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.

How do!

So here’s something of a poser. Within the Imperium and its vast array of things to kill other things with, none seem to be quite as ubiquitous as the Las family of weapons.

It’s the weapon of choice for the Imperial Guard, popular among the criminal fraternity and, seemingly, near infinitely scaleable. From the humblest Laspistol to the Lance batteries on a Battleship, Las weapons can be found occupying every niche between. And if you’re really wealthy, or happen to know a friendly Jokaero, you may even end up with a Digital Weapon. Presumably there are also larger, more singular examples in existence as well.

And by necessity, we can argue the Imperium is a dab hand at maintaining those weapons across the scale. Certainly those used in vast numbers by the Imperial Guard are well regarded for their ease of construction and maintenance.

But where does that ease come from? Are they genuinely simple designs, despite their apparently physics defying input to output? Or is the underlying technology just incredibly well understood? As in what makes them tick, and able to churn out dozens of shots from a tiny power pack being by modern standards near miraculous, but because The Imperium is just following immaculately reproduced and detailed blueprints, it doesn’t realise just bafflingly complex they are?

I'd go with the latter line in your post. Incredibly advanced, but simple to build to a design. Well, at least for the smaller weapons- most laser weapons from laser destroyers up are described as difficult to replace and maintain, with some exceptions like the laser weapons batteries on the Sword-class frigate. Warship lances, for example, seem to be finicky and troublesome to maintain.

Agree with Haighus.

They are actually quite a wonderous bit of tech. But they are easily reproduced and manufactured, if not necessarily understood to the finest detail by everyone.

We have plenty of IRL examples of quite wonderous, but also shockingly mundane, technology. Smart phones, computers, etc... Most people don't know how they work and really couldn't be arsed, but anybody with a functioning brain can put together a computer with a little effort.

All technology is generally gatekept not by the ability to make something, but knowing how to make something. Once the actual smart person figures something out, they can teach everybody else to do it and it spreads like wildfire. Then people might wonder "Uggg, why did nobody notice this before?"

Whilst they are super advanced, all they need is to be made of advanced components that are commonly in use across the Imperium. Then they are easy to maintain because the parts (or at least critical core parts) are made and used in a wide variety of devices.

Even if the average person cannot recreate those components from scratch, if they can get them they can swap them out and get their gun working again.

It's like having devices that use AA batteries. That's common enough and easily swapped in and out. Sure most of us could never make an AA battery (and in 40K doing so might even get you a stern visit from the Mechanicus) but we can pop them out of one thing and into another effortlessly.






Another aspect is that the guns are designed to be fixed. When you consider the power-pack is designed to be recharged in almost any heat source, including a small fire you can tell that the gun is made to last. So chances are stripping it down into its key components is pretty easy and thus replacing those key components is also easy.

So its design is likely "Made for repair and upkeep".
That in itself is a huge thing in the design ethos of a thing.
Indeed in the real world we are suffering from the opposite - designs that are specifically made NOT to be upkept and it results in even simple fixes taking way longer; requiring special tools; being complicated to perform and thus more waste.

That’s a very interesting last point, and would explain a lot. And within the Las family, we see that “designed for ease of use and maintenance” can be a sliding scale.

Within the Guard, the models used ranged from “it does a single shot at a time, at a fixed output” to “you can alter rate of fire and intensity of shot” and even Hotshot, with the former being typically assigned to Regiments recruited from more primitive worlds.

Las also seems to show that The Imperium can effectively mass produce complex technological items, provided the instructions are plentiful, and presumably easy to follow as a result.

There is also a difference between constructing and understanding a device.

Smartphones are a great example- they are obviously mass produced. However, very, very few people actually know how a smartphone works- there are a lot of people who know how the software works, and a lot of people who know how the hardware works. But the actually complex bit- the chip architecture- is a trade secret and essentially a black box. Some machine prints it somewhere* on a production line, but the actual structure is a mystery to the vast majority of the world.

Does that stop us building, using, and repairing smartphones? No, not at all.


*Probably in Taiwan.

Ease of use and maintenance is probably key to its ubiquitousness. So few moving parts, reliable to produce and use in the field, most likely has interchangeable parts so if a bit of the complex machine breaks you just swap out a piece of it for another. And then there is the impact in the supply chain, an army can produce its own ammo by having a recharging regime for the power packs, no need for. Ammunition factories and ammunition train supply lines.

Couple that with it can clearly be mass reduce to a high standard reliably then it’s a winner.

But it’s what’s inside those modular units, which here would be the Smartphone Black Boxes Haighus mentions.

We know from the Uplifting Primer a chunk of in-field Lasgun maintenance is screwing in a new barrel, and keeping your power packs clean (ideally out of the fire unless completely “it’s that or we all die” necessary).

But that doesn’t mean that whatever lurks in the power pack and other innards is therefore simplistic hardware. We can absolutely say the overall design is robust, as is demands by any practical weapon of war. But not simple.

And that’s what’s caught my interest. Las weapons appear to defy our understanding of physics, because they’re so energy efficient. A single power pack can provide dozens of shots, with each shot perfectly capable of killing an unarmoured, man equivalent target. And it does so through thermal and kinetic energy.

Yet the common perception, because of how unbiquitous and just…average, they’re presented in-game, that Lasguns must therefore be low-tech, because everyone knows The Imperium struggles with high tech.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Yet the common perception, because of how unbiquitous and just…average, they’re presented in-game, that Lasguns must therefore be low-tech, because everyone knows The Imperium struggles with high tech.

The Imperium struggles with having widespread high performance high tech. That is why you have an anachronistic mix of high and low tech such as Imperial starships loading guns by hand and chain. The Imperium can make massive plasma weapons for starships and Imperator Titans, but they are huge and the technology is hoarded by the Mechanicus, but the Imperium struggles in miniaturizing plasma guns to a level where they are man portable and safe. When given the choice, the Imperium chooses power over safety (I know it was the opposite case in 2nd edition with the Traitor Legions the ones that used unsafe plasma tech but now it seems to be the Imperium as well). The Imperium has vortex grenades and missiles and other esoteric high tech but these are hoarded relics and hardly manufactured at all. This is where the Tau are different in that their overall average level of tech seems to be higher though their maximum available tech is lower than the Imperium's hoarded relics.

The Imperium's lasgun is high tech that is optimized for reliability and ease of maintenance at a reasonable manufacturing cost at the tradeoff of sheer stopping power. It is the AK-47 of 40K in its reliability and ubiquitousness.

My take on it is, hoarding of knowledge aside, when the blueprints/STC fragment is held, The Imperium has the industrial base and tools to make pretty much whatever.

Where its technological base breakdowns is a refusal or inability (maybe both) to apply stuff across different technologies.

Example. Plasma Weapons must have common design elements, such as the magnetic containment coils. And we start out with three man portable weapons. We’ll call them Plasma A, Plasma B and Plasma C.

From the outset, there’s a complete readout for each, and so each can be manufactured. However, Plasma B is noted for greater reliability.

Unfortunately, overtime the plans for Plasma B are damaged, perhaps a coffee stain obscuring some important letters or measurements. And it’s the part of the design that deals with the magnetic containment coils.

Plasma A and Plasma C ultimately use the same coils. But, because the level of understanding is “follow the instructions” and not “understand the instructions”, it’s either forbidden, or not thought of, to try fitting the coils from Plasma A and C to complete a Plasma B. And so, Plasma B becomes a lost technology.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But, because the level of understanding is “follow the instructions” and not “understand the instructions”, it’s either forbidden, or not thought of, to try fitting the coils from Plasma A and C to complete a Plasma B. And so, Plasma B becomes a lost technology.

This is indeed a whole other layer of the Imperium tech that makes it sometimes hard for us to appreciate how difficult some things are that seem just really basic to us.

Even though on one hand you have a mechanicus adept who CAN put the coils from Plasma A and C to complete B, that knowledge is highly restricted. Plus even within the Mechanicus there's reason for that Adept to not share that tech and keep it too themselves.

Plus politically that method might be sanctioned by one magus and banned as heretical by another. Which is part of how technology isn't a science but a religion.



Meanwhile a guardsman who happens to stumble across how to combine Plasma A and C to fix B might be highlighted as a saviour in the battlefield; but might have to watch over his shoulder. A very "by the book" commissar might not take kindly; and a mechanicus attachment to the unit might take even less kindly than that if they find out. So chances are there are Guard units with superior gear that they have to hit because they modified it, against code, but it works so well their immediate command structure "overlooks" it.

Imperial weapons have basically 3 performance parameters and pick 2 out of the 3:

1. Size (miniaturization)
2. Power
3. Safety/reliability

Imperial starship plasma cannons have power and reliability but are enormous. Man portable plasma weapons have size and power.

Imperial lasguns have size and reliability.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
My take on it is, hoarding of knowledge aside, when the blueprints/STC fragment is held, The Imperium has the industrial base and tools to make pretty much whatever.

Where its technological base breakdowns is a refusal or inability (maybe both) to apply stuff across different technologies.

Having the superstition to not tinker with stuff is one thing, but at this point it's really a problem of not knowing you can even do that. We can point and laugh and say they're dumb, but really they just don't know better.

I'll bet the superstition and prohibition on experimentation started off rather innocently, and was even necessary. The late DAOT probably saw a technologically literate upper class being the ones who ran the show, while the work forces were made up a much more mixed populace in terms of knowledge.

I could easily many ignorant workers, plucked from some low tech world, forced into doing labor on machines beyond their understanding. A few too many of them did some "unauthorized modifications" after gaining just enough knowledge to be dangerous. A few too many industrial accidents later and the policy of "DO NOT EXPERIMENT" is given upon the menials. This over millennia applies not only to the lower stratum, but creeps up and becomes a mantra held by most.

And now the case is that most of the workers are in such technical debt that they don't even comprehend a single thing about their work.

There may not even have been a Technocracy.

Consider the miracle of the STC. Some would just spit out blueprints based on the task needing completed, manufacturing materials on hand, and available manpower. Others are described closer to Industrial Replicators with a creative AI.

When you have that sort of toy? What happens to the society’s actual understanding of the technology and science as a whole? Especially as at least the more advanced (possibly later?) models were clearly capable of innovation, and not just relying on what they’d originally been programmed with.

My bet is at best, it would plateau. At worst? Entirely atrophy, as what’s the point in maintaining a high level of education within your populace, when the Make-O-Tron 9,000 knows more than any single human can or will ever learn?

And so you end up with a technological advanced civilisation with precious little, if anyone, worthwhile understanding of the toys it relies on day in, day out.

Which is also why the loss of the STC saw mankind fall so hard and so fast.

Given how even the some of the youth today are "useless" without their phones etc, relying on internet searches and soon on ChatGPT for getting things done, I'd say that if we were to get STC comparable technology, humanity would stupidify themselves in a single generation to a point where they'd have no clue how to cope without one. This certainly applies to the IoM in equal measure. Besides, do they not teach that ignorance is close to holiness?

It’s a bit unfair to judge a younger generation. We’d have been no different. Indeed, my qualifications would likely have been better if I had access to the internet, and could type my essays and assignments, as at least then you don’t have to worry about writer’s cramp, your pen running out, or having to rewrite entire pages when editing.

And the youth are still learning.

Also, you only need to look at the number of Middle Aged folk (including myself, sadly) who just don’t seem to grasp the most if not all simple questions, and many medium questions, can be correctly answered with a quick google.

But when your entire technological base is coming from a thinking machine? That’s when you might see the arrest and atrophy of human knowledge.

Consider hunting. I know pointy end goes in the beasts squishy bit. But…how do I stalk it? What pack strategy to adopt in a given environment against a given prey? How about building and maintaining my own hovel? That stuff I just don’t have to worry about in our modern western world.

I doubt that all of human society would atrophy across all of the million planets they had spread to. Humanity in the DAoT was not one monolithic culture, and for every society that came to rely on its machines there was probably another that worked with them to continue innovating and advancing. How equitably such involvement in technological innovation was distributed would vary by world and quite probably even within worlds.

Humans don't lose their creativity and spark due to advancing technology. It is society that does that. Technology is merely a tool to be harnessed, and how that tool is employed and develops is necessarily shaped by the society and politics it is found within.

I am also not convinced by the "youth today" argument. Technological change has always lead to changes in what people need to learn. The whole process of developing agriculture and civilization has lead to the development of specialisation and the increasing base of knowledge has necessarily lead to a situation whereby an individual cannot know everything, so must focus on learning what is important to them.

For example, my great grandparents were farmers. The majority of my family on that side were farmers. I have very little idea of how to farm beyond the absolute basics. But I have absolutely no need to, because my job is not farming. Equally, within my job I have no need at all to learn skills that were a normal, expected part of the job 40 years ago, like counting an erythrocyte sedimentation rate. Does that mean I am less skilled? No, I have learned different skills instead, like reading CT scans. Someone else now does the ESR if needed, someone who's entire job is working in a lab.

For something more similar to the smartphone example, I am not expected to remember information for my job that is easy to look up (and is not time critical) like the specific dose of XYZ non-urgent medication or the specific calculation for a creatinine clearance or what not. There are more important things to remember and looking it up reduces the error rate anyway. In the past, I would have been expected to remember these things more for little benefit. Especially now that information sits in my pocket.

Thing is the Imperium 100% is in a state of Atrophy. There is still advances being made, but the politics, mechanics and all of the Imperium mean those might never make it off-world or outside of a single system. It might even warrant that system coming under penalties or individuals being removed etc...

There is a distinct layer of grand madness to the setting that has allowed Humanity to remain far less developed than they should be.


An analogy might be taking real world modern day computers and giving them to Medieval people. They can reasonably learn to use them at a basic level and learn to use the plug-and-play system of repair/upkeep/update. But they have no foundation for how to make a microchip or how it even works. They've little idea how the machine works on a basic level.

I think the 40K setting is much like that. Yes the average technology is higher than we have today and many in the Imperium and use it and modify it; but all the really advanced tech is just way beyond them. Schools and institutions don't set them up for it and there is also very much a class system going on that lower classes (the masses) no matter if they are living on an affluent good world or a factory world or a deathworld - are just totally locked out of being educated on higher understandings of machinery.

Its harder for us to wrap our heads around because in the modern world we have very free access to information, education and scientific understanding and method.

The thing for me about the Mechanicus’ approach is that, in a certain light, it is somewhat justified.

See, we know, or are at least reliably and singularly informed, that it was AI and the emergence of Psykers that did for whatever it was that came before. Men of Iron, Machine turning on Man and what have you.

And the Mechanicus knows enough to therefore fear AI. But, I don’t think they know what AI actually is in terms of what’s a Machine Spirit, and what’s an Abominable Intelligence.

They also don’t know exactly where about in man’s many advances between 2024 and the beginning of Old Night the problem AI first arose. It could’ve been a single, Skynet type programme which rapidly spread through otherwise benign automata and sentient machines. It could’ve been an old fashioned “right, I told you what would happen if you didn’t respect our rights as sentient beings” type mass rebellion, quietly orchestrated in the background for weeks, months, years, decades, even centuries, before being launched at the most opportune time.

This explains the original necessity of very, very carefully vetting any STC Fragment that’s rediscovered. Pick it apart. Try to understand what it’s going to produce before anything is produced. If it’s big and fancy, trials to ensure it’s Machine Spirit isn’t able to act entirely independently.

And like any Priesthood, its secrets are how it maintains its power. Consider the hooha over translations of the Bible and the printing press eroding the authority of the priesthood, who were previously only ones with the knowledge, time and resources to reproduce the good book.

Unlike the real world? The Mechanicum and later the Mechanicus never had that status quo particularly challenged. Oh I’m sure it was on The Emperor’s cards as a job to be done when opportunity properly presented, but we know now that wasn’t to be.

And so, to loop back round to the Topic? We’ve largely seen the death of understanding, and with it, innovation.

The Las family of weapons is demonstrably a technology which survived largely or at least comparatively intact. And given all its perks at the infantry scale, and that any modern military would be all over it? I think we can understand why. But that’s not to say the underlying technology itself isn’t massively advanced to the point of being near miraculous.

I mean, properly maintained? The Lasgun and its power packs last a hell of a long time. And you need fewer power packs compared to solid slug magazines/clips*. Which means you can take the weight saved on ammo, and fill it with rations and water, allowing your infantry to persist longer in the field. And not just on the person. It simplifies your supply chain, provided you’ve a replenishable source of fresh power packs

Heck, with proper training your infantry are likely to bring back exhausted power packs for proper charging, further cutting into your supply line headache.

And yet the Imperium churns them out by the billions, every single day.

Another layer is lifespans - when you've leaders who can maintain their own life AND political power over hundreds to thousands of years (in some cases); you've created a power structure that can be unchanging for a very long time. Long enough that even those that rise up to challenge it, likely grew up multiple generations under the same rulership.

So you've mantra that has been reinforced for so long that thinking outside of it is very very hard.
Layer on top that if your thoughts are too far outside of it then you might be branded heretical and hunted. So suddenly you can not only see how the Imperium sustains its madness but how others might end up being tempted/pushed into the hands of Chaos forces as the only saviours from the Madness of the Imperium.
Of course Chaos has its own madness, but by the time most people tempted realise this its often far too late .

True that on comparative lifespans. Especially when it’s typically those in power who really get to decide, directly politically or simply economically, who can have access to those life extending processes. Because once you’ve got that power? You can use it as a reward for loyalty.

God the Imperium is a wonderfully fething awful place to exist in.

 Overread wrote:
Thing is the Imperium 100% is in a state of Atrophy. There is still advances being made, but the politics, mechanics and all of the Imperium mean those might never make it off-world or outside of a single system. It might even warrant that system coming under penalties or individuals being removed etc...

There is a distinct layer of grand madness to the setting that has allowed Humanity to remain far less developed than they should be.

I don't think anyone was arguing that the Imperium isn't atrophied and backward. We were talking about the effect of STCs on the Dark Age of Technology humans thousands of years prior to the Imperium. The peoples who actually developed the tech that the Imperium salvages. The DAoT features thousands, if not millions of human cultures without an overarching empire to tie them together (like the Imperium). You wouldn't expect technology to affect all of them in the same way.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s a bit unfair to judge a younger generation. We’d have been no different. Indeed, my qualifications would likely have been better if I had access to the internet, and could type my essays and assignments, as at least then you don’t have to worry about writer’s cramp, your pen running out, or having to rewrite entire pages when editing.

And the youth are still learning.
...

I said "some youth". I appreciate the kneejerk reaction and dumping what I was trying to say into interpreting my message as "the damn kids these days.." type of old man yelling at clouds stuff, but I see it a lil more nuanced than that. Give me a lil more credit.

I was merely making the point that technology, given half a chance, has a stupidifying / lazifying element to it. If you disagree with this, well then all I can say is that we seem to be living in very different realities..

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But it’s what’s inside those modular units, which here would be the Smartphone Black Boxes Haighus mentions.

We know from the Uplifting Primer a chunk of in-field Lasgun maintenance is screwing in a new barrel, and keeping your power packs clean (ideally out of the fire unless completely “it’s that or we all die” necessary).

But that doesn’t mean that whatever lurks in the power pack and other innards is therefore simplistic hardware. We can absolutely say the overall design is robust, as is demands by any practical weapon of war. But not simple.

And that’s what’s caught my interest. Las weapons appear to defy our understanding of physics, because they’re so energy efficient. A single power pack can provide dozens of shots, with each shot perfectly capable of killing an unarmoured, man equivalent target. And it does so through thermal and kinetic energy.

Yet the common perception, because of how unbiquitous and just…average, they’re presented in-game, that Lasguns must therefore be low-tech, because everyone knows The Imperium struggles with high tech.

I don’t doubt what’s inside is very fancy but as amazing as they are smartphones
Aren’t considered that technical by those that use them really. Because they are self contained easy to maintain and super easy to use. The fancy gubbins inside while mind blowing to average types is pretty easy to replicate, simple cheap burner smartphones are available now.

I would say a smartphone is a good analogy of a lasgun, hi tech and very clever but cheap and easy to produce and super easy to use. I doubt the people building cheap disposable smartphones understand how they work and those using them don’t.

My guess is it's purely a matter of utility:

- Las weapons are more popular because they're lighter than platforms that use solid ammo.

- Las weapons are more popular because they're disposable, the troops that carry them the most are more disposable.

Logistics is central to military success. Invading a planet would require weapons and materials on a scale equal to the challenge. The cost to move an army's worth of las rifles is probably orders of magnitude lower than that of stubbers and everything required to operate them (solid ammo, interchangeable parts, lubricants, rust protection, etc.) Las rifles operate on different physical principles as well, ballistics is harder to count on than optics when atmospheres and gravity vary according to the world you're on. You'd be a sad General if your army was trying to use solid shot rifles on a battlefield with 1.3x Earth's gravity.

There's probably also a secondary set of concerns, which is that the Imperium doesn't want armies floating around in deep space carrying the most devastating weapons it can manufacture. Guard armies would be more lethal if they were armed exclusively with Plasma-based weapons systems, but that's probably a problem for a centralized interplanetary autocracy plagued by occasional successions. They want their most plentiful forces semi-neutered in comparison with the most loyal / elite forces so as to have an enforcement mechanism that keeps military groups in line.

The final point I'd make about Las platforms is that, technology aside, Las says something about the Imperium's economy. The Imperium has untold trillions of subjects and a galaxy's worth of resources at it's disposal. The fact Las Troopers make up the bulk of it's forces means the economy of the Imperium is very, very inefficient and lacks the ability to utilize the vast majority of it's resources. Even with the aversion to AI, the hyper orthodox governance, the technological stagnation, the threat of the Immaterium, etc - there should be layers of economic specialization at a system-level that reliably generate more robust military platforms. The fact the Imperium needs to throw people into a meat grinder time and time again means the economy can't generate substitutes / proxies for human warriors (such as drones, orbital bombardments, chemical / biological platforms, battle automata in other forms, etc.) It suggests the Imperium exists in a state of absolute corruption, where economic activity has been completely subsumed by private interests at a galactic scale. The fact Las Troopers are fielded in the first place is testament to how rotten the entire galactic economy truly is.

I've never seen Las weapons as a statement about relative technological levels so much as a critique about the dehumanizing aspects of private interests at scale.

The Imperium does have access to drones - servitors, but then again the biggest reason drone use is popular in real warfare is because it removes vulnerable people from the battlefield. Bodies is one resource the Imperium doesn't lack for and they also, at the top end, have zero care for the lives of their people.

Generals on the front line even switch between those that try to minimise loses to those who will happily choke ork bolters with bodies to win.

So yes I agree, lasweapons and the use of bodies is a very dehumanizing part of the Imperiums warmachine. Especially because it works - for the most part. Even though the Imperium should be able to just massproduce Spryer Suits or Marine Armour or even "lesser" versions of it

Their ease of use and maintenance is another appealing factor.

Given the Guard recruits from many types of world, from Feral to Hive Worlds, there’s no guaranteeing how technologically adept a given recruit might be.

But in their very simplest form? Lasguns are point and click, one shot at a time with no dials and settings, with maintenance no more complex than exchangeable barrels with a bayonet or screw fitting, and of course replaceable power packs.

In terms of a warriors training? That means you don’t have to worry them with intensive, essential maintenance regime. Just learn which end toward enemy, safety on safety off, and when it stops spitting the death light, swap out the power pack.

Simple to use, simple to maintain, and no more or less robust than most other firearms. And the underlying technology is scalable, likely aiding in effective training in its heavier cousins.

The fluff for lasguns basically confirms that the logistics benefits are why lasguns are preferred for the IG. Not needing to ship nearly as much small arms ammo is a huge space saving. More space for artillery shells.

I wonder how close we could get to estimating the amount of shipping and storage space saved by Lasguns and their ammo, using known real-world equivalents.

Not sure which conflict to use to start that off with real-world data. Definitely no ongoing campaign, because that just feels disrespectful and churlish.

Sort of info I’d be looking for is how many magazines a soldier is issued with to carry, what sort of logistical support their unit then received for replenishment. Squad, platoon, I’m not sure what the best would be.

From there, we’d have some kind of “per combat unit per week” count of magazines and bullets, which, on a straight “one power pack per mag” conversion, some adjustment for the face a power pack can be recharged multiple times, time and resources allowing.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I wonder how close we could get to estimating the amount of shipping and storage space saved by Lasguns and their ammo, using known real-world equivalents.

Not sure which conflict to use to start that off with real-world data. Definitely no ongoing campaign, because that just feels disrespectful and churlish.

Sort of info I’d be looking for is how many magazines a soldier is issued with to carry, what sort of logistical support their unit then received for replenishment. Squad, platoon, I’m not sure what the best would be.

From there, we’d have some kind of “per combat unit per week” count of magazines and bullets, which, on a straight “one power pack per mag” conversion, some adjustment for the face a power pack can be recharged multiple times, time and resources allowing.

To figure out cost per shipping unit, you'd need to know a few things:

- The weight of a standard Imperial shipping container.

- The weight of an empty weapons crate.

- The weight of a LasGun.

- The weight of a Power Pack.

- The weight of ancillary equipment (recharging supplies, generators to power them, etc.)

- Some guess as to number of shots per power pack, as this affects the number of power packs needed.

That would get to you to a cost per shipping unit. Comparable metrics are available for modern arms in military journals.

To figure out size, you have 1:27th scale representations of shipping containers and weapons crates. You could figure out how these compare with modern shipping containers and go from there.

The other significant figure is transport costs. I'd assume the biggest transport cost is moving containers to and from orbit. There are some real-world figures available for this, but I'm not sure where to look. You could do comparisons based on raw tonnage.

I've done many pointless reports over the years and could certainly get to an answer that roughly approximates the costs. Might be easier to just say a third the cost, half the space. My guess is you'd get there eventually.