So in various 40k sourcebooks it's mentioned that shotguns and other low penetration weapons are favored by those fighting on space ships and stations as they're less likely to puncture holes in the hull.
This confuses me, as I was under the impression that even relatively small civilian stations and ships in 40k were heavily armored bulks that no small-arm short of a lascannon would stand a chance of piercing.
What am I missing?
>What am I missing?
The setting is an after thought to selling miniatures at a highly inflated price and the 20+ year old setting developed by dozens of writers is inconsistent?
You are being a dunce that thinks "hull" refers only to the outside of the ship.
The inside of the ship is lined with wires, piping, all the things that make the ship run, including ports that lead to vacuum. Destroying any of those could lead to catastrophic damage to the ship.
this is one of those things that sounds to the writers like it makes sense, but does not work all that well. It is pretty common in other sci-fi that need too build their spaceships with real-world (ish) tech and so need to keep it's mass low, but like you said, puncturing the hull of a 40k starship with a smallarm is not going to happen.
Rogue Trader gave a little more sense to the concept, by stating that they use low-velocity waepons to not pierce bulkheads (that can seal of sections of the ship that may have been depressurised, or flooded with toxic gas, or crawling with deamons) or damage all the important equipment on starships that keeps everyone alive.
This. Observe a typical ship interior from the 30s
see
The shitposting is outrageously unneeded unless you are utterly ignorant of naval terms.
The outer hull itself is a meters-thick multi-layered wall of supermetal. However, between micrometeorites, poor maintenance, and unrepaired damage, each layer will inevitably have numerous small holes, maybe the size of a pen at most, which won't compromise armor effectiveness, but will let air out. On the outer reaches of a ship, a thin layer of metal may be all that keeps air from zipping out through the hull, and that is easily pierced.
Also a problem are the pipes carting around water, sewage, and garbage to and from recycling centers. If you rupture those, you might be in for a bad time.
Okay, that makes a lot of sense. I was thrown off b/c the stuff I was reading wasn't saying bulkhead.
Thanks Anons!
That's what Hull means, jackass.
Yeah, but I'm running the 40krpg and thus I need to at least be able to give passing explanations for stuff.
The hull is protected first and foremost by Void shields, not the armor, that block small debris like micrometeors. Unless you're a dumb fuck like Pertuarbo
Bulkheads are basically the separating ribs between each segment. They are numbered and that allows to reach an area and reference "Bulkhead 30, Starboard Ballast Tank" or something similar. Lots of soft systems inside a ship.
A ship is not covered in solid shell of adamantium armour. It has ports, it has windows and all manner of weak spots. Imagine it like a tank. View ports, joints (in Afghanistan a 20mm anti-tank rifle punched a hole through the turret ring of an Abrams, the commander not losing his ass purely because had lifted himself a bit from his seat to look out of his cupola), intakes, exhausts, vents, etc. etc. Not to forget that there's no reason to pressurize every inch of a ship. Look at the space shuttle, for example. Only the front section has air. The bay, even when closed, is not atmospherically controlled. So even if you covered the outer shell of the shuttle in impenetrable armour, you can fire a gun inside, punch a hole into the cargo bay and depressurize the entire thing.
And that's not taking into account the fact that ships have a lot of systems that are vital to its operation. You don't want to fire a gun, rupture a pipe transporting fuel or toxic gasses, and have them spew all over the inside of your ship.
Besides, low penetration weapons are favored in real life when it comes to close quarters fighting. You don't want to punch through the target and have the bullet hit someone or something behind them, or ricochet all over the plate.
Except in 30k an armoured company could roll down that walkway. And there would be a titan standing on the pipe next to the large valve, just to turn the thing.
I'm surprised flamers aren't used more in 40k boarding actions, you'd think a wall of flame would be useful in a confined space like that.
That is actually one of the best answers I've seen delivered on Veeky Forums is awhile.
They are, but sparingly. It's just that when you're boarding, you typically want the opponent's ship or something on it. Causing the ship you want to keep to catch on fire is a nightmare, since all hands are repelling boarders. So sure, you won the ship, but it's also on fire in four places, and you don't know where the countermeasures are.
It's perfectly fine to use fire when making hit-and-run lightning strikes, but not while boarding. Besides, you run the risk of setting some important fuel line on fire like said and blow your stupid face up.
Flamers in space are the ultimate terror weapon, and ships have died because of runaway fires. It's basically considered almost a war crime to actually use flamers in a shipboard environment, because you run a very real risk of hulking the ship and killing everyone aboard if the fire gets too out of hand.
There's a reason NASA makes everything, and I mean everything, fireproof.
Fire in space means one thing; everyone is dead.
You do realize flamers were super effective in pretty much killing everyone in, say, a bunker, right? Now imagine you're inside the bunker when you fired that thing.... Yup. It's also a surprising fact that heat and burning wasn't the only thing that killed when using a flamer. Napalm, for example, generates a ton of carbon monoxide when turning and even if you're not even scratched by the flame itself, you can die of carbon monoxide poisoning just as fast. If you don't have an air tank on you and you go firing that thing in enclosed spaces, you're likely to get poisoned as well.
Also, if it's your own ship, I don't know if you want to set it on fire.
>flamers
>in cqc
>in a spaceship
>in space
It's moronic and used only by terminators, who will get their asses zapped back to their own ship. But it's a fun way to kill everyone, including the boarding party.
I've sort of wanted to make a legion heavy support squad for Zone Mortalis armed with heavy flamers. Re-rolls to wound and Rending on a flame template feels nice.
I bet the Skitarii LOVE using Phosphor weapons in that situation.
They both get to burn things AND laugh at the enemies pathetic man lungs.