What do weapons sound like?

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**sigkill**

We all know what weapons look like: just look at the box art. But what do they sound like? I would like to create a somewhat whimsical collection of official material that provides evidence for the sound of weapons in the 40k universe. As a start, here is an image from an old comic book that demonstrates the sound of turbo-laser destructors:

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Guns go dakkadakkadakka. Everyone knows that.

Volkite go Choom

**sigkill**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Guns go dakkadakkadakka. Everyone knows that.

Volkite go Choom

Cite your sources! At least the dakkadakka one shouldn't be too hard to find.

**Flinty**

Lascannon go freem

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Turn_Signals_on_a_Land_Raider

Bolters go pop-raaaark-boom as per Ian Banks’ great depiction of bi-propellant ammo in Against a Dark Background.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Assault cannon go BRRRRT because Warthog

**Bobthehero**

The Hellgun noise from DoW 1 is perfect, it's sort of an angry growl.

**Charax**

Back in around 6th-7th edition black library released a bunch of munitorum ebooks for different weapons that included clips of what they sound like. It didn't last long but they had things like Bolter, melta guns, shuriken catapults and volcano cannons

**Gert**

Dawn Of War and Space Marine 1 are excellent for weapon sounds. All of the stuff in that is top tier.

**Sgt. Cortez**

Having watched a couple of the WH+ animations recently I got the feeling that at least the bolter has a unified sound they reused in every animation.

Lasguns on the other hand sound differently whenever they can be heard, DoW, animations, other games. I think in written sources they're described to sound like a whipcrack, but I haven't heard that in any game or animation.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Ah, but Las weapons are a relatively loose groupings. Sometimes described as coherent light, sometimes described as particle weapons, using light as a travelling medium. Other times they’re akin to Star Wars blasters, which are low yield plasma in magnetic containment.

This doesn’t change the commonality of ammo, as the ammo is essentially Just An Advanced Battery.

**Orkeosaurus**

Supposedly their cracking sound comes from heating the air around the beam so rapidly. Which I guess means that the sound comes from the entire length of the beam rather than just the muzzle of the gun, interestingly.

**Daba**

The Shrieker cannon is pretty straightforward in what it sounds like.

**Cyel**

What does the grav-gun say?

Ring-ding-ding-ding