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.

Hi, all.

I’d like to get your views on the “fluff” of the lasgun in service with the Imperial Guard.

Now, the reason for this line-of-thought is to try and calm my OCD-type craziness when it comes to firearms; you see, in real life I’m an avid firearms shooter, collector and reloader, I belong to a rifle club, I’ve shot target since I was 17, and some of the first books I ever read as a young teen were firearm reference or technical books.

The problem is that when I come across any firearm, either in real life, or in fiction, I have to immediately try and find out as much as possible about it; as sad as that sounds.

Which brings us to the lasgun… Now, I’ve given this a lot of thought, really ever since I became familiar with WH40K.

Ok, so, despite all the different patterns and models out there every lasgun works the same; they’re either single-shot, or select-fire shoulder-fired weapons that shoot a coherent beam of light.

Now, onto the subject, now as much as I like Direct Energy Weaponry my person views is that the lasgun holds absolutely no benefit over a convention, ballistic “hard round” firearm.

When a target is hit by a conventional bullet, all of that bullet’s kinetic energy is transferred to the target, either by the bullet tumbling, or flattening, or fragmenting. That’s what causes the damage to the target; As well as the bullet travelling through you and shredding everything, a bullet will cause a shock-wave that flatters organs and generally does un-nice things to you. Blood loss is a big issue, too.
Now, If a target is hit by a coherent beam of light, all I can think that would happen is that a neat hole would be burned through the target, with no kinetic transfer of energy. The wound would be cauterised, so there’s no blood loss. Ok, the target would feel a tad worse for wear, but unless a vital organ is hit I assume the target would get back up and carry on.

What give a bullet its range is its parabolic trajectory, you can arch a bullet to reach distance targets, but as a lasbeam is a beam of light, I assume you’re limited to direct-fire; granted not really an issue with most modern fire-fights taking place at 100 metres distant, with 300 being the max, but one can still argue a ballistic rifle out-ranges a lasgun.

A lasbeam could theoretically be reflected away from the target by a suitably reflective service, assuming that surface can first sustain being hit by a coherent beam of light and heat.
Also, I assume rain or fog would affect the beam’s coherency.

Firing at night is likely to blind all soldiers armed with it. Granted a red beam would help, as the red spectrum doesn’t affect your night vision. Black Library does have numerous novels that states lasguns shoot white, blue, purple, and orange beams, depending on the author.

It would be impossible to hide your position for as soon as you start firing the target(s) can trace your lasbeam back to you.

I’ve always thought that a suitable EMP blast would knock-out all las-technology, too.

I realise that the idea behind the lasgun is that it’s a super-cheap, and super-reliable weapon for the trillions of soldiers serving in the Imperium, but I just guess that the Imperium wouldn’t trade in a conventional ballistic rifle for a direct-energy one that doesn’t offer any benefits other the former; regardless of cost.

Anyway, the above is just my personal thoughts on the idea.

I’d like to know what you think.

A lasgun seems to be equal, or marginally inferior, to an Autogun in most circumstances. However, it does have a couple of advantages:

Logistics. Once you have a lasgun powerpack, you can recharge it by leaving it in the sun. So that's a hell of a lot less ammo the Munitorium needs to bus out to you.

Lack of moving parts means that the things just don't break.

Damage wisse, the las bolt has been stated to be a pulse rather than continuous beam, which vapourises a small area of the target explosively rather than boring a hole straight through them.

I've never really considered the colour. X-ray would be a good choice :-)

The one advantage the humble Las-gun has over its Auto and Stubber gun friends is logistics.
Think about the amount of brass that you would have to ship and resupply a Guard force that would number a million men strong. That's a headache to make, store, ship, store and get to the front lines.
Say a Guardsmen will carry about five reloads into combat with him. With Auto or Stubber rounds that's about say 150 rounds. With Las-guns you are looking at about 150 to 500 shots (depending on power setting, make and model), plus when your out of sparks in the cells they can be recharged with ease via the solar converter or in desperate times an open fire.

Just one thing: direct energy weapons (like lasers) vaporize and don't burn. And don't forget that you are just a big sack of water, and you probably know what happens with water when it gots lots of heat...

All fair comments, guys.

Yes, I guess the logistics side of things has a huge benefit over shipping physical, ballistic ammunition. Though, the Guard does field a lot of stubbers, autoguns, and bolters. So they clearly have the capacity to make, store and ship them, no?

Graphite wrote:

Damage wisse, the las bolt has been stated to be a pulse rather than continuous beam, which vapourises a small area of the target explosively rather than boring a hole straight through them.

I've never really considered the colour. X-ray would be a good choice :-)

I just took that from the computer games, in the Dawn of War series the lasguns shoot a beam, granted it's a "snap"-beam that's there and gone in the blink of an eye; unlike the one-second, continuous beams of, say, StarTrek.

Some novels make reference to beams, and one I've read mentions the lasgun beams, when all being fired in a fire-fight, are likened to the crossing threads of a spider's web

Ooo interesting topic.

A few things I'll chip in with.

As for energy transfer; while it's true that a ballistic weapon transfers the energy, via the bullet, by kinetic energy it does still loose energy along the way as it has to force it's way through the atmosphere, so stopping power of such a weapon does drop off with distance.
The Lasgun, like any laser (as I think of it) uses a different method of energy transfer. Not by kinetic energy but light and then heat energy. This can be just as deadly.

As mentioned above, I have read that the Lasgun is supposed to produce an explosion on the target rather than just burn or cut.

As for range; Light being light the range of a Las-weapon should be infinite. But obviously for game mechanics all weapons are given a range to keep things balanced. And in reality, whilst light will continue to infinity it will disperse and (depending on wavelength) will be absorbed or scattered by passing through matter (gasses, liquids, solids and plasma) and so will also loose killing power over distance.

So rain and fog would possibly affect a las beam, but it would also affect a bullet, but probably (assuming a suitably large power behind both) would only affect either of them by the smallest of margins.

As for the colour of the beam, that opens alot of possabilities...
It's an interesting point you make about firing at night, a bright "Hollywood" laser beam would certainly dazzle the user and give away his position. However, whatever the colour / wavelength of light used you wouldn't actually see the beam unless there is something there to scatter it like particles suspended in the air (which is likely on a battlefield I'll give you).
Also reflecting the beam is also interesting as that also depends on the wavelength and the effeciency of the reflective surface, as you mentioned, to dissapate the heat.

Wavelength would also dictate what sort of damage you could do, as UV light is of a higher energy that visible light, but can be absorbed by water quite strongly (rain and fog problems maybe) but also is strongly absorbed by the body (being mostly water) so high potential for damage, it is also invisible (to the human eye at least) so good for night fighting etc... Whereas IR light is not strongly absorbed by the body, is of a lower energy than visible light but is also invisble and is more associated with heat-ray type weapons...

Maybe Lasguns as tunable in the wavelength used so as to produce the greatest possible damage depending on the target...

I should probably stop talking now...

Fluff wise, at least from Necromunda, las weapons are hugely reliable (if you had to make an ammo check you passed it on a roll of 2+, autoguns passed on a 4+ and bolters on a 6). Given that the Imperial Guard recruit from worlds that can be anywhere from Stone Age equivalent to highly industrial worlds this is important as it cuts down the time spent training recruits to feed into the meat grinder. Also as previously mentioned the logistics of using a universal ammunition source for a main infantry weapon when supplying a force of billions, and the power packs are easily recharged in the field.

As for distance and its impact on a las shot I remember this was mentioned in the 2nd Edition Wargear book, laspistols suffered a to-hit penalty for firing at long range.

As for its impact on living tissue I believe that it has been described as explosively vapourising the area hit, but that there is often cauterization of the wound so little damage is caused by blood loss.

I know one advantage of lasguns

More left handed friendly!

The lasgun has one major advantage over a conventional weapon. It has self-recharging ammo.

This cuts down the amount of space you have to devote to ammunition supplies in your supply chain. The soldiers can charge their weaponry with portable generators right where the action is. They can even, as a last resort, use fire or direct exposure to light to charge their weaponry.


If you got that with a slight drop in killing power the gun would be viable. As it is, the gun is the equal of a conventional bullet weapon. Making it superior overall.

Lasguns are much cheaper than conventional firearms. In one of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, it talks about his soldiers holding the energy cells over a fire to try and get every little bit of energy they can out of the cells. You obviously can't do that with a cartridge round, can you.

Lasguns are also very simple, because there are much fewer moving parts compared to a conventional rifle.

Even though they do shoot short beams, it's probably to prevent the lasround from losing all its energy along the way, or it's to help the guardsman see where he's shooting, instead of clicking the trigger and the damage happen without him seeing it hit the target.

Also, the way I've understood it, while a lasgun shot COULD be deflected with a simple mirror (Or very polished Necron), the reason it doesn't is because even though the light will get reflected at first, the energy will scorch an area enough to prevent it from scattering the energy, which reinforces the idea in the paragraph above.

Another major advantage of the lasgun is that light travels alot faster than a bullet so you are more likly to hit your target also you would not need to worry about bullet drop/wind when firing with lasguns.

Just my two pence.

IIRC, most lasers are ether diodes or gas tubes that dictate what wave lengths it emits so i don't think its possible to change it unless you switch out the enter "firing mech" at least with modern day tech. (but what am i a laser technician? lol(im not but iv dabbled)

Another pro for the lasgun is with potential training time.
from what i understand there is no recoil so a guardsman only needs to point and shoot.

Oh no, we have tunable lasers now...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunable_laser

Lasgun fluff differs a lot between sources, especially where details such as the colour of their beam is concerned or what you can do with them. Something that almost all sources can agree on, however, is the logistics advantage, which is extremely important for an army as vast as the Imperial Guard, with regiments operating many light years from the world where they were originally raised and where they received their equipment.

Even where you have an industry in place, the lack of standardisation across Imperial culture means that bullets will be all sorts of shaped and calibers. However, most Imperial worlds have some sort of energy production, which means the Tech-Adepts merely need to find a way to bridge the gap between the local generatorium and the army's recharge stations ("This looks like an old M36 Tesla-pattern socket. Adept Frenk, fetch me the Mark VI adapter!").

An autogun in comparison is almost like a showpiece or collector's item. Sure, it may use special ammunition and make that nice "dakkadakka" sound that will make people really notice you, but if you ever run out of a steady supply you're going to have a really bad time as that fancy Alcher Mk II Justicar autocarbine suddenly turns into an expensive metal club. Plus, lasguns chargepacks tend to hold more shots than an autogun magazine holds bullets, and some few patterns of lasguns like the fabled Triplex even have a charge slider where you can turn up damage-per-shot with nothing but a simple flick of your finger.

Regarding the effects of las rounds on flesh, the 6E 40k rulebook addendum has an interesting piece of fluff that makes lasgun wounds sound like a real nasty thing.

For some more info from studio sources, here are some PDFs for Inquisitor and Necromunda from GW's website, including short descriptions and stats of las- and autoweapons:
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2350169a_m1320029_Inq_Rulebook_part_1.pdf
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2360785a_m1330042_Necromunda_Rulebook.pdf

All makes sense. I'm liking the input.

One thing I cannot make my mind up on is recoil. Would a las-weapon have any? I mean, you're shooting light, even if its practicals are coherent it's still light. There's no resistance to anything to produce recoil; unless the generation of a coherent light beam generates a slight push, maybe. Even then, though, it's probably recoil likened to a convention rifle chambered for 5.56x45mm... hardly noticeable.

Tower75 wrote:One thing I cannot make my mind up on is recoil. Would a las-weapon have any? I mean, you're shooting light, even if its practicals are coherent it's still light. There's no resistance to anything to produce recoil; unless the generation of a coherent light beam generates a slight push, maybe.

I think only a few Black Library books have ever mentioned las weapon recoil - but the slight push you mentioned already delivers a possible answer. Heat makes stuff expand, and this includes the air inside the barrel, whose only way out is to the front.

Well, In my opinion, there are a few reasons.

1. The ever present ammo situation. There are trillions of guardsmen out there. And the materials to make bullet's, are not in abundance, as they have ot be used to cater for everything in the imperium. Trillions of guardsmen, would mean trillions upon trillions of bullet's being produced, and if that can be avoided by giving them rechargable, even solar rechargable guns, it means that guardsmen can be outfitted cheaply, and more reliably, they need far fewer supplies.

2. Guardsmen, are treated worse, than modern day soldiers. Most modern day soldiers, are outfitted fairly well, with appropriate gear and such. But the imperium knows well, that guardsmen's real strength, lies in their numbers, not their weaponry.

3. Simplicity. A lasgun, has no recoil, so while yes, it needs to hit a precise target to wound, there is no recoil to throw off a shot.

4. It's not just guns, that has advanced in the 41st milinnium. Armour, plays a huge part, and most armour in the universe at large at this time, is immune to the kind's of bullet's that a guardsman, could effectively use. Even guardsman armour, could stand up to a modern day assault rifle, and without the peircing power of a lasgun, a ballistic assault rifle, would have almnost certainly no effect against enemies with any form of modern armour (So, anything but orks, maybe tyranids) I mean, think about it, a bolter is less an assault rifle, and more a miniature repeating rocket launcher, bolter rounds are huge, and explode on contact, because that's what you need to get through armour in this age. That, or a laser.

5. Laser weapons, in our own timeline, while inefficient, and unable to be miniaturised, have a range, of miles. A laser loses very little energy in transit like a bullet will. However, we know for a fact, that lasguns, have limited range. I suggest, therefore, that perhaps, the lasgun's "Beam" actually widens the further it travels, so at it's ideal range (24 inches tabletop, not sure what that equates to truescale) I imagine the beam would make a hole between the size of an apple, and a cd, in the enemy, and beyond that range, the shot is too weak, and will merely leave a large burnmark on armour. Even if it cauterizes, if that shot gets through, you would be boned.


A lot of this is theory and speculation, but that's how I imagine it myself.

the backstory for lasguns? wow...

I'm going to address the issue of cauterisation. I'm a nurse on laser eye surgery teams, and the lasers we use do not cauterise. They vaporise, there is no thermal damage to surrounding tissue. Hence no cauterisation, just full of holes.

At a lower level of intensity lasers can caue immense thermal damage, but then it itself would not matter if it cauterised or not, its the severe thermal damage that debilitates.

There is an additional argument that a ballistic laser would not cauterize a wound but would, instead, super-heat the water in the surrounding tissue, causing it to blow out in bloody, steaming chunks, thus increasing wound-shock and lethality of the injury.

As far as recoil goes... depends on who you're reading. Many BL novels (notably Gaunt's Ghosts) depict the soldiers firing lasguns having to compensate for recoil, both the hotshot sniper rifles and the standard line rifle. In both cases, the recoil is fairly stiff. Larkin (unit sniper in GG) bruises his shoulder with his hotshot rifle once or twice, and a civilian child who seizes a fallen soldier's lasgun is nearly knocked over when he fires it. The latter is partially due to improper holding of the weapon... but, still, you can fire an M16 one-handed without too much difficulty, less so the lasgun.

Maintenance of the weapon is also much simpler. Clean the lens, clear the barrel of carbon scoring, keep the trigger and/or firing stud free of debris and you're good to go. Put a light coat of oil on the metal externals to ward away rust, say a prayer to the Emperor, and you're done. Fewer parts to lose and fewer parts to fail in the field. Plus, if a part of the lasgun should fail, another rifle from your unit is readily to hand, just take it from that dead soldier's weapon, he's not using it any more. Of course, you will probably need battalion-level support (ie, Techpriests) to install it... but that's no different than a slug-thrower.

Psienesis wrote:Larkin (unit sniper in GG) bruises his shoulder with his hotshot rifle once or twice, and a civilian child who seizes a fallen soldier's lasgun is nearly knocked over when he fires it. The latter is partially due to improper holding of the weapon... but, still, you can fire an M16 one-handed without too much difficulty, less so the lasgun.

Okay, that's just ...

Lack of consistency is one thing, but I'd really like to know what the author was thinking when he came up with that idea. A little bit of science in science-fiction is not a bad thing!

the lasgun is designed with a recoil replicator, to make soldiers respect the weapon, and not shoot it from inproper places, it uses half of the weapon individual shot power but is worth it to look cool.

 Tower75 wrote:

One thing I cannot make my mind up on is recoil. Would a las-weapon have any? I mean, you're shooting light, even if its practicals are coherent it's still light. There's no resistance to anything to produce recoil; unless the generation of a coherent light beam generates a slight push, maybe. Even then, though, it's probably recoil likened to a convention rifle chambered for 5.56x45mm... hardly noticeable.

We have lasers right now based upon using compressed gas as part of the firing process. Wikipedia cites using a combustion chamber in at least one. Given this, I do not find recoil that hard to believe.

Also note the references in that page: United States Patent 4099142 : Condensed explosive gas dynamic laser.

That gets me excited. Not in the naughty way though.

Well, maybe in the naughty way.

I remember reading some were that Lasguns weren't introduced until some time after the HH.

 daedalus wrote:
Also note the references in that page: United States Patent 4099142 : Condensed explosive gas dynamic laser.

That gets me excited. Not in the naughty way though.

Well, maybe in the naughty way.

I'd hate to see that clean up, something tells me Kleenex just won't cut it

The lasgun is actually probably the perfect weapon for the IG who frequently are sent to act as an anvil for up to a 1000 years until space marine chapters can be mobilized. It is not uncommon for an IG regiment to be left in a constant warfare state and then forgotten while the high lords of terra lose the paper work.

This brings the lasgun whose outer shell can be made of anything from plastic to metal(no need for any strength to funnel force in the barrel as the energy is funneled through optics). The entire gun has 1 moving part(trigger) and a clip. With the entire necessary maintenance would be cleaning the lens and the clip slide. Not to mention the recharge issue which when looked at for IG would equate out to 1 000 000 guardsmen per planetary conflict shooting 30+ bullets per min year round with a supply train that could get redirected by the warp. Notice that spaz marines bring their production facilities with them. IG could probably use an entire planets mass across the iom with a single year of fighting.

The Lasgun is the 40k AK-47 cheap, reliable, and stupid simple, but accurate

Can't really call its ammo system a clip, or a mag, its more of a rechargeable battery, so Cell would be a better term, and a awesome way to support troops in the field, be funny to model some astartes that have been on campaign away from standard supplies to be using lasguns .

One of the few actually high tech / low tech solutions I enjoyed about 40k weaponry.

Watch Star Wars, laser weapons kill easily, leave no hole and do not explode. Magic!

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Watch Star Wars, laser weapons kill easily, leave no hole and do not explode. Magic!

I see plenty of explosions in star wars, particularly when blaster bolts hit something.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Watch Star Wars, laser weapons kill easily, leave no hole and do not explode. Magic!

I see plenty of explosions in star wars, particularly when blaster bolts hit something.

He is right. they explode. And I have always Imaged that the DKoK lasguns shoot green lasers.