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.

 Stormonu wrote:
Marines use bolters because when one shell hits a target, it not only takes it out, but the five nearby men surrounding it when it explodes. That's why there's like only 5 shells in a bolter magazine.

The lasgun just burns the target, but can shoot all day.

Some (very) old lore:

Boltgun carries 15 rounds, + 1 in chamber.
Lasgun carries 1 power pack, with charges for 50 standard shots.

I think they changed some of this but I haven't been keeping up.

 Kcalehc wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Marines use bolters because when one shell hits a target, it not only takes it out, but the five nearby men surrounding it when it explodes. That's why there's like only 5 shells in a bolter magazine.

The lasgun just burns the target, but can shoot all day.

Some (very) old lore:

Boltgun carries 15 rounds, + 1 in chamber.
Lasgun carries 1 power pack, with charges for 50 standard shots.

I think they changed some of this but I haven't been keeping up.

In Space Marines (you know that blatantly over bloody treasure don't you?) they had 30 rounds if I recall correctly

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

 Kcalehc wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Boltgun carries 15 rounds, + 1 in chamber.
Lasgun carries 1 power pack, with charges for 50 standard shots.

I think they changed some of this but I haven't been keeping up.

In Space Marines (you know that blatantly over bloody treasure don't you?) they had 30 rounds if I recall correctly

It heavily depends on writer and situation, some mags has 15 some has 30 depending on situation.

Like in Vietnam they at some point had 15 mags since it allowed them to easier lay on the jungle floor and maneuver, where a 30 mag would get stuck all the time.
In urban combat they had 30 mags.

That’s just incorrect. Original M16 mags held 20 rounds and were under loaded by a few rounds to avoid jams, the capacity being based off the M14 it was replacing. The 30 round mags for the M16 were developed later as troops wanted to match the capacity of the enemy’s AKs. Nowt to do with crawling about the place.

Boltguns reflect many different patterns of Boltguns. It's possible some are 5, some are 50.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
As above - lasguns are logistically far more robust and require less maintainance that bolters do. Guardsmen require as little logistical strain as possible, so lasguns work best. Although, as said above, giving Space Marines a las weapon of some kind to hook up to their backpack power generator would be a good move - a hotshot laspistol, perhaps.

See, it's exactly backwards. IG is more 'static' army, they have better access to supply train. For them, ammo resupply shouldn't be a big problem. Space Marines, though, are constantly on the move, designed to operate for days if not weeks cut off from friendly positions. From that perspective, they sure as hell should be as independent from the supply lines as possible. Why they don't replace bolters with hellguns and volley guns, and heavy bolters with multilasers to have gear that won't run out of ammo after a few minutes, especially against orks or tyranids, I have no idea. They already have lascannons, going to light, reliable weapons with no moving parts and little maintenance needs looks like such a no-brainer it's really ridiculous even HH minis (that give SM dozens of bizarre, impractical weapons) didn't introduce SM las weaponry yet...

Although that sorta happened now that I think about it - HH blackshields can take las weapons because finally one of the writers stopped to think for a second and realized people with zero logistical train do need something that will work despite that. Pity the las weapons they can take are really garbage ones though, even HH militia has better options

w1zard wrote:
Because a bolter is more devastating than a lasgun.

A bolter fires a .75 caliber (19.05mm) armor piercing rocket that explodes inside of you with the force of a modern day 40mm grenade. Compare that to a lasgun which has the stopping power of a modern day ballistic assault rifle, even if it is more accurate.

A lasgun is more accurate than a bolter but a bolter is basically a fully automatic armor-piercing RPG gun.

Except it's wrong. Lasgun is vastly stronger gun than modern assault rifles. They are described as cutting off limbs and explosively vaporizing liters of fluid in hit target, when standard NATO bullet would just make small hole in the hit location allowing enemy combatant to fight on. Lasgun has a pretty good chance of killing an ork, something that would just be tickled by 5.56 mm.

And while bolter is stronger than lasgun, sure, hellgun/hotshot have about same stopping power with much better armour penetration, while tempestus volley gun, something about the same size as bolter, just laughs at it being vastly better in every possible category, firepower, rate of fire, penetration - it's really dumb no SM looked at them and asked 'hey, why we can't try these?'

 JohnnyHell wrote:
That’s just incorrect. Original M16 mags held 20 rounds and were under loaded by a few rounds to avoid jams, the capacity being based off the M14 it was replacing. The 30 round mags for the M16 were developed later as troops wanted to match the capacity of the enemy’s AKs. Nowt to do with crawling about the place.

Maybe I remember wrong it may be 20 as you say, but I doubt you have actually fired a M16 in military situations, like being on your belly, then you can't aim properly with a 30 mag, since it will be too high and you can't lean up that high, so a shorter mag is way better.

They're also designed for different things. Modern munitions are designed to wound and cripple, not kill. Because a wounded soldier costs a modern adversary more, tactically speaking, than a killed soldier. Not so much in 40k - nobody cares that Bob can be saved. So a wound is no more valuable than a kill.

Bharring wrote:
They're also designed for different things. Modern munitions are designed to wound and cripple, not kill. Because a wounded soldier costs a modern adversary more, tactically speaking, than a killed soldier. Not so much in 40k - nobody cares that Bob can be saved. So a wound is no more valuable than a kill.

That's an urban legend. Think for a second, what hospitals say ISIS or Talib fighters have? What use is wounding one when he is still a threat to your soldiers and you don't want for them to end up in coffins? If it was possible to develop ammunition that reliably kills instead of wounding, you can be sure USA would have deployed it in the middle east long ago. Alas, it's just structural issue with small caliber guns having garbage stopping power. No amount of tinkering will make tiny bullet that easily loses energy in the air and does little damage much more lethal, unless you start tinkering with forbidden kinds of ammunition.

Maybe I remember wrong it may be 20 as you say, but I doubt you have actually fired a M16 in military situations, like being on your belly, then you can't aim properly with a 30 mag, since it will be too high and you can't lean up that high, so a shorter mag is way better.

Seeing it's perfectly possible to do with 30 mag in AK, unless M16 has way worse design, I don't see how it would be an issue with it either:

 Irbis wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
As above - lasguns are logistically far more robust and require less maintainance that bolters do. Guardsmen require as little logistical strain as possible, so lasguns work best. Although, as said above, giving Space Marines a las weapon of some kind to hook up to their backpack power generator would be a good move - a hotshot laspistol, perhaps.

See, it's exactly backwards. IG is more 'static' army, they have better access to supply train. For them, ammo resupply shouldn't be a big problem. Space Marines, though, are constantly on the move, designed to operate for days if not weeks cut off from friendly positions. From that perspective, they sure as hell should be as independent from the supply lines as possible.

No, I think you're missing the point.

Guardsmen are ALREADY logistically strained. The sheer effort of food, water, equipment, and actually MOVING the men is gargantuan. Adding in having to supply and train them to use these temperamental, expensive, and heavy weapons is unnecessary strain on the system. The lasgun is designed because it can be cheap, robust, and needs less effort to supply than a bolter (which would vastly overtax the supply system). Conversely, Space Marines don't often (but there are exceptions) operate for long period of time, but when they do, they carry all equipment on them, which they can afford to do because they have the durability to protect those items. Guardsmen cannot - a Guardsman only carries a token handful of things into battle, and very few reloads (typically). A Space Marine doesn't need to worry about how many magazines he has, because he can carry far more.

Space Marines aren't always independent from supply lines. They CAN operate for longer, but they don't, unless gak has REALLY hit the fan, or it has been planned for, and as such will carry more equipment. A lot of the time, they will operate in short, sharp strike - not an extended one.

Why they don't replace bolters with hellguns and volley guns, and heavy bolters with multilasers to have gear that won't run out of ammo after a few minutes, especially against orks or tyranids, I have no idea. They already have lascannons, going to light, reliable weapons with no moving parts and little maintenance needs looks like such a no-brainer it's really ridiculous even HH minis (that give SM dozens of bizarre, impractical weapons) didn't introduce SM las weaponry yet...

Bolters won't run out of ammo after a few minutes because of bolters' AoE damage dealing with multiple targets, carrying lots of ammo on them, and also the fact that Astartes don't really operate away from supply all that often.

w1zard wrote:
Because a bolter is more devastating than a lasgun.

A bolter fires a .75 caliber (19.05mm) armor piercing rocket that explodes inside of you with the force of a modern day 40mm grenade. Compare that to a lasgun which has the stopping power of a modern day ballistic assault rifle, even if it is more accurate.

A lasgun is more accurate than a bolter but a bolter is basically a fully automatic armor-piercing RPG gun.

Except it's wrong. Lasgun is vastly stronger gun than modern assault rifles. They are described as cutting off limbs and explosively vaporizing liters of fluid in hit target, when standard NATO bullet would just make small hole in the hit location allowing enemy combatant to fight on. Lasgun has a pretty good chance of killing an ork, something that would just be tickled by 5.56 mm.

Lasguns seriously don't have a "good" chance. Lasguns can be good, and certainly better than any modern weapon against a human. But against Orks, their lasguns just aren't strong enough. I'd say you need three guardsmen shooting at an Ork boy to bring it down before it can cover ten metres running.

A bolter could bring one down in one, maybe two shots, because bolters have just that much MORE sheer strength, stopping power, armour penetration (against regular lasguns)

And while bolter is stronger than lasgun, sure, hellgun/hotshot have about same stopping power with much better armour penetration, while tempestus volley gun, something about the same size as bolter, just laughs at it being vastly better in every possible category, firepower, rate of fire, penetration - it's really dumb no SM looked at them and asked 'hey, why we can't try these?'

Maybe because the game mechanics aren't tied to the lore?

If bolters were as strong in game as in lore, then they'd be near fatal against anything not in power armour, and even power armoured units would struggle.

In Know No Fear, the disparity between Astartes grade weapons and human ones is shown. Against all the cultists and militia, the Ultramarines don't use their bolters, and let the Calth soldiers around them shoot them, but when Word Bearers show up, the Ultramarines open fire, because their bolters are the most effective thing against their power armour.

Even hotshot weapons, I don't think have the same sheer stopping power. They're more like your typical Star Wars lasers maybe, blasting through stormtrooper armour and all that, but they don't have the stopping power of a bolter. As for "why not fully arm them with volley guns" - why not fully arm them with plasma guns, if that's the case?

HexHammer wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
That’s just incorrect. Original M16 mags held 20 rounds and were under loaded by a few rounds to avoid jams, the capacity being based off the M14 it was replacing. The 30 round mags for the M16 were developed later as troops wanted to match the capacity of the enemy’s AKs. Nowt to do with crawling about the place.

Maybe I remember wrong it may be 20 as you say, but I doubt you have actually fired a M16 in military situations, like being on your belly, then you can't aim properly with a 30 mag, since it will be too high and you can't lean up that high, so a shorter mag is way better.

That's fething hogwash of the highest level, you gotta actually force yourself down to have the mag even hit the ground, some people prefer to use sandbangs or obstacles to stabilize their guns when they're prone, others prefer to have the mag rest of the ground.

 Irbis wrote:
Seeing it's perfectly possible to do with 30 mag in AK, unless M16 has way worse design, I don't see how it would be an issue with it either:

He's fireing at an elevated target, if it was a lower target he would have difficulties.

No, he would not.

 Bobthehero wrote:
No, he would not.

..sigh ...civilian professors!

 Irbis wrote:

Bharring wrote:
They're also designed for different things. Modern munitions are designed to wound and cripple, not kill. Because a wounded soldier costs a modern adversary more, tactically speaking, than a killed soldier. Not so much in 40k - nobody cares that Bob can be saved. So a wound is no more valuable than a kill.

That's an urban legend. Think for a second, what hospitals say ISIS or Talib fighters have? What use is wounding one when he is still a threat to your soldiers and you don't want for them to end up in coffins?

Your response to this assumption that I as well hold as true seems to say you forget that being wounded by a bullet IRL can get you crippled for life. You will not see very often an enemy rise to kill you after getting struck by a bullet: the pain as well as the sheer physical damages it produces makes it hardly believable. It's nit a video game my fellow french in Mali are involved in, for instance...

What is true on the other hand is that in the 40k universe no one cares about you, should you be killed or wounded. And taking down an orks, who by no means is a human, requires way, way more than our current bullets.

HexHammer wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
No, he would not.

..sigh ...civilian professors!

5 years in the infantry, never had issues with my mags getting in the way.

 Bobthehero wrote:

HexHammer wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
No, he would not.

..sigh ...civilian professors!

5 years in the infantry, never had issues with my mags getting in the way.

So, you have fought in jungle environment?

What's your point?

HexHammer wrote:

 Irbis wrote:
Seeing it's perfectly possible to do with 30 mag in AK, unless M16 has way worse design, I don't see how it would be an issue with it either:

He's fireing at an elevated target, if it was a lower target he would have difficulties.

But... all he would have to do is bring his elbows in slightly, thus raising the stock/levelling the barrel? Or am I missing something?

 Anfauglir wrote:
But... all he would have to do is bring his elbows in slightly, thus raising the stock/levelling the barrel? Or am I missing something?

So you haven't seen combat in an actual jungle, then you would have known:

1) ground is never perfectly plane and lvl as in the picture.

2) there are loads of vines, tall plants, branches etc etc that magazin can get stuck on.

3) if you had seen combat you would know ever split sec counts, having a long 30 mag hanging out of the rifle, it will slow you down just a little in such environment.

4) crawling on the jungle floor and maneuvering with short mags makes things lots easier!

The ground is usually soft in jungles, your mag is going to dug in, makes it even more easy to lay down.

Edit: Didn't the Vietcong carry AK-47's with 30 rounds mags? Jungle warfare's kind their thing and they didn't seem to mind having the mag sticking out.

 Bobthehero wrote:
The ground is usually soft in jungles, your mag is going to dug in, makes it even more easy to lay down.

Edit: Didn't the Vietcong carry AK-47's with 30 rounds mags? Jungle warfare's kind their thing and they didn't seem to mind having the mag sticking out.

How will you maneuver with a mag stuck in the ground?

I don't know enough about the AK to speak about it, but only the short mag to the M16.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
That’s just incorrect. Original M16 mags held 20 rounds and were under loaded by a few rounds to avoid jams, the capacity being based off the M14 it was replacing. The 30 round mags for the M16 were developed later as troops wanted to match the capacity of the enemy’s AKs. Nowt to do with crawling about the place.

This is correct.

 Irbis wrote:
Except it's wrong. Lasgun is vastly stronger gun than modern assault rifles. They are described as cutting off limbs and explosively vaporizing liters of fluid in hit target, when standard NATO bullet would just make small hole in the hit location allowing enemy combatant to fight on. Lasgun has a pretty good chance of killing an ork, something that would just be tickled by 5.56 mm.

And while bolter is stronger than lasgun, sure, hellgun/hotshot have about same stopping power with much better armour penetration, while tempestus volley gun, something about the same size as bolter, just laughs at it being vastly better in every possible category, firepower, rate of fire, penetration - it's really dumb no SM looked at them and asked 'hey, why we can't try these?'

You are aware that modern day assault rifles and battle rifles are fully capable of taking off limbs as well right?

Every depiction of lasguns in the lore I have ever seen has them performing analogous to modern day ballistic assault rifles except for being far more accurate and with a higher ammo capacity. Unaugmented humans regularly survive single lasgun hits if it is not in a vital area.

You could make an argument that a lasgun has more stopping power than say, an AKM and you may be right because we don't have hard numbers for an imaginary weapon. But, it is not so much more stopping power that it is particularly noteworthy as evidenced by its depictions in the lore.

HexHammer wrote:
How will you maneuver with a mag stuck in the ground?

I don't know enough about the AK to speak about it, but only the short mag to the M16.

I am not a veteran, but I do know that I'd much rather have 10 more bullets in my magazine during a firefight than have a slightly shorter magazine. 10 more bullets is going to make a lot more of a difference towards saving your life than not getting your magazine snagged on something occasionally.

HexHammer wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
The ground is usually soft in jungles, your mag is going to dug in, makes it even more easy to lay down.

Edit: Didn't the Vietcong carry AK-47's with 30 rounds mags? Jungle warfare's kind their thing and they didn't seem to mind having the mag sticking out.

How will you maneuver with a mag stuck in the ground?

I don't know enough about the AK to speak about it, but only the short mag to the M16.

Its not jammed in there, duh, it doesn't limit your maneuverability in any way.

HexHammer wrote:
So you haven't seen combat in an actual jungle, then you would have known:

No - staying in context of the picture I quoted; am I right or am I wrong? You didn't counter the pic with; "but that's not jungle", you countered with; "but he's firing at an elevated target [because of the magazine]". Stay within context.

1) ground is never perfectly plane and lvl as in the picture.

2) there are loads of vines, tall plants, branches etc etc that magazin can get stuck on.

1) This is generally true of any/most actual battlefield/live combat situations. The pic is clearly someone at a range/training ground. 2) And? A solider in the heat of a firefight will focus on where the enemy/enemy fire is coming from and where he/his squad mates are in relation to that in order to return fire. They're not worrying about the minutea of where every vine, leaf, root and rock is, they will quickly adopt a firing position, and make any adjustments to avoid entanglements on the fly. This is assuming a general/common jungle engagement and not when the solider in question is waiting in prepared/ambush position. The barrel length was more of an issue for jungle mobility than magazine length, honestly.

3) if you had seen combat you would know ever split sec counts, having a long 30 mag hanging out of the rifle, it will slow you down just a little in such environment.

4) crawling on the jungle floor and maneuvering with short mags makes things lots easier!

3) Have you seen combat? Because it really doesn't seem like it. Do you know what actually counts in a firefight, more than any other factor by quite some magnitude? Fire superiority. I'm not a solider, I've never seen combat or been in it; yet I still have the common sense to tell you a bit about the subject - every soldier worth their boots would take those extra rounds over being "slowed down" by a slightly larger magazine. Every. Single. One. 4) Hmm. Again, you don't seem to know what you're talking about that well. If you're crawling around on the floor and/or maneuvering, you're not sighting your rifle in a static position in readiness to fire. Most likely you've got your rifle cradled across your chest in the crook of your arms, allowing unhindered movement. This would apply even more so in a jungle environment. I think you're overestimating just how "lots easier" a 20-round mag over a 30-round mag would actually benefit soliders in combat situations vs. the much greater, more critical aforementioned advantage of more rounds to fire between reloads, and therefore greater chances of fire supperiority over the enemy.

 Bobthehero wrote:

HexHammer wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
The ground is usually soft in jungles, your mag is going to dug in, makes it even more easy to lay down.

Edit: Didn't the Vietcong carry AK-47's with 30 rounds mags? Jungle warfare's kind their thing and they didn't seem to mind having the mag sticking out.

How will you maneuver with a mag stuck in the ground?

I don't know enough about the AK to speak about it, but only the short mag to the M16.

Its not jammed in there, duh, it doesn't limit your maneuverability in any way.

Let's have a discussion again when you have actual first hand experience, thanks!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Anfauglir wrote:
I'm not a solider, I've never seen combat or been in it; yet I still have the common sense to tell you a bit about the subject - every soldier worth their boots would take those extra rounds over being "slowed down" by a slightly larger magazine.

Sofa Professors with Dunning Kruger Effect at it's finest!

HexHammer wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:

HexHammer wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
The ground is usually soft in jungles, your mag is going to dug in, makes it even more easy to lay down.

Edit: Didn't the Vietcong carry AK-47's with 30 rounds mags? Jungle warfare's kind their thing and they didn't seem to mind having the mag sticking out.

How will you maneuver with a mag stuck in the ground?

I don't know enough about the AK to speak about it, but only the short mag to the M16.

Its not jammed in there, duh, it doesn't limit your maneuverability in any way.

Let's have a discussion again when you have actual first hand experience, thanks!

Are you talking to yourself? Why did you quote me?

HexHammer wrote:Never understood the reverse weaponry of IG and SM.

IG got ballistic based tanks, artillery and (some) air, then a few las gun thingies, but infantry with las rifles and pistols?
SM on the other hand has tanks with las guns, but infantry with old fashion ballistic bullets?

Imo SM should have the las guns so they can do all the awesome precision things, shooting targets from very far distance with extreme accuracy, easily shooting aircrafts etc.

IG should have the inaccurate old fashioned bullet based guns, that runs out of ammo, produces smoke and makes lots of noise.

Ballistic based weaponry are sensitive to wind and weather, if the target moves suddenly when you fire, the projectile will miss. Besides the amount of ammo you have to carry around would be insane just for a few weeks engagement.
On the contrary with a las based weapon a SM could in theory have unlimited supply of ammo with his powerpack.

Because the needed something that would look fething cool on the box art to sell their game, so they gave the Marines massive AK-esque guns with smoking barrels and empty shell cases flying off in all directions. Then later they needed a weapon for the Guard and they went with something more akin to an M-16, but it needed to be futuristic so they made them laser guns.

Bharring wrote: Modern munitions are designed to wound and cripple, not kill. Because a wounded soldier costs a modern adversary more, tactically speaking, than a killed soldier. Not so much in 40k - nobody cares that Bob can be saved. So a wound is no more valuable than a kill.

That's a myth, one that I thought had died a long time ago. It's actually tied to a separate myth that the Germans made small mines that were designed just to wound soldiers etc. That came about because the S-mine ("Bouncing Betty" - no relation) wasn't hugely powerful and often inflicted non-fatal wounds. Modern munitions are designed to kill as best they can. It just so happens that shooting small pieces of lead at each other isn't a particularly effective way of doing that, but it's a lot better than trying to charge the enemy with swords.

HexHammer wrote:..sigh ...civilian professors!

With the greatest respect - maybe you do have military experience - but nothing in your responses so far would suggest that. There are plenty of armies that conduct jungle warfare training. None of them swap out there 30 round mags for 20 round mags specifically for this purpose, for the simple reason that a competent soldier can just raise the weapon up on his elbows. It's really not a big deal like you're making out.

bouncingboredom wrote:

HexHammer wrote:..sigh ...civilian professors!

With the greatest respect - maybe you do have military experience - but nothing in your responses so far would suggest that. There are plenty of armies that conduct jungle warfare training. None of them swap out there 30 round mags for 20 round mags specifically for this purpose, for the simple reason that a competent soldier can just raise the weapon up on his elbows. It's really not a big deal like you're making out.

And ofc I'm just a reservist in the Finnish army, but 30 round mags is all we have for our local AKM copy (which has vastly superior sights). The long mag is actually perfect as a point of balance when you hide and shoot stuff from a lying down position. Which we prefer above all else - killing the enemy with pinpoint precision from far away is much better than having a short-range melee with knives, grenades and pistols.

It's all about location and preference, really.

Space marines should of had a special 4 barrel lasgun so they can be rapid fire a total of 8 shots at 12" or 4 shots at 24" at the low strength of 3, no ap, 1 damage no ability.

The power armor has a nuclear reactor generator for power...or was that the terminator...or was that something else, anyways the power armor can carry a large power bank on the back to power the quad barrel lasgun.

Now that is the weapon marines should of had.