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Having read 'Rynn's world' (and not really liked it) I kept wondering time and again about the description of bolter shells.

So, aparently a bolter shell embeds itself in its target and then......after a second, explodes. What exatly is the use for that? I you want to punch through something you use hardened AP rounds, if you want maximum carnage you use hollow point or something (I am no expert at all). Why use a shell which has only a bit of the penetrating power and a lot of explosive power, but with a delay? Is the intended effect something like a shaped charge perhaps? But what good does that do against flmsy targets like guardsmen etc.

And then, is there some sort of real world equivalent which does about the same?

 Singleton Mosby wrote:
Having read 'Rynn's world' (and not really liked it) I kept wondering time and again about the description of bolter shells.

So, aparently a bolter shell embeds itself in its target and then......after a second, explodes. What exatly is the use for that? I you want to punch through something you use hardened AP rounds, if you want maximum carnage you use hollow point or something (I am no expert at all). Why use a shell which has only a bit of the penetrating power and a lot of explosive power, but with a delay? Is the intended effect something like a shaped charge perhaps? But what good does that do against flmsy targets like guardsmen etc.

And then, is there some sort of real world equivalent which does about the same?

The idea is that it combines the explosive effect with the armour piercing effect.

The tip is armour piercing- so it punches through light armour- before blowing up. If it just blew up on impact, it wouldn't be effective against heavy reinforced armour, like power armour or mega armour, heavier eldar stuff.
If it just punched through armour, it wouldn't do as much damage against superhuman targets- mutants, human supersoldiers, orks, eldar constructs.

Because it can defeat armour and then deal tremendous destructive damage it can reliably punch through an ork skull and then blow its brains out.

What it does to a 'flimsy' target like guardsmen is defeat their armour and blow massive, untreatable holes in their body. The morale effect of being shelled/grenaded, from a rifle/pistol weapon.

From a realworld perspective, bolterrounds are both ultraviolent and needlessly highly advanced- telling you at a glance what 40k is like, in a way that hotshot lasguns/volley guns don't.

Hollow points fragment as they pass through the target, but only have the existing kinetic energy of the original round to convert in to carnage. An explosive round has a whole new set of chemical energy to convert into internal damage.

Bolters are terror weapons. Massive trauma and huge psychological impact on nearby survivors.

Also bolt rounds are mass reactive which means they could be set to explode outside a target as well to allow for air burst effects. Check out the old OICW weapons concept for why that is useful.

Also high velocity armour piercing rounds dont necessarily have much stopping power. Yes they can reliably make holes in things, but if the holes are small and miss all the major organs or works bits of the target, then it will keep on coming. Adding an explosive component ent after penetrating the armour massively increases stopping power making it less likely that a target hit by a bolt round will be capable of fighting back afterwards.

 Singleton Mosby wrote:
Having read 'Rynn's world' (and not really liked it) I kept wondering time and again about the description of bolter shells.

So, aparently a bolter shell embeds itself in its target and then......after a second, explodes. What exatly is the use for that? I you want to punch through something you use hardened AP rounds, if you want maximum carnage you use hollow point or something (I am no expert at all). Why use a shell which has only a bit of the penetrating power and a lot of explosive power, but with a delay? Is the intended effect something like a shaped charge perhaps? But what good does that do against flmsy targets like guardsmen etc.

And then, is there some sort of real world equivalent which does about the same?

Not sure about realm examples but it's more like a anti ship or so weapon designed to go through into the hull then detonate for maximum impact. Anti tank weapons also can have double warheads to one penetrate the armour then the second charge takes out the inside, or one to set off the reactove and layered armour then the second hammers home to take out the armour below the protective systems.

The bolt shell was not designed for humans, more to be generic far as I know. Of they don't kill it they still blast a large hole out of it. In storm of iron even a bolt shell that clips someone can take off a limb and a explosion can take out entire limbs etc of a human. A bolter is effective Vs most tagets, human and larger. The heavy bolt shell is able to damage a light armoured vehicle by fluff, not rules.

The original plan was volkite weaponry, but they are hard to mass produce and supply. The bolter was a reliable, multi purpose, easier to mass produce and keep ammunition supplies up.

There are anti armour bolt shells designed, bith hersry and after. There made to make holes in power armour or other hardered targets.

In general the bolter is designed as a fearsome, powerful weapon that can handle most comers. The explosive element means they can be used Vs majeotiy of living things effectively.

 Singleton Mosby wrote:
Having read 'Rynn's world' (and not really liked it) I kept wondering time and again about the description of bolter shells.

So, aparently a bolter shell embeds itself in its target and then......after a second, explodes. What exatly is the use for that? I you want to punch through something you use hardened AP rounds, if you want maximum carnage you use hollow point or something (I am no expert at all). Why use a shell which has only a bit of the penetrating power and a lot of explosive power, but with a delay? Is the intended effect something like a shaped charge perhaps? But what good does that do against flmsy targets like guardsmen etc.

And then, is there some sort of real world equivalent which does about the same?

It's meant to maximize the damage. Whether the explosion happens inside or outside of the target makes a big difference. Outside, most of the pressure generated will just push the air around and a small part of it will squash the target. Inside, it'll wreck organs/components all around. It's why a grenade blowing up against a tank won't do all that much, while a grenade blowing up inside that tank is really bad news...

One whole second of delay is definitely overkill, though. It's enough time for the bolt to go all the way through its target and blow up far behind it... Something like 1/100 or 1/1000 of a second would make more sense.

 Flinty wrote:
Bolters are terror weapons. Massive trauma and huge psychological impact on nearby survivors.

Bingo. Marines are shock Troops meant to hit hard and win fast. If you can kill a few enemies in such a grisly fashion that the rest of them flee, you don't need that many bullets.

-

When fighting with your fellow cultists and one just falls down, it leaves much fewer thoughts than if he exploded in a rain of gore, with upper chest and head missing entierly.

When you're fighting aliens like Orks or Megarachnid, where they can lose whole limbs and not notice, a pissant little bullet isn't of much use. You need something that makes a bigger dent in their flesh than the mere size of a bullet can accommodate.

And you never know what is on the next planet. Sentient fire crabs, giant mega spiders, orks, squishy old humans or litoral dhinsours, trolls and multi mile long krakens alongside scorpions the size of tanks.

These are among a few of the wild life and sentient beings of the galexey.

Las guns really are are not gonna cut it, more solid shot.

The standard bolt is essentially an APHE shell or SAP (Semi-Armor Piercing) it'll punch in and detonate like you've said. Means against thicker armor it will chip away at it by embedding itself and detonating. Against armor it can pen it will punch through and then detonate in the meat of the target because of a fuse delay, which is probably fairly short considering the penetration power of a bolter.

If a bolt hits an unarmored target and fails to arm before leaving the target, for example if it hits a human and doesnt arm. Its still a .75 Cal round slamming into someone. Thats around a 19.3mm Round, its a big hole and still alot of wound cavity.

Bolters are, bluntly put, over kill against regular humans, hell I recall in one Horus Heresy book when Marines where fighting regular humans the Marine commander told his people to "use chain swords, don't waste ammo on these guys"

but the bolter isn't designed for fighting humans, it's. at least in my opinion, designed to fight, and slay Orcs. which back during the days of the great crusade was proably the greatest threat to humanity, there being a number of large and powerful Ork empires out there

its also worth noting the the bolt shell was recently retconned to be a Depleted Uranium round too so its ability to punch through armour is quite high, gives context to protective properties of armour in the 40k universe.

 Formosa wrote:
its also worth noting the the bolt shell was recently retconned to be a Depleted Uranium round too so its ability to punch through armour is quite high, gives context to protective properties of armour in the 40k universe.

I should hope so too, the 'depleted deuterium' mentioned in the image above is nonsense. Deuterium is a gas - it is just hydrogen with an added neutron.

 Singleton Mosby wrote:
Having read 'Rynn's world' (and not really liked it) I kept wondering time and again about the description of bolter shells.

So, aparently a bolter shell embeds itself in its target and then......after a second, explodes. What exatly is the use for that? I you want to punch through something you use hardened AP rounds, if you want maximum carnage you use hollow point or something (I am no expert at all). Why use a shell which has only a bit of the penetrating power and a lot of explosive power, but with a delay? Is the intended effect something like a shaped charge perhaps? But what good does that do against flmsy targets like guardsmen etc.

And then, is there some sort of real world equivalent which does about the same?

Yes. Armor piercing shells. Shell penetrates then causes damage inside the target.
WWII examples:
*Japanese naval shells and air dropped antiship bombs.
*German armor piercing shells.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Singleton Mosby wrote:
Having read 'Rynn's world' (and not really liked it) I kept wondering time and again about the description of bolter shells.

So, aparently a bolter shell embeds itself in its target and then......after a second, explodes. What exatly is the use for that? I you want to punch through something you use hardened AP rounds, if you want maximum carnage you use hollow point or something (I am no expert at all). Why use a shell which has only a bit of the penetrating power and a lot of explosive power, but with a delay? Is the intended effect something like a shaped charge perhaps? But what good does that do against flmsy targets like guardsmen etc.

And then, is there some sort of real world equivalent which does about the same?

Yes. Armor piercing shells. Shell penetrates then causes damage inside the target.
WWII examples:
*Japanese naval shells and air dropped antiship bombs.
*German armor piercing shells.

Also the Durandal runway-cratering bomb

 Ketara wrote:
When you're fighting aliens like Orks or Megarachnid, where they can lose whole limbs and not notice, a pissant little bullet isn't of much use. You need something that makes a bigger dent in their flesh than the mere size of a bullet can accommodate.

Exactly! If I am shooting a space bear I want to hit them with cannon fire. Its also a more effective anti materiale round.

EDIT: The US military was looking at a 20mm round with delayable fuse in the last decade.

To the effect, imagine swallowing a small grenade...

OICW

Check here for interesting discussion of the weapon.

https://youtu.be/Ez4DPz-Eo88

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
When you're fighting aliens like Orks or Megarachnid, where they can lose whole limbs and not notice, a pissant little bullet isn't of much use. You need something that makes a bigger dent in their flesh than the mere size of a bullet can accommodate.

Exactly! If I am shooting a space bear I want to hit them with cannon fire. Its also a more effective anti materiale round.

EDIT: The US military was looking at a 20mm round with delayable fuse in the last decade.

To the effect, imagine swallowing a small grenade...

I think someone did the maths, cannot remember where but they assumed weights some conservative propulsion figures. But even then a bolter round impact is approximately that least of a .50 cal, nearer double and fully automatic.

It's basically like being hit by a .50 M2 that then explodes insode you or takes fist size cunks out of buildings, cover or carpaces.

 jhe90 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
When you're fighting aliens like Orks or Megarachnid, where they can lose whole limbs and not notice, a pissant little bullet isn't of much use. You need something that makes a bigger dent in their flesh than the mere size of a bullet can accommodate.

Exactly! If I am shooting a space bear I want to hit them with cannon fire. Its also a more effective anti materiale round.

EDIT: The US military was looking at a 20mm round with delayable fuse in the last decade.

To the effect, imagine swallowing a small grenade...

I think someone did the maths, cannot remember where but they assumed weights some conservative propulsion figures. But even then a bolter round impact is approximately that least of a .50 cal, nearer double and fully automatic.

It's basically like being hit by a .50 M2 that then explodes insode you or takes fist size cunks out of buildings, cover or carpaces.

I think the Astartes mini-series does a great job portraying what happens when a human gets hit by a bolter shell (@0:50), blowing off limbs and chunking people apart, although it's most likely even more visceral than that.

Flinty basically nailed it.

Bolters are out and out Terror Weapons. They’re intended to cause as much psychological damage as physical damage.

Consider. An auto gun can be loaded with hollow points or armour penetrating. And yes, that’s still fairly nasty. But you still need a solid, central mass or head shot to take down the opponent.

Bolter? I hit your arm? It’s off, in a shower of blood and bone. It’s even possible it detonates with enough force to cause concussive trauma to your internal organs, rupturing them.

Of course, that’s you ded pretty much regardless. It’s also just daubed your friends and comrades in a rather fetching shade of Brain and Viscera. By the way? The guy that pulled the trigger that turned Dave into Trifle? He’s not even bothering to hide. In fact, his armour is painted a bright primary colour, and all your shots are as rain to him. OH NOES! He just backhanded Barry, and took his entire sodding head off!

Bolters. They’re there to terrify the enemy they can’t reach, by all but ensuring the death of the enemy they can reach.

I agree with the terror weapon assessment. I also think the explosive rounds have a practical purpose as well. The grenade-and-tank example was a good one. Punching a bunch of holes in an ork, tyranid, or astartes just won't bring them down in a reasonable time frame. Even if you get past the armor. With a bolter round you only have to get one shell through the armor before it turns that hardened exterior into a liability. It may only be a few grams of explosive, but the organic bits are going to soak up all the trauma.

Stopping power is about tissue damage you can do. A bolter round as a solid shell would obliterate most soft tissue it would hit. Bigger than a .50 cal round. Add in that it explodes as well and you are looking at turning a human sized target into a spread of meat instantly. A truly horrific terror weapon. Very much against the Geneva convention.

Andykp wrote:
Stopping power is about tissue damage you can do. A bolter round as a solid shell would obliterate most soft tissue it would hit. Bigger than a .50 cal round. Add in that it explodes as well and you are looking at turning a human sized target into a spread of meat instantly. A truly horrific terror weapon. Very much against the Geneva convention.

Can't violate the Geneva convention if nobody else remembers what Geneva was.

Got me looking to see what in real life was out there.

An anti-aircraft round re-purposed by snipers in WW2 looks like a nasty thing:



Then found the "gyro-jet" gun which is pretty much how I envision a bolter "jet propelled" shell.



An interesting combination.

OICW programmable fuse 20mm and Frag 12 rounds are also in the same ballpark as bolter rounds.

I also seem to remember reading in a HH book that even the concusive force of a bolter round exploding near a human can kill them.

I think it was in the underground war or something between Word Bearers and Ultramarines on Calth?

TarkinLarson wrote:
I also seem to remember reading in a HH book that even the concusive force of a bolter round exploding near a human can kill them.

I think it was in the underground war or something between Word Bearers and Ultramarines on Calth?

a .300win mag passing withing 6" of a human head will rupture your inner ear and cause significant bleeding inside the cranium. maybe not instadeth, but dead nonetheless.

humans are fragile and easily dispatched, it's the worse stuff that a bolter is really made for.

I will also agree the Astartes film gets the destructive power of how a bolter works, right.

I do sometimes wonder what exactly bolters were designed to kill? Are they pre-Imperial weapons, or something developed during the crusades? After all, they weren't the original weapon of choice of the Marine Legions - those were plasma weapons. They're pretty handy against Orks, though. Handy since Orks were one of the primary enemies of the early Great Crusade.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I do sometimes wonder what exactly bolters were designed to kill? Are they pre-Imperial weapons, or something developed during the crusades? After all, they weren't the original weapon of choice of the Marine Legions - those were plasma weapons. They're pretty handy against Orks, though. Handy since Orks were one of the primary enemies of the early Great Crusade.

If they date back to the dark age of technology, maybe a bolter was what you'd get if you asked your friendly neighborhood STC for something that'd kill an ork. Plasma weapons are obviously better, but the bolters are easy to manufacture and very reliable so they could be preferred on worlds with less resources to work with.
Then again, even backwater worlds seemed to have been able to build knights. And these come with stubbers instead of bolters...

 Tiennos wrote:
If they date back to the dark age of technology, maybe a bolter was what you'd get if you asked your friendly neighborhood STC for something that'd kill an ork. Plasma weapons are obviously better, but the bolters are easy to manufacture and very reliable so they could be preferred on worlds with less resources to work with.
Then again, even backwater worlds seemed to have been able to build knights. And these come with stubbers instead of bolters...

Well, if we are to consider "realism" or at least, the notion of it, it's impractical to arm everything with what would be relatively "expensive" armaments. Now, what constitutes "expensive" can likely be related, in the simplest way, to the complexity of assembling the weapon itself, but also it's ammunition. So, a plasma weapon likely is somewhat complex to manufacture, then needs something like refined hydrogen as it's ammunition. Bolters are likely to be less complicated than, say, plasma weaponry, but the ammunition is also still somewhat complicated to make. Stubbers, as solid-slug sort of things, are likely relatively simple to manufacture and relatively simple to make ammunition for. Laser weaponry is likely rather complex, needing precision parts, design and process, but once made, it's ammunition cost is relatively low.

Of course, none of this factors in the upkeep cost, aside ammunition. So, we could imagine that laser and plasma weapons might be relatively more expensive to upkeep (due to heat fatigue/wear and tear/component failure/misalignment). And, as you mention, there is also the related question of reliability. It could be that Bolters simply are the "sweat spot" of relative effectiveness, reliability, and economic viability.


On why Bolter shells explode, well, I think the basic answer is, because it's cool. But, one could likely imagine a real use for it. Consider that, really, any high caliber bullet delivered accurately (that is, to say, the head/brain) is likely to kill, but factoring for just the best case scenario is likely a mistake. In the even that, say, you only hit an Ork in the arm, a high caliber bullet likely not only fails to deliver a kill, but also fails to stop it's momentum. So, by adding in a chemical explosive, you are not limited in stopping power to just it's momentum from the ballistic trajectory, but added to by it's explosive detonation.

Now, I am definitely not a physicist, but I think that if an Ork is running toward you and you shot it with a solid slug, but failed to kill it outright, since you are apply a force on, essentially, a parallel vector, you'd likely not outright stop it charging you (only slow it down some). However, there is a chance, with an explosive charge in something like a bolt, that it would apply a force on a vector more perpendicular to it's charging vector, it would deflect it off course. Naturally, that is dependent on its inertial moment related to it's mass and so on, but there is still the chance it might at least throw off some amount of it's balance. That's might be unlikely, in some cases, but probably better than just resigning yourself to a Carnifex eating your face.

In other words, you can probably spin some mumbo-jumbo physics to justify a Boltgun existing in 40k with a purpose...