In the lore it is said that an average lasgun(lets say M36) can rip an arm clean off. And thats average, not counting more powerful lasguns like the Lucius pattern of the death korps. That would make lasguns probably as powerful as 12,7-14,5mm heavy MG ammo, except it has the dimensions of a battle rifle. That's a pretty big punch per guardsman, and combined with the 100% accuracy of the laser this means lasguns are definately not pathetic and are leaps and bounds better than the autoguns and stubbers still widely used by a large part of the imperium's enemies(chaos cultists, pirates, traitor PDF, etc.)
Now about bolters. Its a explicily shown in the lore that even the smallest bolt gun is more powerful than the average lasgun. However the smallest boltguns are 60'' calibre, around 14mm. Even astartes bolters are only 75'' (around 17mm)But to be more powerful than a lasgun it must be at least 20mm autocannon strength. Its hard to imagine how such small bullets could cause the heavy fragmentation effect described in the lore. Perhaps the imperium has far more advanced propellant. Heavy bolters however are clearly more powerful than lasguns due to their 1'(23mm) ammo.
You're forgetting the fact that bolter rounds are explosive.
Christian Jones
>In the lore it is said that an average lasgun(lets say M36) can rip an arm clean off. And thats average, not counting more powerful lasguns like the Lucius pattern of the death korps That's lore exaggeration. Lasguns are a closer equivalent to 7.62mm rifles, just much lighter and more compact. A bolter hits its target and explodes inside them, and statistically it's able to instantly kill or maim an average human target in one or two shots.
John Young
Also if what ive said about the lasguns is true that means gaurdsmen are definately so poorly armed compared to other intelligent races, especially the eldar. The eldar's main infantry weapon is supoosed to be the shuriken, but since they fire microscopic projectiles, there's no way they can be as powerful compared to a lasbeam. Their main advantage however would be extremely high rate of fire. That said, eldar warriors would have a minor, not major advantage over the IG, especially if the take the IG's heavy wepons into account like hellguns, hot shot lasguns, multilases, melta and plasma guns
Isaac Cruz
A. Lasguns aren't QUITE that powerful. They can take your arm off, but only with an extremely lucky hit at the joint. Usually it'll just leave a cratered burn mark.
B. Bolts are explosive. They're much closer to rocket-propelled grenade launchers than anything else.
Jacob Garcia
The projectiles are not microscopic, they're monofiliment discs. They're just really, really thin.
Daniel Price
How much explosive material do you think a 14mm or 17mm bullet can hold?
Matthew Nguyen
20mm aircraft cannons used explosive bullets as early as ww2. It's not hard to imagine that forty fucking thousand years of finding better ways to kill shit would yield slightly smaller ones.
Carson Myers
A cone with a radius of .375" and height of 2" has a volume of .294 cu in. 1mL of TNT is equal to 4000 Joules of energy. .294 cu in is equal to 4.817mL or 19268 Joules. Guess work on the length of the payload, but that should give you a good starting point using a modern equivalent.
Leo Wilson
Well according to my calculations, your problem is that you're playing 40k.
Andrew Fisher
And attemping to ground it in reality, at that.
Jackson Edwards
lasguns dont rip or push. they evaporate and burn material
Oliver Perry
I'm trying to imagine a scenario where an unarmored and unaugmented individual could survive even a single bolter shell.
Going center mass would almost certainly mean that all of your vitals are caught in the resulting explosion of the shell afterwards.
Alexander Richardson
Really the only remotely likely scenario for an unarmoured and unaugmented individual surviving even a single bolt shell to centre mass would be if the bolt shell was a dud and failed to explode.
Mind, you'd still have a pop can-sized entry wound and basketball-sized exit wound, but you could still *theoretically* survive, whereas you'd have nothing but mush and immediate death if the bolt detonated.
Jaxon Thomas
Survive for, what, a few minutes due to massive blood loss or shock?
Aiden Campbell
>pop
Ayden Howard
Are you retarded OP?
7.62mm can blow arms clean off. Go google "7.62 gunshot wounds" and come back when your face is green from seeing people shredded by small arms fire. I fucking swear, non /k/ faggots always underestimate the power of small arms fire and what it can do to the human body.
Brody Miller
Aren't Lasguns, and guardsmen in general, exceptionally good at taking on cultists, rebels, minor aliens and other such riff-raff?
In other words, the enemy most Guardsmen will be fighting?
Orks and Eldar are the exception to the rule that Guardsmen are typically very, very good at their job. They're the cream of a planetary crop.
Jeremiah Howard
Bolters typically are calc'd at around one megajoule for explosive force.
Ian Young
Guardsmen are generally pretty competent.
Hudson Hernandez
It's a gyrojet weapon, so pretty much by standing right in front of the marine and letting him shoot him.
Lucas Wilson
Bolters have a kicker charge giving them lethal velocity even at point blank
Julian Foster
>How much explosive material do you think a 14mm or 17mm bullet can hold? Enough explosives. youtube.com/watch?v=kZJHjLXWYNM#t=42 Tempest bolts are S3 but cover a small blast area. 50 cal is about the minimum treshold a bullet can carry enough payload to be noticeable, and bolts are bigger than that. youtube.com/watch?v=_jF9eqi4oK0
Say, don't lasguns have different power settings? Full auto setting is about 7.62mm power and lasts about 50+ rounds, but you can shoot single powered up shots that would feel like .50 cal, lasting about 10(?) rounds. Not to mention there are hot shot lasguns, long-las and other stuff.
Hunter King
It's 40k, a setting where radiation can give you a tentacle face instead of simply killing you, and some gansters hipshoot twin linked autocannons. I wouldn't consider a 40k human to be similar to a 2k human. And even if it was the case, GW can't into numbers. But according to most fluff, lasguns are similar in power to autoguns, which are nothing more than very effective assault rifles with a high RoF. And since propelled lead is ruled by physics, I don't see a lasgun doing the same damage as a 14,5mm shell. Ofc it's different with hellguns and variable settings, that have as much power as the plot demands.
monofilament disks are like flechette rounds, but from the future. No stopping power but incredible penetration.
the wound profile of a bullet and a laser would be vastly different, though.
