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I was pondering Tau, just because I love their Railguns, but hate them as a race with a passion.

I was thinking, what would it feel like to get hit by a Railgun? Is it just a glorified Lascannon? Would it just obliterate you like a lascannon?

The same question goes for a Pulse Rifle: What exactly DO they shoot? Does it feel like your getting hit with a brick when it hits you? Is it like a ball of las-fire?

I know how a bolter would feel in a sense, as I have been shot before, I imagine a bolter would enter you the same way as a bullet, and then it explodes, so its like your enemy is firing little grenades at you XD.

Well the US Navy has a railgun that can launch a 3.2kg projectile at 7x the speed of sound so I'm pretty damn sure anything bigger than a broadside railgun will obliterate you before you feel gak. I guess the man portable ones will leave whatever flesh/armour it hits is done for.



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Not sure what Pulse Rifles are exactly and your guess with the bolter souns accurate IMO.

go to youtube and type in railgun and check out the vid of the USA's efforts to develop a real railgun.

Railguns fire a solid projectile slug, it's basically a bullet on a larger scale. Or perhaps a cannon ball, depends on the size, only much much faster.

Imperium uses mass drivers on ships,but I wonder why didn't they developed some version for the Terminators.
I found this info on the Railgun,not sure if is true.
http://www.astronomican.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=145&Itemid=57

At that scale, railguns are probably pretty inefficient compared to heavy bolters, for the Imperium at least. Tau would have better railguns because it is a major weapon for them and they'd have put in more development.

Morgrim wrote:At that scale, railguns are probably pretty inefficient compared to heavy bolters, for the Imperium at least. Tau would have better railguns because it is a major weapon for them and they'd have put in more development.

hmmm? railguns are like the ultimate weaponry in...life. How could you compare a heavy bolter to a railgun? You could put a railgun in 'submunition' and fire a large blast marker, which is stronger then a heavy bolter no matter what, and alot more likely to kill things.

oh and I reckon a pulse rifle would feel like being hit my a really really hot brick thrown at...i dont know how fast but VERY fast

Railguns produce an incrediable amount of heat which can warp the rails. I think that's why they aren't common.

/b/ question: what does it fell like getting hit by a bullet??

You really want to know?

Alright then, its no big deal, its basically *Thump*, and at first your look "Oh wait, this isn't so bad", thats what you think AS ITS COMING AT YOU, and then when you hear *thump* and it hits you, your brain basically goes like this

"OH gak, FALL DOWN, FALL DOWN OR YOU'LL GET HIT MORE, FALL DOWN!!!ONEONEEOEN!OEN!1!2one"

Yeah, just remember, all a bullet is is a "metal" projectile, it doesn't explode inside you, which is how it feels.

Karon wrote:You really want to know?

Alright then, its no big deal, its basically *Thump*, and at first your look "Oh wait, this isn't so bad", thats what you think AS ITS COMING AT YOU, and then when you hear *thump* and it hits you, your brain basically goes like this

"OH gak, FALL DOWN, FALL DOWN OR YOU'LL GET HIT MORE, FALL DOWN!!!ONEONEEOEN!OEN!1!2one"

Yeah, just remember, all a bullet is is a "metal" projectile, it doesn't explode inside you, which is how it feels.

so how come it's so dangerous?? I mean it's basically just a small metal object...

so how come it's so dangerous?? I mean it's basically just a small metal object...

Because said small metal object is lodging itself deep inside your body, or, in the case of your larger caliber guns, going straight through you.

Now, I don't know about you, but having small metal objects lodged inside my body, causing plenty of internal tearing and bleeding on their way in, doesn't sound like my idea of fun. It rather sounds like my idea of dead, actually.

You have things called organs inside you, mate.

If those organs get punctured (SHOT), then they don't work, and leak blood (Internal Bleeding)

Aswell, you can die from blood loss by the hole the bullet made.

Aswell, its a small metal object thats fething hot as hell, and is going REALLY REALLY fast.

A shot in the stomach/chest is usually fatal, a shot in the arm isn't much more than an annoyance if you have it wrapped up so its not bleeding.

I'm a med student, so I should know these things and explain them better >.<

Said metal in bullets is also lead (right?), which is bad.

I think that the sheer force of the projectile would blow you to pieces. A lascannon would put a large hole in you, but if a railgun fires a solid, non-explosive projectile, then it's gonna get messy.

person person wrote:Said metal in bullets is also lead (right?), which is bad.

Nope, lead was in the shot that was used by the flint lock and VERY early rifles, which is why so many died from lead poisoning during that time period.

We don't need to use lead bullets because there are more efficient ways to kill you.

Why were you shot and who shot you 'Karon'? Hope that doesn't sound crass.

The OC-D

Thats somewhat off-topic, and its a very long story, but I'll tell you I got shot in the arm, and was shot by someone who doesn't like Jew's that much, where I am Jewish.

What do you mean 'Karon'? Its just a name I made up.

I still think that dropping bags of pennies would be more of an efficient killing machine then bombs...just fill the bag with 1000 pennies, its going to do something, and it only costs us $10.

OK thanks for the reply. I referred to you as 'Karon' as I don't know your real name and it made it obvious who I was adressing the question to.

The OC-D

Modern armies don't use pure lead bullets because they tend to deform and expand on impact and bullets that do that are forbidden under the rules of war. We mostly use lead inside a copper jacket. Even with lead bullets if you've been shot getting lead poisoning is the least of your worries. If haven't been shot then you don't have much to worry about unless you work at a shooting range or ammunition factory.

Railgun slugs would probably go right through and barely notice they hit you.

I just realized: who cares what it will feel like? YOU'RE DEAD! And, if you think about it, nobody will ever know because those that were hit are, you know, DEAD!


On topic, does anyone know what it's like being blind-sided by a 230 lb linebacker at full speed? I do, and I'd imagine that's what it'd feel like, except I'd also be dead....

I can't find my codex atm, but there's fluff in it that mentions Loyalists finding a tank after a battle that had been hit with a railgun; it put a hole the size of a quarter through the entire hull, and it went through so fast it sucked the crew through the hole and out the other side. Or something to that effect. As opposed to the railgun splitting the tank in two like an overripe banana or something; like one would expect from a Demolisher.

I get the feeling the actual projectiles fired by the railguns aren't big; they're for putting holes in everything, not HE explosiony goodness like all the IG tanks.

Since when do you die instantly when you're shot? I mean sure, in some cases, but I was under the impression that most people BLEED TO DEATH after being shot.

edit: typo

Not against a railgun. The sheer force of the speed and sonic boom would melt eyes and make ears bleed of everyone in your foxhole. You, the recipeint, would be turned to soup.

And the Imperium has railguns, they just call them Macro cannons, are 500 meters long and refuse to fire anything smaller than a double decker bus at any lower velocity than 2000 km/s. Considering that a tau railgun fires quarters, that is really, REALLY scary. Then there is the Nova Cannon, which is almost a kilometer long and fires warp warheads that have a blast radius of hundreds of thousands of kilometers. Planet destroying big.

Lead poisoning tends to occur over a long period of time and take even longer to have major effects. Yeah, if you had a bullet embedded in your body for years, you might have problems. It's not going to kill you in a few weeks, and lead treatment isn't so challenging; worry about surviving, they can pay attention to any lead issues once you're out of the danger zone and convalescing.

Yeah, in my last post I was refering to a normal gun, like a Glock, not to a railgun. I know that a railgun would kill you.

The Defenestrator wrote:I can't find my codex atm, but there's fluff in it that mentions Loyalists finding a tank after a battle that had been hit with a railgun; it put a hole the size of a quarter through the entire hull, and it went through so fast it sucked the crew through the hole and out the other side. Or something to that effect. As opposed to the railgun splitting the tank in two like an overripe banana or something; like one would expect from a Demolisher.

I get the feeling the actual projectiles fired by the railguns aren't big; they're for putting holes in everything, not HE explosiony goodness like all the IG tanks.

Look of anti-tank SABOT rounds.

When I enlisted, the recruiter asked me if I wanted to be a tanker. I already knew what a SABOT round can potentially do. That is not how I want to go. *shudder*

Why does everyone always write the word sabot in all caps?

Because they think it is an acronym, when it isn't.

Commander Endova wrote:

The Defenestrator wrote:I can't find my codex atm, but there's fluff in it that mentions Loyalists finding a tank after a battle that had been hit with a railgun; it put a hole the size of a quarter through the entire hull, and it went through so fast it sucked the crew through the hole and out the other side. Or something to that effect. As opposed to the railgun splitting the tank in two like an overripe banana or something; like one would expect from a Demolisher.

I get the feeling the actual projectiles fired by the railguns aren't big; they're for putting holes in everything, not HE explosiony goodness like all the IG tanks.

Look of anti-tank SABOT rounds.

When I enlisted, the recruiter asked me if I wanted to be a tanker. I already knew what a SABOT round can potentially do. That is not how I want to go. *shudder*

Defenestrator's reference sounds akin to the results of Army troops finding vehicles hit by Javelin missiles before they fixed the timing problem.

One entry hole, an exit hole, and several yards of red streaks and fleshy bits out the other side.