascannon, and similar strengths, which is why I've suggested plasma twice).

PS: Another thing I think could be interesting with las weapons is an accuracy bonus to the wielder, representing their lack of recoil and excellent 'ballistics' (near-zero projectile travel time, a completely flat trajectory unless refracted/diffracted, etc.).

You are waaaay over-thinking this.
It's just not that complicated.

Lascannons are effective anti-armor weapons because that's what's cool in sci-fi (ok, sci-fantasy to be fair). The bigger the laser weapon, the more it blows gak up. War of the Worlds, Star Wars, any number of bad sci-fi movies, comics.... Wich is all at the core of 40k.

This does not need to change. And it absolutely doesn't need to change to be more realistic.