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 Lynata wrote:

The out-of-universe reason would likely be that the chargepack design as we know and see it everywhere nowadays just didn't exist before the Cadian-style rifle.

Goin' further than Psienesis said - in RW i have perfecty good Sanyo AA-standart accumulators which just won't fit in my xbox gamepad. So tolerances ARE of importance.
Can you imagine what it'll be like after 10000+ years after standart creation to check million manufacturers that (+-0.1 mm) tolerances on their products are adding up right way with toleranes in products of other origins? Not to mention that original socket rim material was , say, soft rubber-like plastic (for seal), and now it's steel or ceramics. And this is before differences in tools and available materials took their toll on size and form of cell itself.
I mean - probably most of these cells will fit original Mars-kept design, but...those are literally waterdrop in the ocean.
And things like "Won't fit? File it!" are heresy even if you understand it correctly

Assuming that chargepacks are not a Standard Design Template constructs (which are even older than Mars), you'd probably be right.
I still don't see why this should be the case, though - why batteries need to be different everywhere, when Rhinos or Chimaeras are not. Shouldn't it be more likely that things get different the larger you go in terms of size and parts count, rather than the other way around?

Or are you argueing that these differences may have crept into the system after the local adoption of STC templates? I suppose that sounds more likely, though the Munitorum might well issue a decree for sticking to original specs, just like they banned local vehicle variants from use in the Guard due to incompatibility of spare parts.

Ah well. Theories! \o/

If anything I'd expect the Ad Mech to be extremely anal about design specifications and tolerances.

In that picture provided, there's at least 2 variants of power-cells depicted. A thinner, cylindrical one (Lucius, Galaxy and Voss) and a wider, boxy one (Accatran, Kantrael, and Mars).

I believe that line in the furniture, forward of the trigger on the Triplex, is its magazine well, and it slots one of the wider, boxy cells there, but I'd have to find some of the other pictures of the Triplex-pattern to be sure.

I'm fairly sure there are no pictures of the Triplex-pattern, at least as far as GW is concerned. The only places I've seen that weapon mentioned were the Inquisitor RPG and the 5E Guard Codex, both times without images.

Generally, I'd caution against argueing over fanmade pictures.


As you can see, perfectly identical chargepacks - at least as far as the minis are concerned.

True, the Vostroyans and Steel Legion also appear to match what I'm assuming are the Cadian and Catachan chargepacks. The Mordian Iron Guard, Tallarn and Valhallans don't have any visible chargepack at all though- which neither proves nor disproves standardisation. As Psienesis said, there must be a magazine well somewhere, which could hold the same pack or a different one.

I just struggle to see how they'd manage to standardise ammo across an entire galaxy with older marks of lasgun or lasguns that are outright unique to a world.

The other thing to consider the bolter- while many of the old ones CSM have are belt-fed, all of the SM ones are clip-fed. This shows that the Imperium has changed its weapons in the past- although bolters are a SM thing, and possibly warrant different treatment to lasguns. Three cheers for wild speculation...

Well, Chaos has its own Forges, who are not bound by the strictures of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and so *should* be permitted to have more, and more-varied, equipment than the Loyalists... but, eh, they don't.

I think I recall reading that most CSM Warbands don't have a firm base, or at least none with much in terms of production capabilities, causing them to raid Imperial supply depots for ammunition and other necessities. I could see them using bastardised or jury-rigged gear, attempting to combine contemporary Imperial supplies with whatever the Legion had when it went rogue.

True, there's the Dark Mechanicus with whom they could barter, but I would think that most Warbands would prefer to refrain from deals with them as much as possible so as to not become dependent on them, or being forced to pay whatever that other Chaos faction feels like demanding that day...

Zed wrote:I just struggle to see how they'd manage to standardise ammo across an entire galaxy with older marks of lasgun or lasguns that are outright unique to a world.

Well, if chargepacks are an STC design they ought to look the same on any world that produces them, even before it would be integrated into the Imperium. STC factories are a Pre-Imperial thing, after all, used to supply human colonies in the entire galaxy with useful stuff like the RH1-N0 tracked exploration vehicle, aka Rhino APC.

But that really hinges on my theory that chargepacks ARE part of an STC template...

 Lynata wrote:

STC factories are a Pre-Imperial thing, after all, used to supply human colonies in the entire galaxy with useful stuff like the RH1-N0 tracked exploration vehicle, aka Rhino APC.

But that really hinges on my theory that chargepacks ARE part of an STC template...

AFAIR even in Crusade era STC _factories_ were myth . Most of current simple STC items are done by STC schematics, often incomplete, interpolated for missing things, with lot of errors accumulated over millennia of copying, on only basically similar equipment.

So yes, basic schematics are same, but in RW check any cheap "compatible" product like cellphone batteries - and you see that while "compatible" battery will fit original phone and brand named battery will fit third-party device (say eBook), there's no guarantee that "compatible" battery will fit said eBook. And unlike RW, in M40 you are really too afraid and ignorant to use your file or modeling knife.

Another RW example - year 1942, Battle for Moscow. Suddenly it was found that tank turrets on T-34s had so different electrical equipment that repair crews in the field couldn't put turret of one manufacturer on the hull of another.

BTW, T-34-76s can be taken as approximation of how STC vehicles can differ - 2+1 equal but different guns,at least 3 technologies of hull production, more than 4 technologies of turret production, 3 different engines - not to mention lesser things like 'scopes, hatches, tracks, ventilators etc - whatever was available was put to use, and it took special efforts to make compatible by parts again - and this tank was produced only at 8 sites.

 Zed wrote:

The other thing to consider the bolter- while many of the old ones CSM have are belt-fed, all of the SM ones are clip-fed.

Except for this one

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440271a&prodId=prod1600044a

the real question is how the heck does a vertical belt-feed work?

A belt fed MG can, and probably must, have some kind of ratchet mechanism to pull the ammo through.

Check out the link below to see that its possible

http://db.tt/1ihgrI3ghttp://www.hkpro.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32:the-hk21e&catid=12:the-machine-guns&Itemid=5

 Lynata wrote:
I think I recall reading that most CSM Warbands don't have a firm base, or at least none with much in terms of production capabilities, causing them to raid Imperial supply depots for ammunition and other necessities. I could see them using bastardised or jury-rigged gear, attempting to combine contemporary Imperial supplies with whatever the Legion had when it went rogue.

True, there's the Dark Mechanicus with whom they could barter, but I would think that most Warbands would prefer to refrain from deals with them as much as possible so as to not become dependent on them, or being forced to pay whatever that other Chaos faction feels like demanding that day...

They raid for supplies because even though they have the Dark Mechanicus, they only inhabit a small portion of space and thus only have a small amount of raw resources. They raid, bring back martierals to the Dark Mech who then fashions it into more exotic weaponry.

They also raid because it is there. Raiding an imerial forge or supply world is relatively easy and not only strengthens your warband but it weakens the enemy.