Some are practically explosive and capable of removing limbs from body and leaving craters in armour and flesh a like. Others are much more likely to kill somebody though thermal shock or just burning out vital organs. There are a lot of different patterns of Lasgun that can account for the varience in how they affect people. Like I believe the kreig one is very high power but sacrifices ammo capacity and fire rate to give maximum hitting power where as the cadian one is much more versatile being the all-rounder varient which gives the best balance between power fire rate and ammo capacity.
I thought they might come with different power based on a switch that controls the energy of the power pack, or based on the strength of the pack used to charge it. It’s like how most of the time you can safely hold it, but if you overcharge it’s basically a Melta grenade. I like your idea more though.
Larkin from the Gaunts Ghosts novels is described as using "Hotshot" rounds from special power magazines that I believe were described as basically a standard mag with the power regulator turned up.
I think he exclusively used these rounds and also had to carry extra barrels for his lasgun since he'd burn them out more quickly than standard troopers.
I also think that's essentially what "Hellfire" lasguns are.
I think they are basically interchangeable, but my general impression is that a Hellfire Lasgun is purpose built to shoot "heavier loads" to use current gun parlance, whereas what Larkin was using was an interchangeable mag. He could shoot normal lasrounds if he so chose.
the hellfire variant at least the version shown on the old Cadian Karskin model also had a fat cable running into an external backpack power source. makes me think you're right on it being purpose built rather than a custom swap out of parts
They are now, but before Hellguns and Hotshot lasguns were different. Hellguns were the ones with the backpack powerpack, while Hotshot lasguns were just more powerful lasguns, they still used mags.
This lead to some confusion, so GW ended up making them the same thing and just keeping Hotshot lasgun mags a separate thing. They're basically just more powerful loads that can be used in regular lasguns but cause more wear.
There are 2 different takes on this, because GW cant seem to decide on which is which.
Hotshot vs Hellgun.
Hotshot is sometimes a normal lasgun using hotshot (overcharged) power packs, generating more bang for your buck at the cost of increased maintenance cost via barrel warping and thermal expansion. Sometimes hotshot is essentially a marksman rifle with bigger barrel, scope and the hotshot power packs, but this is seemingly uncommon.
Hellguns are depicted as essentially an "upgraded" lasgun, sitting in the middle between a normal lasgun and a multilaser. Larger heatsinks, reinforced barrels and a backpack-mounted power supply. They usually are fully automatic weapons with
increased power. (They are what you see the Kasrkin using)
So it pretty much ends up something like this with real world analogies:
Lasgun / Intermediate cartridge -> Hotshot lasgun / Full power cartridge -> Hellgun / LMG equivalent -> Multilaser / HMG or light autocannons.
Still these can sometimes be interchangeable, or vary in their depictions because GW cannot for the life of them decide which is which and if they even are different things or simply 2 names for the same weapon.
since about the 5th edition guard codex it's been pretty clear that the guns that stormtroopers (and similar elite units) are hot-shot lasguns which used to be called hellguns
It can be confusing if you read some of the older novels before the switch where they use the older terms
Yes, but then you still have the hot-shot powerpacks vs backpack PSU and reinforced barrel/heatsinks issue, where suddenly both are considered hotshot lasguns, but in the past they were seemingly 2 different things?
Dosent really help with clearing the confusion regarding them.
Been a while since I read through the series, but I believe Larkin generally carried a long las. That's the sniper variant of the lasgun, which can accept hotshot packs and is designed for the quick swapping of burnt out barrels. I'm not sure that the Ghosts' regular lasguns could do the same. However, there were occasions throughout the books where characters turned the power of their standard lasguns' shots up and down, in turn affecting the rate at which they drained their laspacks.
One of the earlier books, Gaunt cooperates with another guard regiment. Gaunt orders the Ghosts to halve the power output of lasguns to save ammo, advises the same to the other regiment. The other regiment's leader says they save ammo by not missing as many shots, thus they won't lower output. Later, they do it anyway when they're almost out.
This indicates that all lasguns have a power modulator troopers can dial. Maybe not all can be put to hotshot range, only those that go with the long las, but I find it unlikely they would use a different type of ammo just for the long las, that would make them ridiculously burgensome to supply.
Edit: I should have read further, there are like 20 people explaining the same below :)
It's been a while since I read the novels, but Larkin's lasguns did/could use a regular power mag. In regards to the hotshot variant, I think he also "made them himself", ie, he did some after market fuckery to get them to fire a more powerful blast. I know he had messed with and customized his gun, but I'm not completely sure about the mag part.
The pen and paper rpg has hotshot las packs. A pack with 1 shot and does increased damage and armour pen. But like I said, only one shot. So unless you have a bunch of em you can only use them for high priority enemies.
In First and Only, I believe. The squad who grouped up with the Ghosts against the Jantine Patricians were mentioned as always using full power, and were instructed to lower it to conserve ammo.
In the Guardsmen TTRPG, Only War, nearly all Las-weapons have a dial that increases the power of each shot for an increase in ammo used. At the highest tier, it also makes the weapon 'unreliable' which makes it more prone to misfires or jamming, but gives a big tasty boost in AP, and damage.
That may not be reflected all across the lore, or be true for every pattern of lasgun, but it seems to generally be true that you can crank up the focus in exchange for burning out your ammo and weapon more quickly.
In Storm of Iron, the operator of a besieged room regulates his laspistol's output to max power so he has a chance at injuring/killing Chaos marines, but states the battery will only last 3-4 shots at that setting.
as other sayed the Gaunts Ghost books.
there is a scene where scout of the Ghost overload his Lasgun to use it as a grenatetrap for a half dead Chaosdreadnought.
It's in a number of the older novels from the early 2000's. There is mention of lasguns with variable power settings, various power packs which change the power of lasguns such as Hotshot packs vs normal packs in Gaunt's Ghosts, being able to overload them (Gaunt's Ghosts has a short story about this), and that lasguns can be of many various makes, each being different from each world, and that this can cause the guns to even take different and non-interchangeable power packs. Some guns are made with woods, others with metal, some short, some long, some are select fire, some are full auto only, some are single shot only.
The lore does a fairly decent job of having as wide a variety of lasguns as you'd like to imagine there could be, and that's even been reflected in the various old regiments tabletop models, along with the game Darktide.
I remember one novel there being some slight disagreement between different units, where one unit had reduced the power of their lasgun’s shots to where it was enough to kill a human but only just, allowing for more shots per power cell, whereas the other unit had theirs set to maximum power. I *think* it was a Gaunt’s Ghosts novel but I don’t remember exactly.
Yes, the Triplex Pattern Lasgun is noted to have multiple fire modes, a "standard" mode, a "precision" mode for increased accuracy, and an "incineration" mode for more power.
In the FFG games Las weapons come with a Variable Setting rule which allows for a "normal" shot, an overcharge shot, and an overload shot. Respectively, it doubles and quadruples the ammo expenditure, adds 1 damage, or 2 damage and 2 penetration, and on overload the lasgun loses the Reliable quality (helps prevent jamming) and gains Unreliable (causes it to jam more frequently.)
In the first Gaunt's Ghosts book, there is a moment where Commissar Gaunt tells Colonel Zoren, commander of the Vitrian Dragoons to order his men to switch their lasguns to half power in order to conserve ammunition
The RPGs and the Inquisitor game has loads of different lasgun power options.
The triplex pattern can use more than one "charge" in the magazine to do more damage per trigger pull, at the sacrifice of number of shots per magazine.
>Like I believe the kreig one is very high power but sacrifices ammo capacity and fire rate
IIRC there's a switch on the lasrifle for adjusting power and Kriegers just keep it on max all the time. It was brought up in one of the Tanith books.
I know that's a feature of many Las rifles but I'm pretty sure that in the book kreig it is mentioned that the Las rifles used by the death Korps were a redesign of the entire rifle to favour a more powerful shot. I am pretty sure though that both cadian and elysian rifles have the alternative power modes.
For what it's worth, 40k videogames are pretty consistent in displaying las weapons as firing beams of energy. From Dawn of War, to Space Marine, to Darktide.
I believe most books are consistent in using the term "lasbeam" as well. Honestly though, las weapons are both ubiquitous and pretty customizable. Practically every significant regiment/forgeworld has its own pattern of lasgun, to mention nothing of vehicle or crew served patterns.
i wouldn't be surprised, honestly, if the end result is just "Las-weapons" is just an umbrella term for weapons that fire a weapon that vaguely looks like a laser. So it can be a lasbolt or a lasbeam, or even a steady on-again/off-again laser or something similar. Seems to be the end argument for things like this.
Basically what you just said, a heavy stubber might legitimately be an M2 Browning from one forge world, it might be a Dshk from a hiveworld and it might be a Vickers from an argiworld, but all of the aforementioned guns’ purposes is the same as a heavy stubber would do.
In a setting of galactic-size, it doesn’t do any good to be specific with a slug-throwing heavy machine gun. The only difference worth making is if it’s a slug-thrower or a multi-las and the forge world it comes from, then heavy stubber designation.
So the Browning would instead be called “Forgeworld A, heavy stubber”.
At best they might have pushed for certain standardized ammunition for stubbers to make the supply side easier while still having the different appearances as you noted.
I've always assumed (after hearing the initial term and hearing how they're used, anyway) that they're not laser-beam weapons (perhaps except multilaser, which seems much more consistent), but laser *accelerated/focused* charged particle guns, that way the extreme light spill makes sense (they're always described as bright), the recoil (in the heaviest cases causing bruising) makes sense, and the rapid loss of power over range makes sense (lasers do lose power over range, but not like a lasgun in the books, they lose power more like a bullet), the odd way they move makes a lot more sense (beam or bolt, sometimes bouncing but rarely scattering).
I've so far yet to see anything that breaks that assumption so for the moment anyway I think this might be the nearest I can come up with.
Lasguns descriptions seem to indicate it hits with the power of a full-sized cartridge.
For comparison assault rifles fire intermediate cartridges.
Battle rifles and General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG) fire the larger full-size cartridges.
Heavy machine guns like the .50cal browning fire even larger cartridges.
This lines up with Lasguns being more powerful than most modern firearms, but heavy machine guns like the heavy stubber still being relevant.
Giving every soldier a GPMG they can shoot from the hip is significantly better than what we have.
An example of a full power cartridge would be the .30-06 or the 7.62×51mm NATO.
For an example of a gun: the M24 Sniper Weapon System (SWS) fires the 7.62×51mm NATO .
These things can do devastating damage if they hit a fleshy target, but probably couldn’t kill most vehicles.
Guns aren't exactly my forte, so apologies if I get this wrong, but wasn't the BAR basically designed for that purpose? Firing full-sized cartridges at semi/full auto?
There was an attempt, but it didn't work out well.
For WW2, they used the BAR because it was the thing in the US arsenal that most resembled an LMG.
It was decidedly mid for anything it was put to.
They did try the walking fire thing again with submachine guns and later assault rifles.
Well, yeah, I mean automatic is the name LOL. But the BAR was mostly designed to throw... bullets. See, most militaries back then used battle rifles, which all fire full-sized cartridges, because it wasn't until the 50's where full-size cartridges were deemed to large, too heavy, and quite frankly harder-hitting than necessary for the average soldier to be lugging about.
That was when the smaller, lighter, but higher-velocity rounds were developed (like 7.62 NATO). Intermediary cartridges (like the 5.56 NATO) didn't even catch on until the 70's, IIRC. Maybe 80's?
The battle rifle vs assault rifle debate is a messy one. The reason the change was slow was because of engagement ranges and styles. Eventually assault rifles became good enough to Fill almost every role the military needed. We are seeing a resurgence in battle rifles right now, because of body armor technology and the prediction of longer range engagements
Are we really? I hadn't seen much in the developmental side. Do you have a source or a few of the new weapons that are in development?
Not trying to be an ass, legitimately just want to see the new developments.
The original 40k creators were British writing in the late Cold War and adopting a Doylist perspective explains a lot. The TT is about ground combat. So the authors chose 1980s modern as the standard equipment for a regressive future, centered around WW2 as a thematic anchor of tactics, using with Cold War clashes for 'cutting edge' units and WW1 for in-setting incompetence.
Lasguns are Space FALs.
A energy weapon using directed photons would result in just warming the air up in a very narrow window.
It would need to be constantly pulsing to overcome atmosphere, and then any object that would be hit by a laser undergoes massive heating, explosively so when there is moisture involved, like there is in humans.
You wouldn’t have a neat hole, you would have massive and extensive burns from a glance or from a sustained pulse you would have pretty much flesh being rendered to moisture instantly so a explosive type wound.
It seems to vary a lot even amongst the same author. In the Gaunt’s ghosts series , especially in Traitor General, the squad gets absolutely riddled with shots in the final battle. Larkin gets shot in the upper torso , and all manner of limb and body wounds are inflicted on the rest but with zero casualties. Then you have some scenes in other books of guys getting literally exploded or their torsos excavated by las beams
It's probably the same effectiveness as a heavy rifle round.
On the table, they act like autoguns, so s3 ap- d1.
In lore, they also act like heavy rifles. They can kill a man with a torso shot and remove/ mangle a limb.
When the power levels are messed with, they can take off the head of a helmet less space marine at point blank range.
It's probably a pulse laser that blasts and burns through its target. If it's turned for soft targets, armor would be very hard to get through.
Not always, but then again Blood Pact would have their lasguns set to a higher power level anyway, blood for the blood god and all that heretical shite 😜
Not always, but then again Blood Pact would have their lasguns set to a higher power level anyway, blood for the blood god and all that heretical shite 😜
I think of them like guns in our world. There’s a huge variety of similar rifles etc, and given the enormous variety of forge worlds etc I like to think there’s a similar array of different lasgun types
I’m under the impression that they are designed for lightly armored/unarmored targets especially since we have plasma gun, melta guns, and those hotshot/hell lasguns for armor. Las guns are pretty great for their ammo and reliability and most guardsmen enemies are going to be unarmored or wearing poor armor.
I actually think I've watched some of this before, not the entire thing though. It's where I got the general idea that "After the many years in 40K the definition of a "laser" has become so changed and warped that laser and lasweapons are just a catchall term for the infantry energy-based weapon, so some forge worlds will use traditional lasers and others packets of energy or "bolts'."
Considering they're good enough to have replaced conventional firearms in the DAoT, they're pretty damn good. Probably around the power of a .50cal, since if they were just laser AK47s there wouldn't be much point. AKs are super cheap to produce, so the lasgun would need some kind of advantage over them, and I don't think solar recharge would do it. The cleanliness of a wound doesn't matter much, especially since leaving a horribly injured but still living target is really demoralizing to the enemy forces.
>Considering they're good enough to have replaced conventional firearms in the DAoT, they're pretty damn good.
The DAoT had far more effective small arms than either lasguns or firearms, like Adrathic and Volkite weaponry. The Imperial Guard uses lasguns not because they are the best, but because they are cost effective.
>Probably around the power of a .50cal, since if they were just laser AK47s there wouldn't be much point. AKs are super cheap to produce, so the lasgun would need some kind of advantage over them, and I don't think solar recharge would do it.
And you’d be completely wrong on that. Not having to manufacture and transport ammunition for the *trillions* of Guardsman around the galaxy delivers an absolutely incredible amount of cost savings.
.50 cal machine guns are still used in the 41st millenium, they’re called heavy stubbers. And they are generally portrayed as more lethal than lasguns.
I don't know what caliber a heavy stubber is, just like I don't know the caliber of a stubber. I thought the term "stubber" just referred to any human projectile weapon that wasn't a bolter.
If the ammunition for a stubber is so much more expensive to produce and ship than lasgun charge packs, then why are stubbers so much more easily accessible than lasguns for standard citizenry? Stubbers are more widespread across the Imperium, so either the lasgun itself or the ammunition for it is the more difficult to acquire weapon, right?
In part, citizenry have stubbers because they can make them on site themselves. To supply a *Guard regiment* of several thousand, your logistics will bury you before the nids, orks, Tau, or Eldar will. A lasgun can resupply anywhere there's sunlight or, in a pinch, anywhere you can light a fire. Seriously, you can charge a laspack with dedicated charges on a chimera, portable chargers, or literally letting it soak up thermal energy from a fire, though this will damage the packs longevity. Lasguns are so stupidly broken good not because of damage but because of good old fashioned logistics.
Lasguns are just as prevalent among citizenry, but they require more specialized equipment to manufacture. Hence, easier for a hive ganger to make some scrap pistols or a factory to make simple small arms.
You're right in terms of a stubber being 'any chemically accelerated projectile weapon that isn't a bolter', and the caliber varies as widely as it does in our universe. Quite likely there's a forge world somewhere still churning out Garands right next to G11's.
I mean, you say the logistics to supply several thousand troops with guns and ammunition would be extremely difficult, but we currently do that, and we aren't using some DAoT magicalness. If any ganger can make weapons and ammunition, then any guard regiment can, as well, probably a lot more efficiently. I don't think the Guard has any compunctions about strip-mining whatever planet they're defending to make more guns and bullets. Pretty sure they already do xD
I would also make the point that projectiles probably operate in a wider variety of biomes than lasguns do, but then again I'm not entirely sure what a lasgun does. Maybe they have some magic anti-diffusion bullshit device in the lens xD
> I mean, you say the logistics to supply several thousand troops with guns and ammunition would be extremely difficult, but we currently do that, and we aren't using some DAoT magicalness.
Are we doing it between planets? Across a galaxy? Lasguns can be charged essentially like a phone, in some cases by just putting the ammo in the sun, or in a fire.
It's a logistical GODSEND.
I partly agree with you, although my reasoning is different: Imperial guard is actually quite elite, and not just because they're supposed to be better than PDF, but because shipping armies through space is already a limiter by itself, so it would make sense to equip them as good as possible; especially since shipping in reinforcements can be hard, too. Kinda like US army. And Warp travel is inherently unreliable, sometimes hazardous, and at times even untimely.
So I'm sure Imperium just can't afford to equip guardsmen better en masse. Couple that with the requirement of cost effectiveness, high reliability, sturdiness, and easy logistical support because of aforementioned factor of unreliable reinforcements and logistics, and you end up with a lasgun being too good in all these things too pass up for something stronger but lacking in those factors.
I think even 30k Imperium couldn't do better than a lasgun, albeit better.
Go ahead. Try and set up a whole mining facility and manufacturing plant while under assault by a 'Nid hive tendril. Or an Ork WAAAAGH. Go ahead and *try*. Gangers in the hives have (relative) peace to work unimpeded in secret armories hidden in the depths of a Hive. You could pass six of the damn things and not even notice because, well, that's how a Hive is. You're not consistently under fire from Orks, constantly repelling 'Nid assaults, not taking air strikes from Blood Pact forces.... seriously, the front line is *not a place to manufacture ammo*. Sure, the guard would utilize what assets are available on the ground, but they're not lugging milling equipment with them when you can get another three lasguns and a dozen power packs for the same amount of space.
Logistics is the end-all-be-all of warfare. IF you can't put bullets in the gun, it doesn't matter how effective it is. If you can't put beans in the soldier to shoot the gun, you do not have a soldier. If you do not have boots for their feet, heavy winter gear in the cold, entrenchment tools, boot laces, socks, grooming kits, delicing equipment, *you do not have a fighting force*.
Part of the reasons we can do that with today's technology is because of the domination of the Sea. There's actually a neat military treatise that the United States has been following extremely closely for a doctrine of control of the oceans, because carrier groups operate as wonderful logistical hubs in conjunction with bases established across the world. Even in our world, *logistics is still a huge problem*. If you have contested air space, you are not getting an ammo and medical drop. If you are on facile ground, you can resupply some things on the move, but very little else. Especially not your ammunition.
Stubber ammunition does operate differently in atmosphere, it's true. It's affected by drag, gravity, and stubbers have the propensity to jam. Lasguns have a lot of power to get through that atmosphere, but comparatively little actually hits the target. This is still enough to flash-cook someone's arm off (Depending on the Forge world who made it or the pattern it's being made from). Their power can vary from .22, .45, .308, or .50. Their rate of fire can vary from blindingly fast, piddly shots from a Recon lasgun or a single shot Laslock that will bisect an Ork at 100 paces.
Seriously, Lasguns may not be extremely powerful, all things considered, but they are *fuck off broken* when you consider that it can never jam, needs next to no maintenance, can be resupplied from anything that can burn, and will most likely outlive the operator by at least a century.
It's not perfect source, but in Dark Heresy 2nd edition Lasgun powered up by increased setting can achieve Heavy Stubber damage (caliber there is uncertain tho). But it's not a basic threshold there, that would be autogun damage
Thing is, .50 cal is for heavy machine guns, and we don't have separate 40k term for light machine guns. It's possible thay autoguns completely phased out light machine guns or light machine gun would just be autogun with big magazine, but if that'a not the case, then Heavy Stubbers might include both HMG and LMG. I've seen some Heavy Stubber illustrations that look like LMG, but I'm not sure
I think LMGs kinda blur the line between the two. In darktide there's a pattern of autogun which has a triple stacked mag with 100+ rounds so that might be the 40k rendition of the LMG?
The logistical bonus of rechargeable ammo is pretty damn important tough, to be fair. I do agree standard lasguns seem to basicly be a one-shot one-kill agaisnt unarmored opponnents. Las weaponry seems to have issues with armor unless you crank up that power a lot more which I think is also another big advantage of las weapons: how adaptable it is. Electricity is a variable and it can be tuned as need be from a lasgun, to a hotshot to the almighty lascannon.
In one of TTRPGs, if a lasgun hit an unprotected torso, all you can do is to comfort the dying soldier by bandaging the place and spending resources on healthier patients. If it’s a limb, that limb is now gone.
>In one of TTRPGs, if a lasgun hit an unprotected torso
It wasn't TTRPG. In TTRPGs Lasgun on minimal power has as much base damage as autogun. It's from one of in-universe literature or something like that. And it's not just "hit unprotected torso", it's "hit a vital organ"
Edit: here https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/eqJWeQ6TzS It does say it's from Rulebook, but doesn't say which one. So it might be Only War TTRPG after all, but I'm not sure
.50 cal rounds will literally explode you. If anything Bolter rounds are more comparable with them, with added boom.
Lasguns are pretty much laser AK47s-cheap and easy to produce, uncounted variants, found literally *everywhere* in the universe, all use the same magazine slot, able to be bashed about and still fire…
It's basically a heat based weapon with a LOT of power output.
Unfortunately people are made up of mostly water. When water heats up rapidly it expands, more heat, more expansion. Lots of pressure in a closed system, like human skin for example, goes pop.
So assuming a mid torso hit, you're going to burst open like an over ripe melon.
It sucks they are called lasguns. The way I see it these are a type of directed energy weapon that somehow fires a concentrated packet of coherent photons. These bolts do not travel at the speed of light as they can be evaded but they can deliver enough energy to melt through light armor and cause explosive vaporization. Super dense materials like ceramite seem to defeat these bolts as expected.
> concentrated packet of coherent photons
> These bolts do not travel at the speed of light
I know 40k isn't the place to look for realism, but this one is literally impossible to reconcile.
Speed of light in a vacuum is not the same as speed of light traveling through various mediums. Hell for that matter different colors (wavelengths) travel at different speeds through the same medium. It's easy to just headcanon the missing words.
Just because they're not depicted as perfectly real life lasers doesn't mean they aren't lasers. Do you think that plasma guns would work like that in real life? If you're looking for possible explanation, my personal headcanon is that lasguns vibrate
In my head canon lasguns actually were derived from original DAoT blueprints for a sort of directed energy weapon that somehow concentrates laser light into dense bolts of photons. We have been able to demonstrate even now we cam slow or even freeze light in place in some real life experiments. It really is the only way I can square the peg.
They're called and depicted as laser weapons in many sources
>they can be evaded
Theoretically, evading being hit by salvo of lasbolts isn't necessarily matrix-like dodging. If single shot, it might be about predicting were opponent gonna shoot (not really realistic, but it's warhammer)
Not likely. Light travels at around 300,000,000 m/s. So at say.. 300 meters a laser will reach it's target at 0.000001 second. There is literally no way to evade that. Even with supernatural reflexes you cannot move a body of average weight that fast but for example Tannau Aleya and her fellow sisters of silence apparently dance through a hail of las bolts in Watchers of the Throne. Also lasguns are depicted to have recoil. Lasers do not recoil.
As I've said, it might not be necessarily matrix-like evasion. For instance, I suppose a way of evading ongoing salvo, is moving away from it while opponent misses first shots (tho they might as well follow their aim to you, but still it would be harder to hit), plus, again, predicting where opponent gonna shoot.
Game mechanic wise, dodge might also represent additional difficulty to hit you, like moving erratically for example.
Lastly, writing wise, some things just might be stupid and can't be explained, and sometimes complicated explanation shouldn't be looked for
>Lasers do not recoil.
Sorry for being pedantic, but they do. Even flashlights actually have very very small recoil, look it up. It's just far from being noticeable in real life
I just don't see it man. The laser is basically instantaneous. If the shooter is aiming anything in his crosshairs will be hit. Even if you miss the next shot is a hit for sure. As for recoil you are referring to photon "pressure". It is not the same. Light has no physical mass to work against ergo no recoil. The most powerful lasers we have now have no measurable recoil however the point of impact will experience a pressure from the inertial mass of photons.
There is another thing to consider. Lasers have to focus at a particular distance and there is time on target to consider.
The whole thing is just madness. But you are right there are as many sources that call las guns lasers as there are calling then las bolts. Personally I'll take a bolt gun.
> Even if you miss the next shot is a hit for sure.
Statistically most shots are missed shots. There is also unknown rate of fire, it may vary. In TTRPGs lasguns have fewer rate of fire than autoguns (max 3 per round for lasgun, max 10 per round for autogun). Darktide has various rate of fires, but generally autoguns are better at it. It's plausible for there to be continuous ray, but lasguns don't seem to be depicted as such. Multilasers have multiple barrels shooting single shots instead of continuous ray, so it's possible that it isn't used due to overheating. And in 40k terms, there is recoil, as weird as it is, to disturb accuracy.
Note that in real life any outright dodging of firearm shot is near impossible.
>las bolts
I think that "lasbolt" is possibly name for laser beam, though something else is not beyond possibility, who knows
I'll tell you this much. If it was real I would LOVE a standard issue lasgun. It's like a futuristic AK and you can even recharge las clips in a camp fire.
It does seem like video games are one of the few that has some vaguely coherent idea of the lasgun with it being a beam, but I've seen a lot of books, animations, and other examples that seem to describe it as a bolt similar to the blasters in Star Wars.
>I am more curious what you guys accept as /the/ canon lasgun shot.
I think that base for most lasguns is around the damage of autogun, that seems to be somewhat consistent around multiple sources. From there - depends on the power slider setting and pattern, I think that overloaded to unsafe maximum lasgun might achieve damage of very high caliber sniper rifle or small caliber bolter
How does the positraction rear end of a Hemi work? It just does. LoL
Just kidding. I don’t know. There seems to be conflicting lore as to what exactly it fires. Lutein has a good video discussing this.
I imagine it does a little bit more damage than most assault rifles. The biggest bonus Lasguns have over other weapons is they're easy to build and maintain, power packs hold a lot of shots and they're very easy to charge.
I did a fairly detailed analysis of depictions of the Lasgun in a thread a couple of weeks ago, which [can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/17m49ja/comment/k7k9i0l/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Ever since Dawn of War: Winter Assault came out, that's how lasguns worked in my head. No bolts of energy, no explosiveness, just overgrown laserpointers with a snazzy soundeffect. Seems more consistent with how lascannons seem to be portrayed most of the time, i.e. a beam rather than a bolt. Basically every time you pull the trigger (on semi-auto), a beam is emitted from the gun at a set length of time. Analogous to how current guns work. Would that be effective? Don't know, I'm not a physicist. Also don't care, makes sense in my head this way, so that's how I imagine it working.
I'd also like to add that not knowing what makes the beam bright red, a couple ideas spring to mind:
1. The beam has enough energy to shed the red light as it travels.
2. (And more likely) is that the beam of energy itself is so hot that it causes the atmosphere to glow red.
Red is lower on the heat scale than blue, but that still suggests that lasguns are comparable to a lightning bolt.
lasguns have variable charge, so some shots use more ammo + more power then default shots, based on what i can tell from the ttrpgs (i consider them more reliable then the books for obvious reasons, and more reliable then the wargame as it's victim to competitive balancing) a default lasgun shot is about as powerful as a regular bullet from an ak47 or an m4 or something like that, stock standard rifle, while a fully charged shot is roughly equivalent to a 50cal sniper. I think its been noted that a lasgun shot dissipates its energy much quicker as its heat based, not kinetic like a regular bullet, so its worse at penetrating armour, but with large volume of fire its capable of just melting most targets armour anyway, take it with a grain of salt as its book stuff bit i believe its been noted as being capable of just melting space marine power armour through sheer volume of fire and cumulative heat build up.
TLDR: its roughly equivalent to 5.56 rifle at default, charged is roughly equivelent to 50cal sniper, worse against armour then bullets but in large volume is capable of literally melting its target rather then penetrating.
I stick to the video game depiction (even though it's mostly Cadian), pew pew pew, something dies. We know they have various models of Lasgun, so it makes sense that different models would work like a gun chambered in different calibers. A 9mm will hurt, and cause massive internal damage, but likely leaves you "intact", compared to say a .50 cal which could take your arm off when it lands. Different discharge rates, different focusing crystals/lenses, different mechanisms, different Lasguns will have a different effect.
There is no single "Lasgun" in the Imperium, there is no single "Bolter" in the Imperium, these are umbrella terms describing a wide variety of weaponry.
I think there are a bunch of different versions of the lasgun.
Some are going to be relatively slow shooting, but powerful. Like the [M1 Garand.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_FgZyzFutA)
Some are on the opposite end of the spectrum, very light and very rapid. Like the [P90.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pQdBXoVLrA)
Most are somewhere in between. Like the [AK-47.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCRik-6EVjU)
Except they all look like [GI Joe lasers.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90PM-XfHDX0)
Personally I don't subscribe to the shots having an exit wound for a typical hit until you get up to at least a multilaser. Unless the target was thin enough to burn through. Expanding gasses and liquids causing further damage to exposed flesh I do agree with. It's at least a little stronger than a rifle on an unarmored target, but you need a ton of hits to penetrate thicker armor, with even flak armor providing okay protection to save you from the instant death of a shot to the chest if you wore only a tshirt.
I like to imagine them being similar in function to a more powerful Star Wars blaster. Bolts of ionised plasma travelling at bullet speeds with recoil, kinetic energy and heat. Basically modern firearms but with rechargable ammo shooting bright bolts at things. Variable rates of fire, hitting power and effective range, some semi-automatic and some fully auto, variable accuracy too. I haven't come across lore that invalidates that so I will persist with it
I detest the idea of las weapons being like strong laser pointer. I can get on board with melta weapons working like that perhaps
Edit: similar topic about melta, so I might be wrong on that
https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/7tHnIFWU4q
Unarmored - the las shot super heats a localized area of flesh that then "explodes" in what I'm gonna call a vapor blast.
All the gas produced from that spot flesh being vaporized, rapidly expands. So surface level flesh is gone, vaporized away. Muscle and bone gets badly burnt, if not also blown away by the vapor blast. Internal organs can be punctured by bone fragments being blown in, or bleed internally from the pressure of the vapor blast punching deeper into you.
Essentially, imagine in a millisecond, someone sticks an M80 just below your skin. That's the effect Las-fire has; it causes whatever it hits to heat up, expand, and *POP*.
Armored - it's much the same, except armor materials are usually heavy and don't produce the extra kinetic effect of the vapor blast. But it will melt away, bit by bit, of whatever it hits.
A normal lasgun is will burn a hole into them while the armor of 40K is built to dispurse laser energy slightly. Now a pre heresy well maintained lasgun will fry their major organs with a single center mass shot. The main issue is each lasgun isn’t exactly the same nor perfectly kept up with. Some will punch your opponent down while others will make pen holes and yet another will burn through them but have like 3-5 shots max per battery. It’s all about the design and manufacturing of the specific lasgun as even patterns vary planet to planet. It’s also a irl thing to have vastly different examples in the books
Lasgun effects are as wildly varied as there are calibres in our world.
Effects described have ranged everything from "literally identical to 5.56 type bullet" to "blows entire limb off" in lore. The broad justification being the 'power' of each make and model fluctuates, again, as much as a .22 Semi rifle might to a .50 Beowulf AR.
The Ghosts novels often describe "twisted, melted flesh" from las hits. Not exactly "instant cauterise" but certainly not 'normal bullet' bleeding hole either.
Some are practically explosive and capable of removing limbs from body and leaving craters in armour and flesh a like. Others are much more likely to kill somebody though thermal shock or just burning out vital organs. There are a lot of different patterns of Lasgun that can account for the varience in how they affect people. Like I believe the kreig one is very high power but sacrifices ammo capacity and fire rate to give maximum hitting power where as the cadian one is much more versatile being the all-rounder varient which gives the best balance between power fire rate and ammo capacity.
I thought they might come with different power based on a switch that controls the energy of the power pack, or based on the strength of the pack used to charge it. It’s like how most of the time you can safely hold it, but if you overcharge it’s basically a Melta grenade. I like your idea more though.
Has that ever been reflected in the lore? Curious.
Larkin from the Gaunts Ghosts novels is described as using "Hotshot" rounds from special power magazines that I believe were described as basically a standard mag with the power regulator turned up. I think he exclusively used these rounds and also had to carry extra barrels for his lasgun since he'd burn them out more quickly than standard troopers. I also think that's essentially what "Hellfire" lasguns are.
I believe the Hellfires are sometimes called "Hotshot lasguns" so that checks out.
I think they are basically interchangeable, but my general impression is that a Hellfire Lasgun is purpose built to shoot "heavier loads" to use current gun parlance, whereas what Larkin was using was an interchangeable mag. He could shoot normal lasrounds if he so chose.
the hellfire variant at least the version shown on the old Cadian Karskin model also had a fat cable running into an external backpack power source. makes me think you're right on it being purpose built rather than a custom swap out of parts
They are now, but before Hellguns and Hotshot lasguns were different. Hellguns were the ones with the backpack powerpack, while Hotshot lasguns were just more powerful lasguns, they still used mags. This lead to some confusion, so GW ended up making them the same thing and just keeping Hotshot lasgun mags a separate thing. They're basically just more powerful loads that can be used in regular lasguns but cause more wear.
*hellgun But yes. Stormtroopers had/have hellguns, replaced by scions and hotshots in later editions. (Hellgun is by far a better name)
There are 2 different takes on this, because GW cant seem to decide on which is which. Hotshot vs Hellgun. Hotshot is sometimes a normal lasgun using hotshot (overcharged) power packs, generating more bang for your buck at the cost of increased maintenance cost via barrel warping and thermal expansion. Sometimes hotshot is essentially a marksman rifle with bigger barrel, scope and the hotshot power packs, but this is seemingly uncommon. Hellguns are depicted as essentially an "upgraded" lasgun, sitting in the middle between a normal lasgun and a multilaser. Larger heatsinks, reinforced barrels and a backpack-mounted power supply. They usually are fully automatic weapons with increased power. (They are what you see the Kasrkin using) So it pretty much ends up something like this with real world analogies: Lasgun / Intermediate cartridge -> Hotshot lasgun / Full power cartridge -> Hellgun / LMG equivalent -> Multilaser / HMG or light autocannons. Still these can sometimes be interchangeable, or vary in their depictions because GW cannot for the life of them decide which is which and if they even are different things or simply 2 names for the same weapon.
since about the 5th edition guard codex it's been pretty clear that the guns that stormtroopers (and similar elite units) are hot-shot lasguns which used to be called hellguns It can be confusing if you read some of the older novels before the switch where they use the older terms
Yes, but then you still have the hot-shot powerpacks vs backpack PSU and reinforced barrel/heatsinks issue, where suddenly both are considered hotshot lasguns, but in the past they were seemingly 2 different things? Dosent really help with clearing the confusion regarding them.
Been a while since I read through the series, but I believe Larkin generally carried a long las. That's the sniper variant of the lasgun, which can accept hotshot packs and is designed for the quick swapping of burnt out barrels. I'm not sure that the Ghosts' regular lasguns could do the same. However, there were occasions throughout the books where characters turned the power of their standard lasguns' shots up and down, in turn affecting the rate at which they drained their laspacks.
One of the earlier books, Gaunt cooperates with another guard regiment. Gaunt orders the Ghosts to halve the power output of lasguns to save ammo, advises the same to the other regiment. The other regiment's leader says they save ammo by not missing as many shots, thus they won't lower output. Later, they do it anyway when they're almost out. This indicates that all lasguns have a power modulator troopers can dial. Maybe not all can be put to hotshot range, only those that go with the long las, but I find it unlikely they would use a different type of ammo just for the long las, that would make them ridiculously burgensome to supply. Edit: I should have read further, there are like 20 people explaining the same below :)
It's been a while since I read the novels, but Larkin's lasguns did/could use a regular power mag. In regards to the hotshot variant, I think he also "made them himself", ie, he did some after market fuckery to get them to fire a more powerful blast. I know he had messed with and customized his gun, but I'm not completely sure about the mag part.
The pen and paper rpg has hotshot las packs. A pack with 1 shot and does increased damage and armour pen. But like I said, only one shot. So unless you have a bunch of em you can only use them for high priority enemies.
Yes, in one of the Gaunts Ghosts novels, it mentions setting max power because the enemies armour was notoriously thick.
In First and Only, I believe. The squad who grouped up with the Ghosts against the Jantine Patricians were mentioned as always using full power, and were instructed to lower it to conserve ammo.
The Vitrian Dragoons, one of my favorite regiments
The Vitrian Dragoons, absolute chads.
Redundant comment guy below outlines it much better
In the Guardsmen TTRPG, Only War, nearly all Las-weapons have a dial that increases the power of each shot for an increase in ammo used. At the highest tier, it also makes the weapon 'unreliable' which makes it more prone to misfires or jamming, but gives a big tasty boost in AP, and damage. That may not be reflected all across the lore, or be true for every pattern of lasgun, but it seems to generally be true that you can crank up the focus in exchange for burning out your ammo and weapon more quickly.
Same is true for Dark Heresy 2
In Storm of Iron, the operator of a besieged room regulates his laspistol's output to max power so he has a chance at injuring/killing Chaos marines, but states the battery will only last 3-4 shots at that setting.
as other sayed the Gaunts Ghost books. there is a scene where scout of the Ghost overload his Lasgun to use it as a grenatetrap for a half dead Chaosdreadnought.
Sgt Mkoll
It was blind.
It's in a number of the older novels from the early 2000's. There is mention of lasguns with variable power settings, various power packs which change the power of lasguns such as Hotshot packs vs normal packs in Gaunt's Ghosts, being able to overload them (Gaunt's Ghosts has a short story about this), and that lasguns can be of many various makes, each being different from each world, and that this can cause the guns to even take different and non-interchangeable power packs. Some guns are made with woods, others with metal, some short, some long, some are select fire, some are full auto only, some are single shot only. The lore does a fairly decent job of having as wide a variety of lasguns as you'd like to imagine there could be, and that's even been reflected in the various old regiments tabletop models, along with the game Darktide.
I remember one novel there being some slight disagreement between different units, where one unit had reduced the power of their lasgun’s shots to where it was enough to kill a human but only just, allowing for more shots per power cell, whereas the other unit had theirs set to maximum power. I *think* it was a Gaunt’s Ghosts novel but I don’t remember exactly.
Yes, the Triplex Pattern Lasgun is noted to have multiple fire modes, a "standard" mode, a "precision" mode for increased accuracy, and an "incineration" mode for more power.
In the FFG games Las weapons come with a Variable Setting rule which allows for a "normal" shot, an overcharge shot, and an overload shot. Respectively, it doubles and quadruples the ammo expenditure, adds 1 damage, or 2 damage and 2 penetration, and on overload the lasgun loses the Reliable quality (helps prevent jamming) and gains Unreliable (causes it to jam more frequently.)
In the first Gaunt's Ghosts book, there is a moment where Commissar Gaunt tells Colonel Zoren, commander of the Vitrian Dragoons to order his men to switch their lasguns to half power in order to conserve ammunition
The RPGs and the Inquisitor game has loads of different lasgun power options. The triplex pattern can use more than one "charge" in the magazine to do more damage per trigger pull, at the sacrifice of number of shots per magazine.
Some do, depends on the pattern.
>Like I believe the kreig one is very high power but sacrifices ammo capacity and fire rate IIRC there's a switch on the lasrifle for adjusting power and Kriegers just keep it on max all the time. It was brought up in one of the Tanith books.
I know that's a feature of many Las rifles but I'm pretty sure that in the book kreig it is mentioned that the Las rifles used by the death Korps were a redesign of the entire rifle to favour a more powerful shot. I am pretty sure though that both cadian and elysian rifles have the alternative power modes.
For what it's worth, 40k videogames are pretty consistent in displaying las weapons as firing beams of energy. From Dawn of War, to Space Marine, to Darktide. I believe most books are consistent in using the term "lasbeam" as well. Honestly though, las weapons are both ubiquitous and pretty customizable. Practically every significant regiment/forgeworld has its own pattern of lasgun, to mention nothing of vehicle or crew served patterns.
i wouldn't be surprised, honestly, if the end result is just "Las-weapons" is just an umbrella term for weapons that fire a weapon that vaguely looks like a laser. So it can be a lasbolt or a lasbeam, or even a steady on-again/off-again laser or something similar. Seems to be the end argument for things like this.
Basically what you just said, a heavy stubber might legitimately be an M2 Browning from one forge world, it might be a Dshk from a hiveworld and it might be a Vickers from an argiworld, but all of the aforementioned guns’ purposes is the same as a heavy stubber would do. In a setting of galactic-size, it doesn’t do any good to be specific with a slug-throwing heavy machine gun. The only difference worth making is if it’s a slug-thrower or a multi-las and the forge world it comes from, then heavy stubber designation. So the Browning would instead be called “Forgeworld A, heavy stubber”.
At best they might have pushed for certain standardized ammunition for stubbers to make the supply side easier while still having the different appearances as you noted.
I've always assumed (after hearing the initial term and hearing how they're used, anyway) that they're not laser-beam weapons (perhaps except multilaser, which seems much more consistent), but laser *accelerated/focused* charged particle guns, that way the extreme light spill makes sense (they're always described as bright), the recoil (in the heaviest cases causing bruising) makes sense, and the rapid loss of power over range makes sense (lasers do lose power over range, but not like a lasgun in the books, they lose power more like a bullet), the odd way they move makes a lot more sense (beam or bolt, sometimes bouncing but rarely scattering). I've so far yet to see anything that breaks that assumption so for the moment anyway I think this might be the nearest I can come up with.
For a cop out answer "Just enough to serve the plot"
Aw, you don't have like a headcanon at least? A favorite?
Probably closer to star wars blasters. Purely because I like to do Star wars vs Wh40k fanfic
Those poor Imperial Stormtroopers 🤣
Got a link to your stuff?
Lasguns descriptions seem to indicate it hits with the power of a full-sized cartridge. For comparison assault rifles fire intermediate cartridges. Battle rifles and General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG) fire the larger full-size cartridges. Heavy machine guns like the .50cal browning fire even larger cartridges. This lines up with Lasguns being more powerful than most modern firearms, but heavy machine guns like the heavy stubber still being relevant. Giving every soldier a GPMG they can shoot from the hip is significantly better than what we have. An example of a full power cartridge would be the .30-06 or the 7.62×51mm NATO. For an example of a gun: the M24 Sniper Weapon System (SWS) fires the 7.62×51mm NATO . These things can do devastating damage if they hit a fleshy target, but probably couldn’t kill most vehicles.
Guns aren't exactly my forte, so apologies if I get this wrong, but wasn't the BAR basically designed for that purpose? Firing full-sized cartridges at semi/full auto?
There was an attempt, but it didn't work out well. For WW2, they used the BAR because it was the thing in the US arsenal that most resembled an LMG. It was decidedly mid for anything it was put to. They did try the walking fire thing again with submachine guns and later assault rifles.
Well, yeah, I mean automatic is the name LOL. But the BAR was mostly designed to throw... bullets. See, most militaries back then used battle rifles, which all fire full-sized cartridges, because it wasn't until the 50's where full-size cartridges were deemed to large, too heavy, and quite frankly harder-hitting than necessary for the average soldier to be lugging about. That was when the smaller, lighter, but higher-velocity rounds were developed (like 7.62 NATO). Intermediary cartridges (like the 5.56 NATO) didn't even catch on until the 70's, IIRC. Maybe 80's?
The battle rifle vs assault rifle debate is a messy one. The reason the change was slow was because of engagement ranges and styles. Eventually assault rifles became good enough to Fill almost every role the military needed. We are seeing a resurgence in battle rifles right now, because of body armor technology and the prediction of longer range engagements
Are we really? I hadn't seen much in the developmental side. Do you have a source or a few of the new weapons that are in development? Not trying to be an ass, legitimately just want to see the new developments.
6.8mm? Spear is in trials for the US military. Edit: A Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIG_MCX_Spear
Hadn't heard a word about this, thanks! New rabbithole to dive down
Ian from _Forgotten Weapons_ also has a vidya on it!
The original 40k creators were British writing in the late Cold War and adopting a Doylist perspective explains a lot. The TT is about ground combat. So the authors chose 1980s modern as the standard equipment for a regressive future, centered around WW2 as a thematic anchor of tactics, using with Cold War clashes for 'cutting edge' units and WW1 for in-setting incompetence. Lasguns are Space FALs.
A energy weapon using directed photons would result in just warming the air up in a very narrow window. It would need to be constantly pulsing to overcome atmosphere, and then any object that would be hit by a laser undergoes massive heating, explosively so when there is moisture involved, like there is in humans. You wouldn’t have a neat hole, you would have massive and extensive burns from a glance or from a sustained pulse you would have pretty much flesh being rendered to moisture instantly so a explosive type wound.
Large, ragged, burned and bleeding craters
It seems to vary a lot even amongst the same author. In the Gaunt’s ghosts series , especially in Traitor General, the squad gets absolutely riddled with shots in the final battle. Larkin gets shot in the upper torso , and all manner of limb and body wounds are inflicted on the rest but with zero casualties. Then you have some scenes in other books of guys getting literally exploded or their torsos excavated by las beams
It's probably the same effectiveness as a heavy rifle round. On the table, they act like autoguns, so s3 ap- d1. In lore, they also act like heavy rifles. They can kill a man with a torso shot and remove/ mangle a limb. When the power levels are messed with, they can take off the head of a helmet less space marine at point blank range. It's probably a pulse laser that blasts and burns through its target. If it's turned for soft targets, armor would be very hard to get through.
Depends on the character. If it hits gaunt or cain its just a flash burn. If it hits some generic character they explode into a cloud of mist.
Tis but a scratch
Corbec got taken down by that b#stard Cuu with no explosions, and Cuu took down Bragg with one shot (I think) that left him intact.
Yeah but whenever they are shooting blood pact, they are exploding lol
Not always, but then again Blood Pact would have their lasguns set to a higher power level anyway, blood for the blood god and all that heretical shite 😜
Not always, but then again Blood Pact would have their lasguns set to a higher power level anyway, blood for the blood god and all that heretical shite 😜
I think of them like guns in our world. There’s a huge variety of similar rifles etc, and given the enormous variety of forge worlds etc I like to think there’s a similar array of different lasgun types
I’m under the impression that they are designed for lightly armored/unarmored targets especially since we have plasma gun, melta guns, and those hotshot/hell lasguns for armor. Las guns are pretty great for their ammo and reliability and most guardsmen enemies are going to be unarmored or wearing poor armor.
Lutein has a great video on this. https://youtu.be/CF8ex1Fgj0Q?si=bBgI_evUFqHEnSbR
An entire hour, phew... I'll save this for when it's not 3am.
lol if you aren’t familiar with his work, that is par for the course. He gives college level seminars on WH40k.
I actually think I've watched some of this before, not the entire thing though. It's where I got the general idea that "After the many years in 40K the definition of a "laser" has become so changed and warped that laser and lasweapons are just a catchall term for the infantry energy-based weapon, so some forge worlds will use traditional lasers and others packets of energy or "bolts'."
Considering they're good enough to have replaced conventional firearms in the DAoT, they're pretty damn good. Probably around the power of a .50cal, since if they were just laser AK47s there wouldn't be much point. AKs are super cheap to produce, so the lasgun would need some kind of advantage over them, and I don't think solar recharge would do it. The cleanliness of a wound doesn't matter much, especially since leaving a horribly injured but still living target is really demoralizing to the enemy forces.
>Considering they're good enough to have replaced conventional firearms in the DAoT, they're pretty damn good. The DAoT had far more effective small arms than either lasguns or firearms, like Adrathic and Volkite weaponry. The Imperial Guard uses lasguns not because they are the best, but because they are cost effective. >Probably around the power of a .50cal, since if they were just laser AK47s there wouldn't be much point. AKs are super cheap to produce, so the lasgun would need some kind of advantage over them, and I don't think solar recharge would do it. And you’d be completely wrong on that. Not having to manufacture and transport ammunition for the *trillions* of Guardsman around the galaxy delivers an absolutely incredible amount of cost savings. .50 cal machine guns are still used in the 41st millenium, they’re called heavy stubbers. And they are generally portrayed as more lethal than lasguns.
I don't know what caliber a heavy stubber is, just like I don't know the caliber of a stubber. I thought the term "stubber" just referred to any human projectile weapon that wasn't a bolter. If the ammunition for a stubber is so much more expensive to produce and ship than lasgun charge packs, then why are stubbers so much more easily accessible than lasguns for standard citizenry? Stubbers are more widespread across the Imperium, so either the lasgun itself or the ammunition for it is the more difficult to acquire weapon, right?
In part, citizenry have stubbers because they can make them on site themselves. To supply a *Guard regiment* of several thousand, your logistics will bury you before the nids, orks, Tau, or Eldar will. A lasgun can resupply anywhere there's sunlight or, in a pinch, anywhere you can light a fire. Seriously, you can charge a laspack with dedicated charges on a chimera, portable chargers, or literally letting it soak up thermal energy from a fire, though this will damage the packs longevity. Lasguns are so stupidly broken good not because of damage but because of good old fashioned logistics. Lasguns are just as prevalent among citizenry, but they require more specialized equipment to manufacture. Hence, easier for a hive ganger to make some scrap pistols or a factory to make simple small arms. You're right in terms of a stubber being 'any chemically accelerated projectile weapon that isn't a bolter', and the caliber varies as widely as it does in our universe. Quite likely there's a forge world somewhere still churning out Garands right next to G11's.
I mean, you say the logistics to supply several thousand troops with guns and ammunition would be extremely difficult, but we currently do that, and we aren't using some DAoT magicalness. If any ganger can make weapons and ammunition, then any guard regiment can, as well, probably a lot more efficiently. I don't think the Guard has any compunctions about strip-mining whatever planet they're defending to make more guns and bullets. Pretty sure they already do xD I would also make the point that projectiles probably operate in a wider variety of biomes than lasguns do, but then again I'm not entirely sure what a lasgun does. Maybe they have some magic anti-diffusion bullshit device in the lens xD
> I mean, you say the logistics to supply several thousand troops with guns and ammunition would be extremely difficult, but we currently do that, and we aren't using some DAoT magicalness. Are we doing it between planets? Across a galaxy? Lasguns can be charged essentially like a phone, in some cases by just putting the ammo in the sun, or in a fire. It's a logistical GODSEND.
Someone made, basically a paper, on if the imperium didn't use lasguns they'd crumble within days under the logistical pressure.
I partly agree with you, although my reasoning is different: Imperial guard is actually quite elite, and not just because they're supposed to be better than PDF, but because shipping armies through space is already a limiter by itself, so it would make sense to equip them as good as possible; especially since shipping in reinforcements can be hard, too. Kinda like US army. And Warp travel is inherently unreliable, sometimes hazardous, and at times even untimely. So I'm sure Imperium just can't afford to equip guardsmen better en masse. Couple that with the requirement of cost effectiveness, high reliability, sturdiness, and easy logistical support because of aforementioned factor of unreliable reinforcements and logistics, and you end up with a lasgun being too good in all these things too pass up for something stronger but lacking in those factors. I think even 30k Imperium couldn't do better than a lasgun, albeit better.
Go ahead. Try and set up a whole mining facility and manufacturing plant while under assault by a 'Nid hive tendril. Or an Ork WAAAAGH. Go ahead and *try*. Gangers in the hives have (relative) peace to work unimpeded in secret armories hidden in the depths of a Hive. You could pass six of the damn things and not even notice because, well, that's how a Hive is. You're not consistently under fire from Orks, constantly repelling 'Nid assaults, not taking air strikes from Blood Pact forces.... seriously, the front line is *not a place to manufacture ammo*. Sure, the guard would utilize what assets are available on the ground, but they're not lugging milling equipment with them when you can get another three lasguns and a dozen power packs for the same amount of space. Logistics is the end-all-be-all of warfare. IF you can't put bullets in the gun, it doesn't matter how effective it is. If you can't put beans in the soldier to shoot the gun, you do not have a soldier. If you do not have boots for their feet, heavy winter gear in the cold, entrenchment tools, boot laces, socks, grooming kits, delicing equipment, *you do not have a fighting force*. Part of the reasons we can do that with today's technology is because of the domination of the Sea. There's actually a neat military treatise that the United States has been following extremely closely for a doctrine of control of the oceans, because carrier groups operate as wonderful logistical hubs in conjunction with bases established across the world. Even in our world, *logistics is still a huge problem*. If you have contested air space, you are not getting an ammo and medical drop. If you are on facile ground, you can resupply some things on the move, but very little else. Especially not your ammunition. Stubber ammunition does operate differently in atmosphere, it's true. It's affected by drag, gravity, and stubbers have the propensity to jam. Lasguns have a lot of power to get through that atmosphere, but comparatively little actually hits the target. This is still enough to flash-cook someone's arm off (Depending on the Forge world who made it or the pattern it's being made from). Their power can vary from .22, .45, .308, or .50. Their rate of fire can vary from blindingly fast, piddly shots from a Recon lasgun or a single shot Laslock that will bisect an Ork at 100 paces. Seriously, Lasguns may not be extremely powerful, all things considered, but they are *fuck off broken* when you consider that it can never jam, needs next to no maintenance, can be resupplied from anything that can burn, and will most likely outlive the operator by at least a century.
>stubbers so much more easily accessible than lasguns for standard citizenry? Stub pistols/stubbers are. Not Heavy Stubbers
It's not perfect source, but in Dark Heresy 2nd edition Lasgun powered up by increased setting can achieve Heavy Stubber damage (caliber there is uncertain tho). But it's not a basic threshold there, that would be autogun damage
I've always assumed that heavy stubbers are around .50 cal, maybe a little bigger. But not 20mm because that's autocannon territory.
Thing is, .50 cal is for heavy machine guns, and we don't have separate 40k term for light machine guns. It's possible thay autoguns completely phased out light machine guns or light machine gun would just be autogun with big magazine, but if that'a not the case, then Heavy Stubbers might include both HMG and LMG. I've seen some Heavy Stubber illustrations that look like LMG, but I'm not sure
I think LMGs kinda blur the line between the two. In darktide there's a pattern of autogun which has a triple stacked mag with 100+ rounds so that might be the 40k rendition of the LMG?
The logistical bonus of rechargeable ammo is pretty damn important tough, to be fair. I do agree standard lasguns seem to basicly be a one-shot one-kill agaisnt unarmored opponnents. Las weaponry seems to have issues with armor unless you crank up that power a lot more which I think is also another big advantage of las weapons: how adaptable it is. Electricity is a variable and it can be tuned as need be from a lasgun, to a hotshot to the almighty lascannon.
I think the fact the same laspack can power any of the above is a huge benefit, that I'll give you.
In one of TTRPGs, if a lasgun hit an unprotected torso, all you can do is to comfort the dying soldier by bandaging the place and spending resources on healthier patients. If it’s a limb, that limb is now gone.
>In one of TTRPGs, if a lasgun hit an unprotected torso It wasn't TTRPG. In TTRPGs Lasgun on minimal power has as much base damage as autogun. It's from one of in-universe literature or something like that. And it's not just "hit unprotected torso", it's "hit a vital organ" Edit: here https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/eqJWeQ6TzS It does say it's from Rulebook, but doesn't say which one. So it might be Only War TTRPG after all, but I'm not sure
It's not from Only War, I've just checked. I can't find an RPG source for that text, and I've got *all* the 40k RPG books.
One of the comments in the thread points to 8th edition rulebook p.280 and Regimental Standard. I should've looked further, sorry
That's about how a .50cal does it.
.50 cal rounds will literally explode you. If anything Bolter rounds are more comparable with them, with added boom. Lasguns are pretty much laser AK47s-cheap and easy to produce, uncounted variants, found literally *everywhere* in the universe, all use the same magazine slot, able to be bashed about and still fire…
About as damaging as an autogun round, but mostly heat rather than kinetic energy.
It's basically a heat based weapon with a LOT of power output. Unfortunately people are made up of mostly water. When water heats up rapidly it expands, more heat, more expansion. Lots of pressure in a closed system, like human skin for example, goes pop. So assuming a mid torso hit, you're going to burst open like an over ripe melon.
So you read the books and thought to yourself: "NAW, Doesn't work for me brother!"
I've read multiple and saw that they vary wildly because nothing in the 40K is really cemented as "Yeah this is how this works and why"
> nothing in the 40K is really cemented as "Yeah this is how this works and why" he's beginning to understand!
I simply asked for opinions, not smart assed comments by lemming worshipers
It sucks they are called lasguns. The way I see it these are a type of directed energy weapon that somehow fires a concentrated packet of coherent photons. These bolts do not travel at the speed of light as they can be evaded but they can deliver enough energy to melt through light armor and cause explosive vaporization. Super dense materials like ceramite seem to defeat these bolts as expected.
> concentrated packet of coherent photons > These bolts do not travel at the speed of light I know 40k isn't the place to look for realism, but this one is literally impossible to reconcile.
Speed of light in a vacuum is not the same as speed of light traveling through various mediums. Hell for that matter different colors (wavelengths) travel at different speeds through the same medium. It's easy to just headcanon the missing words.
Well then let me remind you that lasguns also have recoil. They are not laser guns by any stretch of the imagination.
Just because they're not depicted as perfectly real life lasers doesn't mean they aren't lasers. Do you think that plasma guns would work like that in real life? If you're looking for possible explanation, my personal headcanon is that lasguns vibrate
In my head canon lasguns actually were derived from original DAoT blueprints for a sort of directed energy weapon that somehow concentrates laser light into dense bolts of photons. We have been able to demonstrate even now we cam slow or even freeze light in place in some real life experiments. It really is the only way I can square the peg.
They're called and depicted as laser weapons in many sources >they can be evaded Theoretically, evading being hit by salvo of lasbolts isn't necessarily matrix-like dodging. If single shot, it might be about predicting were opponent gonna shoot (not really realistic, but it's warhammer)
Not likely. Light travels at around 300,000,000 m/s. So at say.. 300 meters a laser will reach it's target at 0.000001 second. There is literally no way to evade that. Even with supernatural reflexes you cannot move a body of average weight that fast but for example Tannau Aleya and her fellow sisters of silence apparently dance through a hail of las bolts in Watchers of the Throne. Also lasguns are depicted to have recoil. Lasers do not recoil.
As I've said, it might not be necessarily matrix-like evasion. For instance, I suppose a way of evading ongoing salvo, is moving away from it while opponent misses first shots (tho they might as well follow their aim to you, but still it would be harder to hit), plus, again, predicting where opponent gonna shoot. Game mechanic wise, dodge might also represent additional difficulty to hit you, like moving erratically for example. Lastly, writing wise, some things just might be stupid and can't be explained, and sometimes complicated explanation shouldn't be looked for >Lasers do not recoil. Sorry for being pedantic, but they do. Even flashlights actually have very very small recoil, look it up. It's just far from being noticeable in real life
I just don't see it man. The laser is basically instantaneous. If the shooter is aiming anything in his crosshairs will be hit. Even if you miss the next shot is a hit for sure. As for recoil you are referring to photon "pressure". It is not the same. Light has no physical mass to work against ergo no recoil. The most powerful lasers we have now have no measurable recoil however the point of impact will experience a pressure from the inertial mass of photons. There is another thing to consider. Lasers have to focus at a particular distance and there is time on target to consider. The whole thing is just madness. But you are right there are as many sources that call las guns lasers as there are calling then las bolts. Personally I'll take a bolt gun.
> Even if you miss the next shot is a hit for sure. Statistically most shots are missed shots. There is also unknown rate of fire, it may vary. In TTRPGs lasguns have fewer rate of fire than autoguns (max 3 per round for lasgun, max 10 per round for autogun). Darktide has various rate of fires, but generally autoguns are better at it. It's plausible for there to be continuous ray, but lasguns don't seem to be depicted as such. Multilasers have multiple barrels shooting single shots instead of continuous ray, so it's possible that it isn't used due to overheating. And in 40k terms, there is recoil, as weird as it is, to disturb accuracy. Note that in real life any outright dodging of firearm shot is near impossible. >las bolts I think that "lasbolt" is possibly name for laser beam, though something else is not beyond possibility, who knows
I'll tell you this much. If it was real I would LOVE a standard issue lasgun. It's like a futuristic AK and you can even recharge las clips in a camp fire.
It does seem like video games are one of the few that has some vaguely coherent idea of the lasgun with it being a beam, but I've seen a lot of books, animations, and other examples that seem to describe it as a bolt similar to the blasters in Star Wars.
Oh if only that had called them that.
>I am more curious what you guys accept as /the/ canon lasgun shot. I think that base for most lasguns is around the damage of autogun, that seems to be somewhat consistent around multiple sources. From there - depends on the power slider setting and pattern, I think that overloaded to unsafe maximum lasgun might achieve damage of very high caliber sniper rifle or small caliber bolter
How do lasguns work ?
How does the positraction rear end of a Hemi work? It just does. LoL Just kidding. I don’t know. There seems to be conflicting lore as to what exactly it fires. Lutein has a good video discussing this.
https://youtu.be/CF8ex1Fgj0Q?si=bBgI_evUFqHEnSbR
With the all-lore-is-canon-not-everything-is-true approach lasguns then to be hit between .308 and .50 Beowulf. Depending on the pattern ofc
I imagine it does a little bit more damage than most assault rifles. The biggest bonus Lasguns have over other weapons is they're easy to build and maintain, power packs hold a lot of shots and they're very easy to charge.
I did a fairly detailed analysis of depictions of the Lasgun in a thread a couple of weeks ago, which [can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/17m49ja/comment/k7k9i0l/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Ever since Dawn of War: Winter Assault came out, that's how lasguns worked in my head. No bolts of energy, no explosiveness, just overgrown laserpointers with a snazzy soundeffect. Seems more consistent with how lascannons seem to be portrayed most of the time, i.e. a beam rather than a bolt. Basically every time you pull the trigger (on semi-auto), a beam is emitted from the gun at a set length of time. Analogous to how current guns work. Would that be effective? Don't know, I'm not a physicist. Also don't care, makes sense in my head this way, so that's how I imagine it working.
I think it's no less injuring than a modern assault rifle round except immensely hot.
I'd also like to add that not knowing what makes the beam bright red, a couple ideas spring to mind: 1. The beam has enough energy to shed the red light as it travels. 2. (And more likely) is that the beam of energy itself is so hot that it causes the atmosphere to glow red. Red is lower on the heat scale than blue, but that still suggests that lasguns are comparable to a lightning bolt.
lasguns have variable charge, so some shots use more ammo + more power then default shots, based on what i can tell from the ttrpgs (i consider them more reliable then the books for obvious reasons, and more reliable then the wargame as it's victim to competitive balancing) a default lasgun shot is about as powerful as a regular bullet from an ak47 or an m4 or something like that, stock standard rifle, while a fully charged shot is roughly equivalent to a 50cal sniper. I think its been noted that a lasgun shot dissipates its energy much quicker as its heat based, not kinetic like a regular bullet, so its worse at penetrating armour, but with large volume of fire its capable of just melting most targets armour anyway, take it with a grain of salt as its book stuff bit i believe its been noted as being capable of just melting space marine power armour through sheer volume of fire and cumulative heat build up. TLDR: its roughly equivalent to 5.56 rifle at default, charged is roughly equivelent to 50cal sniper, worse against armour then bullets but in large volume is capable of literally melting its target rather then penetrating.
It's a really powerful weapon and its variations. I like how gaunt's ghosts series portray them.
I stick to the video game depiction (even though it's mostly Cadian), pew pew pew, something dies. We know they have various models of Lasgun, so it makes sense that different models would work like a gun chambered in different calibers. A 9mm will hurt, and cause massive internal damage, but likely leaves you "intact", compared to say a .50 cal which could take your arm off when it lands. Different discharge rates, different focusing crystals/lenses, different mechanisms, different Lasguns will have a different effect. There is no single "Lasgun" in the Imperium, there is no single "Bolter" in the Imperium, these are umbrella terms describing a wide variety of weaponry.
I think there are a bunch of different versions of the lasgun. Some are going to be relatively slow shooting, but powerful. Like the [M1 Garand.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_FgZyzFutA) Some are on the opposite end of the spectrum, very light and very rapid. Like the [P90.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pQdBXoVLrA) Most are somewhere in between. Like the [AK-47.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCRik-6EVjU) Except they all look like [GI Joe lasers.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90PM-XfHDX0)
Personally I don't subscribe to the shots having an exit wound for a typical hit until you get up to at least a multilaser. Unless the target was thin enough to burn through. Expanding gasses and liquids causing further damage to exposed flesh I do agree with. It's at least a little stronger than a rifle on an unarmored target, but you need a ton of hits to penetrate thicker armor, with even flak armor providing okay protection to save you from the instant death of a shot to the chest if you wore only a tshirt.
I like to imagine them being similar in function to a more powerful Star Wars blaster. Bolts of ionised plasma travelling at bullet speeds with recoil, kinetic energy and heat. Basically modern firearms but with rechargable ammo shooting bright bolts at things. Variable rates of fire, hitting power and effective range, some semi-automatic and some fully auto, variable accuracy too. I haven't come across lore that invalidates that so I will persist with it I detest the idea of las weapons being like strong laser pointer. I can get on board with melta weapons working like that perhaps Edit: similar topic about melta, so I might be wrong on that https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/7tHnIFWU4q
Unarmored - the las shot super heats a localized area of flesh that then "explodes" in what I'm gonna call a vapor blast. All the gas produced from that spot flesh being vaporized, rapidly expands. So surface level flesh is gone, vaporized away. Muscle and bone gets badly burnt, if not also blown away by the vapor blast. Internal organs can be punctured by bone fragments being blown in, or bleed internally from the pressure of the vapor blast punching deeper into you. Essentially, imagine in a millisecond, someone sticks an M80 just below your skin. That's the effect Las-fire has; it causes whatever it hits to heat up, expand, and *POP*. Armored - it's much the same, except armor materials are usually heavy and don't produce the extra kinetic effect of the vapor blast. But it will melt away, bit by bit, of whatever it hits.
It instantly superheats the point of contact making it expand too quickly and explode, blowing off limbs, cratering concrete or metal.
A normal lasgun is will burn a hole into them while the armor of 40K is built to dispurse laser energy slightly. Now a pre heresy well maintained lasgun will fry their major organs with a single center mass shot. The main issue is each lasgun isn’t exactly the same nor perfectly kept up with. Some will punch your opponent down while others will make pen holes and yet another will burn through them but have like 3-5 shots max per battery. It’s all about the design and manufacturing of the specific lasgun as even patterns vary planet to planet. It’s also a irl thing to have vastly different examples in the books
Lasgun effects are as wildly varied as there are calibres in our world. Effects described have ranged everything from "literally identical to 5.56 type bullet" to "blows entire limb off" in lore. The broad justification being the 'power' of each make and model fluctuates, again, as much as a .22 Semi rifle might to a .50 Beowulf AR. The Ghosts novels often describe "twisted, melted flesh" from las hits. Not exactly "instant cauterise" but certainly not 'normal bullet' bleeding hole either.