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Like how Bolter weapons are based around the Gyrojet experimental weapons, would it be possible for autoguns to be mass produced caseless ammunition weapons? In another thread, I talked about how the Imperium might handle heat dissipation with heavy machine guns like the Heavy Bolter, and we came to the conclusion that the majority of the HB frame stored a sophisticated cooling system.

Autoguns are highly advanced solid ammunition weapons in the 41st Millennium, while Stubbers represent what humans use pretty much right now in modern day. Caseless ammunition allows guns to carry more rounds, and fire at a much higher rate, albeit with major overheating for sustained fire. If we agree that the Heavy bolter can use a cooling system built in, is it much of a stretch to say the same for an Autogun? It might explain why they aren't widely issued.

In the Eisenhorn (or was it Ravenor...) Book/s I recall someone using a machine pistol type weapon that used caseless ammo...

Certainly there could be mass-produced caseless autorifles - I can think of no good reason why this should not be the case, and since this is 40k, this almost makes it certain to exist on somewhere. That being said, the reason for the wide distribution of las weapons in GW's material was never overheating issues of autoguns, but rather that they require ammunition at all, and are somewhat more difficult to operate than a lasgun which you could literally teach a caveman to shoot with by simply telling him "point this towards enemy, then pull here".
Although less easier to repair, lasguns are more reliable overall, so that the shooter does not even need to be trained in basic gun maintenance. Plus, las weapon charge packs can be recharged at portable generators producing energy from local resources, whereas any sort of bullets would need to be shipped in from some industrialised world elsewhere - this is just not practical for the Imperial Guard, when it's a small wonder that (almost) every trooper even gets his lasgun.

Autoweapons are popular at places where ammunition is easy to come by - but this usually isn't the case in a warzone.

"After las weapons, bullet or shell-firing weapons are the most popular sidearm of choice amongst Imperial servants and outlaws alike. Some put up with the higher cost of ammunition and maintenance difficulties for the psychological effect caused by the roar of battle they make when fired!"
- Inquisitor RPG

"Laser technology is reliable and easy to replicate, and although the weapons are not the most powerful they are certainly the most trustworthy. A laser power pack will last for many shots and can be recharged from a standard power source or by exposing its thermal cells to heat or light. In an emergency, a pack can be recharged by placing it in a fire, although such treatment tends to shorten the life of the pack and increase the probability of it failing. Many experienced fighters prefer the lasgun over more powerful weapons for these very reasons."
- Necromunda

 Dark Apostle 666 wrote:
In the Eisenhorn (or was it Ravenor...) Book/s I recall someone using a machine pistol type weapon that used caseless ammo...

Was it the pilot & then subsequently his daughter?

EDIT

Midas & Medea Bentancore

I seem to remember they Betancores used needle weapons, but it may have been them.
I think it was in Ravenor actually - either Patience or Kara, though I'm a bit fuzzy on details, and I can't check because I didn't bring the book to Uni with me...

Slug-throwing weapons exist in a dizzying array of patterns and models throughout the Imperium. Moreso, probably, than las-weapons, simply because of the fact that it requires a lower tech-base to produce a slug-thrower than it does a lasweapon.

There is probably as many caseless-ammuntion-using firearms in the Imperium as there are standard cased-round firearms. The advantage of caseless ammunition is fewer moving parts in the weapon, lighter ammunition weight, and the weapon is almost completely sealed against the elements. Downside is, a caseless round doesn't have the shelf-life of a cased round, and cannot be hand-loaded. Once the magazine is empty, it's disposable.

Autoguns, in fact most autoweaponry, tends to use caseless ammunition. I can't recall the source but pretty sure that's already been stated in 40k several times.

They've said it several times, but a lot of the art indicates brass flying out every which way and smoking ejection ports.

Hell, bolters were caseless at one point, by text, but have never been depicted as such in art in any way, shape or form.

First mention of Autoguns being Caseless is in Rogue Trader.

Oh, I know. Hasn't prevented the art from depicting them with ejection ports, though. I believe this to be because, when it was written, "caseless ammunition" was the hot new thing for firearms, and became something of a buzzword in military fiction and cyberpunk/sci-fi fiction. GW probably just glommed onto it because it sounds cool.

There's a picture of an autogun with no ejection port in the Wargear book.

But as I said, no reason not to have both kinds of guns exist. Given the tech-range of Imperial worlds, there's quite likely some where they're still building flintlocks.

 Lynata wrote:
There's a picture of an autogun with no ejection port in the Wargear book.

But as I said, no reason not to have both kinds of guns exist. Given the tech-range of Imperial worlds, there's quite likely some where they're still building flintlocks.

Heh, funny thing. You can actually have flintlocks in dark heresy. Imperial Guard player characters can take one as a starting weapon, iirc.

There are even laslocks... you feed a cell down the barrel, pack it in with a rod, squeeze the firing stud, and launch a single lasbolt downrange.

Rinse. Repeat.

I've adapted the idea for a PDF/IG force in my DH campaign known as the Thracian Militia. Their uniforms, wargear and tactics are based on the U.S. Civil War. In my game, though, Blue and Grey have joined forces to retake their agrarian lands from the Iron Priests, who are an expansionist sect of the Machine Cult.

It seems there are different theories as to what a laslock is. I personally like to think of them being akin to a Martini-Henry breech-loading rifle or perhaps a bolt-action Long Lee-Metford. With the former you'd drop the trigger guard to eject a spent cell, insert a fresh cell, pull up the guard, aim and fire. In the latter you'd insert X number of cells into the magazine and manipulate the bolt to feed them into the 'barrel' & eject spent cells.

However I had a mosey around before writing this reply and I came across some interesting ideas. One of these was a weapon where the black powder charge is 'sparked' by the las cell. I can see that working for your ACW DH campaign Psienesis, especially as you could intermingle it with a 'Sharps' type laslock carbine where it's a mixture of breech-loading, blackpowder & lascells.

That's the fun thing about these supremely odd-ball mashups of high tech and archaic weaponry. They almost never describe how they actually work, they just give you a stats-block, and maybe a picture, that you have to interpret into some series of actions that would permit someone to turn it into a potentially-deadly weapon.

"It fire the whole bullet. that's 65% more bullet per bullet!"

IIRC Auto cannons also use case less ammo yet every dread base has cases below it

I suppose spent shell casings is another one of those things that looks 'awesome', plus in the art work it gives a sense that the weapon is being fired on automatic.

Psienesis: I thoroughly agree, there are so many ways you could take laslocks. I really like the idea of a matchlock but replacing the slow-match with the las on the end of the serpentine (as per that idea I came across). Just makes me think of doing an ECW style Guard regiment.

As it currently stands, I have my Thracian Militiamen carrying leather satchels that contain 50 to 60 lascell slugs, like a C-Cell battery, that they have to shove down the barrel of the rifle with a steel rod, until it stops against the "ignition pins". These are just steel pins that the slug rests against, and a squeeze of the trigger spins a dynamo inside the weapon, which channels an electrical spark through the pins into the las-cell. This causes it to disintegrate and expel the las-charge down range, along with a massive cloud of smoke as the cell casing combusts.

Actually possible? Haha, of course not. But it sounds good, and has great visuals.

I do like autoguns. I think they usually go for a case of ammo but I could probably see it like an ork shoota or even like one of those old rifle weapons from world war II that had like 5-6 bullets stuck together or something and just got loaded into the top. At least I think that's how it went.

Far as lasguns go I think it'd be nice if we could get that double lasgun they showed in the 5th edition rulebook. I think it was twin-linked. Now THAT would've been nice to have. A lot of other armies have twin-linked weapons. Though I suppose it's usually on vehicles.

 Psienesis wrote:
As it currently stands, I have my Thracian Militiamen carrying leather satchels that contain 50 to 60 lascell slugs, like a C-Cell battery, that they have to shove down the barrel of the rifle with a steel rod, until it stops against the "ignition pins". These are just steel pins that the slug rests against, and a squeeze of the trigger spins a dynamo inside the weapon, which channels an electrical spark through the pins into the las-cell. This causes it to disintegrate and expel the las-charge down range, along with a massive cloud of smoke as the cell casing combusts.

Actually possible? Haha, of course not. But it sounds good, and has great visuals.

Those actually are established in lore, aka Laslocks

EDIT: On topic, I think caseless ammunition would be used, but due to ease of production of cased munitions they are undoubtedly more widely used. (heck if a drunk redneck can reload in his garage it says something about simplicity)

Psienesis wrote: leather satchels that contain 50 to 60 lascell slugs, like a C-Cell battery

Yes, reading about those "lascell slugs", this image popped into my mind:I love how this still looks close to "normal" ammunition, it just ... isn't. In a way, this is deliciously 40k.

And now I think there should be a revolver firing those. 40k Wild Western Fringe? It'd make for a ton of adventures, I tell ya!

"The Good, The Bad, and the Mutant", "A Fistful of Scrip", "They Died With Their Greaves On", "Forty Lasguns", ...

Psienesis wrote:Actually possible? Haha, of course not. But it sounds good, and has great visuals.

That's the important bits.

Fortunately I had it a bit easier with my Horatio-pattern boarding pistol - I can just blame the propellant.
I did spend some thought on how to work caseless rounds into a revolver drum, though!

Desubot wrote:IIRC Auto cannons also use case less ammo yet every dread base has cases below it

Technically, that is in line with the description from the 3E core rulebook:

"Assault cannons fire a fixed cartridge round, a dense metallic core covered in a non-metallic composite sheath with a diamantine tip. This gives good armour penetration and stable flight ballistics at short ranges and keeps the rounds small, so that more ammunition can be carried."

I would think that, because of the shorter shelf life of the ammo, caseless ammunition would only be used by PDF units. And the ammo would be locally produced.

Any formal military forces wouldn't use caseless ammo because, as material could take potentially years to reach the warzone it would eventually be used in it would be a waste of resources to make a short lived ammo like a caseless round.

Bolters also haven't been caseless since Rogue Trader. Its been pretty much retconned away.

 Lynata wrote:
There's a picture of an autogun with no ejection port in the Wargear book.

But as I said, no reason not to have both kinds of guns exist. Given the tech-range of Imperial worlds, there's quite likely some where they're still building flintlocks.

Being caseless does not preclude it from ever needing an ejector port.

As I've stated several times, EVEN the H&K G-11 had an ejector port (best know real-world caseless assault rifle). It was caseless. It also had a tendency to foul the feeder and jam rounds (The rounds were perpendicular to the feed, and would be physically rotated by a revolving mechanism in the gun ). This port is the only way of clearing a dud round without disassembly of the weapon.

The fault was partially in the ammo and partially in the rotator mechanism. The P90 (which is a CASED weapon) also loads ammo perpendicular to the barrel, but the rotator mechanism is built into the feed lips of each magazine. If you get a jam, there, you eject the mag and replace it.

chromedog wrote:Being caseless does not preclude it from ever needing an ejector port.

Maybe it does in 40k. Or maybe bad rounds would be ejected not through a port as we would nowadays consider it standard but in a different manner, such as by breaking open the rifle like a breech-loader.

All I'm saying is that contrary to popular belief, portless weapons were featured in 40k Codex art.

Grey Templar wrote:Any formal military forces wouldn't use caseless ammo [...]

Pff, you say that as if PDF couldn't be formal as well...

Poor wording. I should have just said IG.

Ah - no big deal. I just noticed a lot of people thinking all PDF sucks, when there's likely quite a number of units that are "better" than some of the ... less advanced Guard regiments.
An unfair reputation that deserves to be debated!

The Munitorum issued caseless ammo for autoguns, the PDF tried to respond and were killed to a man!

 Wardragoon wrote:
Those actually are established in lore, aka Laslocks

That's what we were discussing.

 Psienesis wrote:
As it currently stands, I have my Thracian Militiamen carrying leather satchels that contain 50 to 60 lascell slugs, like a C-Cell battery, that they have to shove down the barrel of the rifle with a steel rod, until it stops against the "ignition pins". These are just steel pins that the slug rests against, and a squeeze of the trigger spins a dynamo inside the weapon, which channels an electrical spark through the pins into the las-cell. This causes it to disintegrate and expel the las-charge down range, along with a massive cloud of smoke as the cell casing combusts.

Actually possible? Haha, of course not. But it sounds good, and has great visuals.

Absolutely love that idea.

 Wardragoon wrote:

EDIT: On topic, I think caseless ammunition would be used, but due to ease of production of cased munitions they are undoubtedly more widely used. (heck if a drunk redneck can reload in his garage it says something about simplicity)

Given the right liquid precursors, caseless ammunition would be just as easy to hand-cast as cased rounds are to assemble. Its not like the aforementioned rednecks make their own cordite.

Also while modern caseless rounds might suffer from issues of shelf-life, future-tech magical materials science could easily be used to explain stable caseless rounds.

 Psienesis wrote:
As it currently stands, I have my Thracian Militiamen carrying leather satchels that contain 50 to 60 lascell slugs, like a C-Cell battery, that they have to shove down the barrel of the rifle with a steel rod, until it stops against the "ignition pins". These are just steel pins that the slug rests against, and a squeeze of the trigger spins a dynamo inside the weapon, which channels an electrical spark through the pins into the las-cell. This causes it to disintegrate and expel the las-charge down range, along with a massive cloud of smoke as the cell casing combusts.

Actually possible? Haha, of course not. But it sounds good, and has great visuals.

Old School line infantry, whats not to love?