Weapons of 40k and modern comparisons ... if any can be made

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**gendoikari87**

I hate my life I want to work for R&D... or at least testing in Aberdeen.

also $15 grenade rounds.... how?

**Catyrpelius**

gendoikari87 wrote:Damn physics professors! they lied to me, told me I could get any job an engineer could with a physics degree.

There is a major mentality difference between how a scientist thinks and how an engineer thinks. An engineer is a problem solver foremost.

**aka_mythos**

Thats more a case of making sure there is more than enough rather than less than enough. Not so much with snub nosed revolvers but other small arms require above the pressure needed to fire the bullet to operate automatic or semi-automatically.

With a snubnosed you're just talking about the barrel being too short so propellant is wasted.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

gendoikari87 wrote:also $15 grenade rounds.... how?

Economy of scale first. Second its 25mm not 35mm or 40mm like other grenades. So it has a lower volume of explosives which are the pricier part of larger grenades, and its only 1/3 the size. You really need to think of it as a more accurate delayed dispersal range extended shotgun blast.

**gendoikari87**

while we are on the subject and you guys are in the actual industry how do you solve the problem of the burn rate in the second law of thermodynamics. It's been bugging me for two months. does it actually turn out to be a partial differential equation?

**Catyrpelius**

No idea, thats not my area of expertise.

**gendoikari87**

Because a factor of V is not disappearing for me like it should. ... or intuitively it shouldn't but the math isn't working out.

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Catyrpelius wrote:No idea, thats not my area of expertise.

But it's your job... isn't it...

**Catyrpelius**

I'm an engineer, we cheat. I have a burn rate chart on my wall...

**gendoikari87**

but... those change with mass of the projectile or rather the volume change with respect to time... so for new designs those charts cant be that accurate... can they. I've heard munitions is mostly just a trial and error process that can't be true can it?

**Catyrpelius**

They are accuarate enough...

**gendoikari87**

But is it really a trial and error process?

**Catyrpelius**

I'm going to edit this as the way I orginally wrote it made very little sense.

Yes and no, we usually can get into the ball park, but there is a point where good enough is good enough.

When something is designed for the US military it is effected by a number of things. Anything from a time constraint to a compatability constraint. All of those considerations need to be taken into account, so alot of times you end up with something that could be better but your ran into whatever constraints were placed upon the project.

The Army in general likes tried and true better then new and unproven, so more often then not we are just upgradeing an exsisting platform.

As far as trial and error goes. For things like fragmentation patterns of high explosive shells we have computer simulations that can approximate the fragmentation patterns on stuff, but they are never 100% correct. If I had a dollar for every military project that didn't work as intended I'd be a very rich man.

**gendoikari87**

so have there been any advancements for defeating ARENA and TROPHY systems as of late. I proposed a few basic designs about a year ago in a paper I wrote... but never got it published. I probably should do that.

Edit: should note I mean Man portable systems not tanks with APFSDS.

**Catyrpelius**

The easiest way to defeat an Active Defense is with a dumb non-explosive round. There is very little that can protect anything from a modern Tungstin Sabot round.

**gendoikari87**

yeah, but what about a man portable option against ARENA. Most Sabots are vehicle only... there is that onesteyr rifle though... freaking beast.

http://world.guns.ru/sniper/sn46-e.htm

Problem is the rounds are several thousands of dollars because the thing was canceled before it went to production. Just like the gyrojet. well at least there are a lot more gyrojets around. I think this was a one of a kind.

**Catyrpelius**

No idea, the military likes to keep certain things secret.

**aka_mythos**

What Catyrphelius said. Those charts are based on collected data and would vary depending on propellent. If volume isn't changing as it should it sounds like soot or other by products of the reaction sticking around, or some unideal burn.

**gendoikari87**

Found something you guys might like... the definition of SUPER overkill

I warn you, as real engineers you might experience some rage over such absurd overkill.

Spoiler:

**Catyrpelius**

90% of cool pictures are blocked my the firewall at my work, I'll have to look at it later.

**gendoikari87**

it's a triple linked M-134? system. Amazingly awesome but also epically wasteful.

**aka_mythos**

I still think the GAU-8 (family) is the ultimate in rotary cannons. Seventy 30mm rounds per second... In few words... you've been juiced.

**Catyrpelius**

Bahhh forget about rotary cannons.

When the job really needs to get done use an M731

**gendoikari87**

There's a reason you think that... because it is. It's also probably the most versatile weapon ever put on an aircraft. As a metter of fact Every time I hear about a new Imperial armor or codex I secretly pray they bring an incarnation of the GAU 8 into the game... but alas all we got was the punisher gatling cannon. it looks good but rules wise it doesn't do the Gau 8 justice.

**aka_mythos**

GW will never give us GAU8, rolling 70 d6 a second is a bit tiring on the wrists.

**Catyrpelius**

Google the M1028 for the ultimate in anti-personnel rounds.

**gendoikari87**

we seem to be forgetting an uber weapon.... OH the Grid Square Removal Service

**IvanTih**

Something for you to argue on.About 40k ships power.

Every weapon in the warship's arsenal was prepared and oriented down at the surface - torpedo arrays filled with warshots that could atomise whole continents, energy cannons capable of boiling off oceans, kinetic killers that could behead mountains through the brute force of their impacts.
- Nemesis, pg. 375

A bombardment had begun, and the people of Dagonet's capital feared it was the end of the world.

They knew so little of the reality of things. High above in orbit, it was only the warship Thanato that fired on the city, and even then it was not with the vessel's most powerful cannons. The people did not know that a fleet of craft were poised in silence around their sister ship, watchful and waiting. Had all the vessels of the Warmaster's flotilla unleashed their killpower, then indeed those fears would have come true; the planet's crust cracked, the continents sliced open. Perhaps those things would happen, soon enough - but for now it was sufficient for the Thanato to hurl inert kinetic kill-rods down through the atmosphere, the sky-splitting shriek of their passage climaxed by a lowing thunder as the warshots obliterated power stations, military compounds and the vast mansion-houses of the noble clans. From the ground it seemed like wanton destruction; from orbit, it was a shrewd and surgical pattern of attack.
- Nemesis, pgs. 417-418

**gendoikari87**

meh, it's generally a bad idea to start nuking planets from orbit because life supporting planets are really few and far between. On that note. Tau capital ship railguns are said to accelerate large projectiles to .999c .... now the physicists out there are laughing their asses off because they know what kind of devestation something like that would cause. ... namely wiping out of an entire galaxy. probably more... a lot more... yeah the end of existance of all material things.

but as for ship power? That lies PURELY in the realm of techno-magic. It's not like krak missiles or autcannons where general comparisons can, at a streach, be made. Basically theres using real stuff as a basis and then theres completely making up bull. Warhammer is generally half and half. It usually only bugs me when they get the stuff that's SUPPOSED to be based on real stuff wrong.

**Gijouhei**

This is going to be totally off topic now but I love how this has basically turned into something that I've been witnessing at my work for years.

Engineers (I am one myself although not in the field that is being discussed here) are always more practical, and from my own experience we love it when some youngster comes along with a degree, fresh from Uni, and then tries to tell us how to improve our equipment or designs something based around theory and equations. Why do we love it - because simply put, 99% of the time we can prove them wrong.

Theoretical discussion is nothing when compared to real world experience. As per Catyrpelius mentioning about using a chart for information above. Calculated accuracy is all well and good, but most of the time a chart is all you need. Zeus book anyone?

**gendoikari87**

well there is no substitute for real world experience I just haven't had a chance to get any yet. That being said you can't just rely on experience all the time. Some times you do have to revert back to the equations to gain insight. A fundemental understanding of the principals might not beat experience, but if you understand what's going on, on a fundemental level it will make gaining experience easier. That goes for both physicists and engineers.

**Catyrpelius**

During the summer ARDEC runs a Internship program, bepending on where in the US you live it might be worth looking in to.