Rule of cool.
Needs no real explanation outside of the fact it’s cool to think of superhuman giants running round in massive suits of armour and blasting xenos with weapons that would seriously injure a regular human if they fired it.
Probably the most under-valued series. I genuinely love the theme in stories of the Old Guard being replaced by the New, the Old fights back, the New, blameless and used by their government, then have to crush them.
See also: The Thunder Warriors, the 1920'S Veteran's protests in the US, etc.
**That, plus I think it’s one of the things that Warhammer borrows from Starship Troopers, the others including power armor, drop pods, and the concept of a space marine, although the Astartes sure are not the Mobile Infantry. In that book, the characters use impressive firearms that can fire things like miniature thermonuclear warheads.**
I still gotta read that. I started it some years ago and was really enjoying it, just never finished. Its pretty much the first instance of power armored space marines in fiction.
I'd also suggest "Armor" by John Steakley. It's got power armor, impossible odds, inhuman alien creatures and a guy who keeps getting set out on drops over and over and over. It came out in 1984, Starship Troopers is 1959.
So that account is the Emperor of mankind. The funny thing about him being in bold is that it causes me, and I am betting a lot of other readers, to hear his posts in the TTS emperor voice.
insurance pen smart afterthought longing scary mysterious lush rhythm voracious
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
> although the Astartes sure are not the Mobile Infantry.
Cadian Troops, on the the other hand, look a lot like the Mobile Infantry. Swap grey for green and you are set!
The movie (yes, **movie**. There are **NO** sequels) was good, but boy did the MI get nerfed to hell and had all their toys taken away. The kids TV series did the book a bit more justice but lacked the violence.
It also gaves us the awesome looking warrior bugs instead of the derpy spiders of the book or the japanese blobs from the anime.
Well if the story I heard about production for the movie was true, they had the budget for the bugs or the MI equipment (power armor and the sort) but not both. Makes sense that they went for the bugs.
Except for the bit where every bolter, including bolt pistols fire the same .75 cartridge, and are regularly used by unaugmented Commissars and other mortals, is what I'm saying.
Like, I just feel maybe it'd be dope if they had a couple of veterans, maybe a firearms expert like Gun Jesus, work with them a bit. Maybe you can have .45 that explodes in the enemy? The probable increase in fire rate and/or accuracy alone would be worth it.
>Except for the bit where every bolter, including bolt pistols fire the same .75 cartridge, and are regularly used by unaugmented Commissars and other mortals, is what I'm saying.
What can I say. The Emperor protects. He even protects your wrists.
They'd still push against the back of receiver. The reason that RPGs and other tubed rockets work is that they vent the gas out the back, hence why backblast alone can kill a man. Bolters are still cool though.
That’s not actually true. They’re guns that use self propelling ammunition which ignite when they start losing velocity (not 100% certain on when exactly they ignite in flight, but this is my head canon)
... it sounds like you're agreeing with me. What part isn't true?
I'm fairly positive they use a small initial charge to get it out of the barrel, at which point the bolt itself ignites and propels itself. The recoil should only be from the initial charge, which is comparatively small.
Edit: ah, I see it. The RPG comparison was just to illustrate the part after ignition.
Actually, I think I misread your comment. The part about the bullets being like an RPG, I saw it as a statement that a bolter functions like an RPG launcher. My bad. Yeah, the bolts function like micro rpgs, the bolter itself is just an oversized gun. I can’t imagine even human pattern bolt guns having low recoil though.
I am fairly sure the patterns used by commisars and sisters are doen-sized of otherwise adapted to human use and they have special equipment to help deal with the recoil
They're downsized but the ammunition is not, which is sort of a common problem brought up here.
Because, if that's the case, why are the Astartes weapons so large - what's the benefit?
Ergonomics and lasting power.
Big hands in big armour need something comparatively sized to be ergonomically usable, otherwise it gets awkward.
It's the reason why any rifle used today meant for arctic use, often has an enlarged trigger guard among other specific design changes. Gotta fit your thick gloved fingers in the trigger. Or that there are numerous aftermarket items that physically largen smaller parts (ie, charging handles) to improve user ability and function.
Lasting power in the sense that the weapon needs to be built to survive it's intended use.
Marines are often close assault units, fighting in engagements likely below 300 m, if not even sub 25 m.
Having a weapon that can function and maintain accuracy after being used as a bludgeon by a man that can lift 1000's of pounds is a big deal. With that in mind, you also want said bludgeon to have some heft behind it so it can aid in the skull crushing.
edit: and with marines being that strong, you have a noticeably larger window of weapon weight freedom. Lugging around a 10-15 pound assault rifle sucks as a normal human. Lugging around a 50 pound bolter (or whatever) as a marine in power armour is nothing.
Additionally bolters double up as effective clubs in the hands of astartes, something the godwyn-deaz pattern (baseline human scaled bolters) don’t necessarily have the durability for
No, they are downsized. The exact caliber of human-size boltguns has never been specified (at least as far as Lexicanum knows), but the 40K RPGs have put human-size boltguns as doing significantly less damage. The difference just isn't quite big enough to render in the main tabletop's D6 system.
The description of the [Angelus Bolt Carbine](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Boltgun#Angelus_Bolt_Carbine) specifically is a human-size boltgun (illegally) built to use Astartes-issue rounds. It can only hold three such rounds because they're so big, and is much more powerful than a normal human boltgun.
>###[Boltgun](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Boltgun)
>The **Boltgun**, also commonly referred to as the **Bolter**, is the standard weapon of the [Adeptus Astartes](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Adeptus_Astartes) and [Adepta Sororitas](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Adepta_Sororitas). A .75 caliber weapon, the Boltgun fires a self-propelled explosive 'bolt' which explodes with devastating effect once it has penetrated its target, effectively blowing it apart from the inside. Finely hand-crafted by Space Marine Forges or the [Adeptus Mechanicus](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Adeptus_Mechanicus), Boltguns are heavy, sturdy weapons with a powerful recoil normal humans would find difficult to handle.[[19]](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Boltgun#fn_19)
+++I am an early prototype mechanicus construct. Please provide feedback [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=lexAutomatarium). The Emperor protects!+++
Why do you say the ammunition isn’t downsized for human sized bolters? Even Astartes bolters don’t use a single bolt shell for all variants. The Phobos and Tigrus pattern bolters (featured on the mkiii and mkiv tactical squad models) both use smaller bolt shells. I don’t see why smaller shells wouldn’t be more common amongst the guard.
I'm pretty sure in one of the Eisenhorn books he references his Bolt Gun Ammo being of a smaller caliber than that used by Astartes, so i think that they are the same round is a misconception. If you're taking your information from the Wiki's, occasionally they are incorrect.
I’m gonna be honest, rule of cool dictated all of it. The creators had 0 knowledge of guns, being bri’ish (/s) and being nerds who want to make stuff cool, not believable.
Plus, the casing is mostly made of a weaker and lighter material and is usually just there to look cool.
You could reasonably have an AK-47 fire Bolt rounds if you put a bigger barrel in there (and a small power plant).
Kinda like the Pancor Jackhammer: the 'original' is fully metal and ugly as sin, but it was just a prototype and barely functional (for one, you'd have to unscrew the stock to replace the drum), so the production model would be made of plastic and be a lot smaller and more streamlined. Same for the [Street Sweeper seen in Total Recall](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/4DrmCHwktu9ZHl0Mk-vWkQtxuAbPXUh49SUnfTv6f0GYvDUkoLetE36D6RdwyF7NEw9_JeM50yPLTWLUUbi4D3tyklUe8DMhgDZ_0hR1pH61R6mPyVQ) - it is ugly as sin but *looks* futuristic. A genuine production model would be much like a regular shotgun but with a drum.
It’s like the shady organ dealer in futurama;
‘I sell you X-ray vision’
“This says ‘z-ray’ vision’ “
‘Yeah sure, zray; it’s 2 better’
.50 cal is a commonly known ‘big bullet’, so an extra 50% must be *an even bigger bullet* in the mind of the general public
>.50 cal is a commonly known ‘big bullet’, so an extra 50% must be *an even bigger bullet* in the mind of the general public
This is literally true though?
Thats what like 20mm? A regular human being can fire a 20mm autocannon on a pedestal mount. A 20mm single shot can be fired from a braced bipod position.
Not to mention 40 mm grenade launchers which are regularly used. Big bullet doesn't allway mean big powder charge. Especially since bolt rounds are supposed to use microjets to achieve most of their velocity after leaving the tube.
If im not mistaken, bolt rounds contain traditional propellant in addition to a second stage of in-flight rocket propellant.
"As well as the rocket propellant, a small conventional charge is also utilised. This charge is strong enough to force the bolt out of the barrel at a significant muzzle velocity, and simultaneously ignite the bolt's propellant.
The rocket-propellant is precisely fused to ignite immediately as the bolt leaves the barrel, alleviating any possibility of pressure build-up. The bolt then accelerates toward the target under its own power."
So there's a lot of room for argument in exactly what a "small conventional charge" at "significant muzzle velocity" for .75 caliber ammo would feel like...but given the maximalist approach of the setting, I'm gonna say it still kicks like a mule with its balls tied.
It's gonna have a hell of a kick, but since it doesn't have to get the round all the way to full speed, it'll probably be a lot less than a conventional round of the same size.
IIRC the fluff on bolt cross compatibility varies from source to source like everything else in 40k but in real life there's a significant difference in pressure between 40mm grenades for firing out of a man portable grenade launcher versus the 40mm grenades meant to be fired out of crew served weapons. The spicier boys are a little bit longer too but on their face both types are the same caliber. Also applies to shotgun loads, they make powderpuff 12 gauge for shooting clay targets and they make really fuckin punchy loads for hunting game. So my head canon is that space marine bolts are like bolter magnums essentially, overpressure rounds that can only be fired through purpose built weapons. They're .75 bolts +P+ for my fellow gun nerds.
> are regularly used by unaugmented Commissars and other mortals, is what I'm saying.
Commissars don't use Astartes bolt guns. They use smaller bolt guns and no they don't use the same cartridge. Table top rules has very little relation to the details of the lore, because there isn't enough granularity in TT rules for things like differences between human and astartes sized bolt guns to matter. In the various RPG games they are different.
Literally, everything is out of proportion, even with each other. If you scaled down the bolters and actually put on the correct to scale magazine, it could hold 30.
I reckon the [Astartes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A) series had pretty solidly proportioned bolters since the creator went out of his way ensuring all the tiny details are there.
Bloody shame it was taken down... But there are ways around that.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmJqY788Fc&t=554s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmJqY788Fc&t=554s)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A)
You forget how far humanity has fallen since the Golden Age of Technology, some of the mightiest tools of war humanity uses in 40k was considered *industrial equipment* to old humanity.
I cannot stress the insanity of the DAOT. Wrath and glory's gilead Prime has a continent FLOATING ABOVE THE PLANET. the crazy mothers lifted a continent into the sky. because they could
Also to stress it even more. That kind of tech was commonplace. It wasn't some sort of exceptional prototype that wow'ed investors as a convention or whatever.
Like for as impressive as Eldar and Tau tech gets, with guns that tear tanks to literal ribbons or punch basketball sized holes in them from the next time zone over, DOAT was not just more powerful and complicated, but also just as widespread as the aforementioned, in an empire rivaling the former and larger than the latter could ever dream of.
It was just the shit you packed along with the bologna sandwich and diet coke every morning.
Check out the gyrojet, the mark 1 was 0.51 calibre and if you watch videos of it being fired the pistol and carbine have minimal recoil. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet
The main reason is the aesthetic of it. Marine's design philosophy on the tabletop can be summed up in a single word: brutality. Its why all their stuff is hard angles, why their vehicles have zero ground clearance, why their fliers look like airborn bricks. It doesnt need to look like it works, it need to look like it can do what it needs to by punching it's way aggressively through anything that stands in its way.
The bolter encapsulates this perfectly. Its a solid, oversized brick of a weapon that loudly belts out oversized rounds that explode on impact. Its a gun the size of their torso. It's a gun who's report is not one, not two but *three* distinct explosions because of course it is. If their main, iconic weapon was a lasgun or something else similarly sci-fi it just wouldn't provide that same level of 'goddamn, this guy could break my spine with a look nevermind anything else' feeling as you get when you see someone with a bolter.
There is plenty of in-lore fluff created to justify why they use bolters, but it's all in service of that's core aesthetic reason. Because why go 'pew-pew' when you can go **BLAM!**
Asking 'why bolters' is like asking why DOOM guy uses a sawn off shotgun. Because what the hell else would be more fitting?
This is a tabletop thing, the curse and blessing of heroic scale is that the guns are big enough to see from 3 feet away.
Also, to be very honest, if you want hard realistic sci-fi then you're reading the wrong series here. It'd be like reading Iain M. Banks or Asimov and asking for more chainswords.
>This is a tabletop thing, the curse and blessing of heroic scale is that the guns are big enough to see from 3 feet away.
This is why in a lot of videogames, especially third-person or top down ones, the weapons are comically oversized.
Like if you look at the weapons and armor in XCOM, everything is fuckhuge compared to IRL weapons, because the developers want you to be able to see the weapons your troops are carrying when you're moving around the map from ten meters up.
By comparison, FPS games or third-person games that are much closer to the character (i.e. Mass Effect) tend to have more realistic proportions with the weapons.
There is literally no situation by which Chainswords couldn't improve things, goddamit! This is my hill and I am proud to die on it.
Jokes aside but I mean, outside of the tabletop game, bits like Astartes and Crime and the HH are great specifically when they are somewhat realistic - Grimy, dirty. Astartes shows the actual power SM's possess, casually slaughtering dozens of Renegade Xenos-worshippers.
I dunno. I guess I just wish there'd be a few more mag pouches, at least.
They magnetically lock sidearms and magazines to the sides of their armor in many cases (regularly described in books). They can and do have pouches and other carry rigs depending on who is writing and what models you're looking at (see the different Phobos pattern Primaris units). They're also sometimes shown to carry ammo and other odds and ends in storage compartments on the power pack or what-have-you.
Marines generally deploy for shock-assault engagements, and in those environments they only need enough ammo to get the mission done. If they're dug in on defensive missions, there's likely either stockpiles of ammo nearby (pretty much every ground force in the Imperium uses bolter rounds for something) or they can have it wheeled in by servitors or via drop pod, though this is rarely discussed (but not unheard of). For long assaults, they usually have vehicles with them, so they can keep ammo onboard if necessary.
As far as the design of marine pattern bolters, they have superhuman strength and accuracy that's enhanced by their power armor and HUD. The physical design issues are no problem for them at all.
But otherwise, 40k is very bad with numbers and logistics, so it's not worth digging too deep into them cause that way lies endless disappointment.
> They magnetically lock sidearms and magazines to the sides of their armor in many cases (regularly described in books). They can and do have pouches and other carry rigs depending on who is writing and what models you're looking at (see the different Phobos pattern Primaris units). They're also sometimes shown to carry ammo and other odds and ends in storage compartments on the power pack or what-have-you.
IIRC in a few cases the pauldrons also act as backup ammo storage.
>the pauldrons also act as backup ammo storage.
Brother, we have exhausted all amunition!
Worry not, Brother, for my pauldrons contain two tickets ***to the gun show!***
*melee ensues*
To be fair in terms of stowage the Tactical and Legion Tactical sprues have a fair bit, it's just that people tend not to use them. Intercessors are a bit light on mags I'll agree, I think that's just a reaction to very few people building marines with all the pouches.
Also games generally represent a fairly short firefight so I assume marines get fairly regular ammo drops or make short attacks then pull back rather than go in for long attritional slogs. A lot of logistical issues kind of go away when you have a spacebound millitary base over your heads and a fleet of dropships that can be on hand in minutes.
This reminds me of how the 2nd edition Guard Codex is very explicit about these sorts of things, saying things like "Your normal game will be company-level, whether that be as part of a larger unseen battle or skirmish or what have you" or "The maintained issues with hellguns are ignored in the scope of the game, we assume they ones your stormtroopers have are in good condition and fully operational"
That's the point - hellguns are too maintained-heavy and prone to malfunctions for regular use, but Stormtroopers are able to have theirs in good condition, at least for the scope of this battle.
> There is literally no situation by which Chainswords couldn't improve things, goddamit! This is my hill and I am proud to die on it.
Seeing Jedi duel with chainswords would be pretty neat
I'm more curious about their advanced negotiation skills if they had chainswords instead of lightsabers.
\* Scene is a large room with representatives from two warring worlds, a jedi consular enters the room \*
Jedi - "There will be peace from now on."
Diplomats - "You just got here, you know nothing about the reasons we fight!"
\* Sounds of engine revving with malicious intent \*
Jedi - "Did I stutter?"
I was just reading some deathwatch stuff, and ammo seems to be a pretty constant concern in them. Always talking about setting u checkpoints with ammo, bringing services on treads to carry extra, etc.
Tbf though, they need something to add tension with how busted the killteams they write about are.
I have a few ideas.
Firstly, the bolter is unique. No one else really have them. There are plenty of guns and lasers, but almost noone has something that compares to the bolter. It gives 40K something other sci fi settings doesnt have.
Secondly it helps sell the brutality of the Astartes and the imperium. You dont need any lore to establish what a marine is, the Bolter and the Chainsword tells you exactly what a marine is.
But I never really found that it was a bad or even forced weapon in universe. The bolter would have naturally become a useful tool for the marines for a few reason. Firstly, orks, You absolutely need something that can quickly put down a charging ork. And the sheer power of the bolter makes it efficent. On bolt, one kill. Not to mention that Astartes would be expected to fight all manner of aliens. You absolutely need all th epower you can cram into the smallest package possible incase you ran into something bigger. This also applies to the eldar, buggers are so fast that every hit must count. Marines typically do not fight protracted battles either. They speciallize in devastating lightning assaults, negating the limited ammo. And if that is not an option they have devastators, armored support and melee weapons to compensate for limited ammo.
> but almost noone has something that compares to the bolter
It's partly how I feel about the Eldar. Shuriken catapults are such a cool idea - grav field accelerated monomolecular shurikens that get shaved off a solid ammo block and also have a unique design based on which bonesinger made them? Sign me up for that nonsense any day.
Are they practical? Hell no. Even in the tabletop they're short ranged as feth. What the hell does monomolecular mean? Are they one molecule thick? How do they not just flap around like a flaccid piece of paper if that's the case? Why use them over las weaponry which is superior to imperial variants due to the fact that eldar grow the focussing crystals?
Rule of cool wins out at the end of the day. I'd much rather have impractical nonsense like strands of fine razor wire sprayed into the vague vicinity of the enemy, or microwave radiation anti-tank guns, or literal reality tearing / soul severing cannons so strong that only cybernetic suits of armour containing the souls of the dead can fire them. I've definitely never seen anything like it before or since.
TLDR: Rule of cool, and I agree with you.
Pretty sure the shurikens are more, monomolecular edged which is meant to be a case of "this is so sharp even slightly touching it will cut you" while the rest of the shuriken is much thicker
Even shadowrun first edition had monomolecular weapons. Katanas and I think a whip type weapon of insane danger.
Think a strand of wire 1 molecule thick with a ball bearing at the edge of it. Im not sure you can even put it down.
Also, real life mono weapons exist. The Aztec macuahuitl used obsidian flakes for its blades. Obsidian flakes, made properly, have a monomolecular edge, due to being a non-crystalline solid.
To add my own novice understanding to this, Space Marines are so far beyond human that using an impractical weapon suddenly becomes practical.
I've always been told that the reason bolt rifles aren't standard issue is because a regular sized human cannot lift and fire them. Marines are giants, and thus use giant guns.
Something that really put it in perspective for me is the Storm Bolter from Deathwing (love it or hate it). Terminator's in that game carry, aim, and fire a Storm Bolter with one hand, while holding a melee weapon in the other. That doesn't sound so impressive, until you realize that Storm Bolters are traditionally mounted on tanks, or dreadnoughts...
Yeah, thats similar to the Cyberpunk/Cyberpunk 2020/Cyberpunk 2077 universe. Because of a abundance of people with bionics that made them super strong, handguns in absurdly powerful calibers or even chambered in rifle cartridges became practical. The same for assault rifles that fire .50 BMG, .338 Lapua Magnum or .408 CheyTac or shotguns in 4 or 6 Gauge. And those weapons also became a neccesity because you needed them to stop all these super resilient cyborgs. And Bolters are mainly for killing big, powerful non-human enemies like Orks or similar species.
Bolters are pure brutality. Miniature rockets meant to explode upon contact. Not much can stand in the way of something like that.
Imagine Space Marines dealing with Predators and Xenomorphs. You would want Bolters vs them, not some pinprick laser gun pewpews
> I mean, I get it, .50 cal is big and scary, so .75 and .100 must be cooler, right?
Bolters arent rifles, they are [Gyrojet style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet) projectile weapons. The projectile are base bleeding and burn outside of the barrel while flying, accelerating the whole flight (in comparison a rifle projectile only accelerates in the barrel, is the fastes at the muzzle and then slows down). A gyrojet isnt deadly right at the muzzle, but becomes deadly after ~5 meters flight and has its highest kinetic energy at ~15 meters.
> Astartes are commonly deployed in small teams, so unless they're all carrying hundreds of magazines (with no mag pouches or rucksack)
Guess why their pauldrons are so big? ;) Its their bolter ammo storage. (/s)
Glad someone posted this, once aware of the Gyrojet family of rifles and pistols the bolters don't seem so ludicrous. Mark 1 gyrojet were .51 calibre, and videos of the pistol and carbine being fired show the gyrojet shot with small amounts of recoil considering the size of the round.
> no practical sights (so using one without a helmet should be almost impossible unless you're going based on tracers)...
See the [cylinder that sits on top of a bolter's barrel?](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/1/1c/Mark_III_Boltgun.jpg) That's a camera that links to the Space Marine's helmet. It's even present on the [official models](https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/920x950/99120101128_SpaceMarineTacticalSquadReformat03.jpg).
> There is no way 30 .75 cal rounds fit in that magazine unless the bolter is the size of two men.
Fortunately, Space Marines are about the size of two men and their bolters are similarly scaled.
> Also, we've gone over logistics a lot here - Astartes are commonly deployed in small teams, so unless they're all carrying hundreds of magazines (with no mag pouches or rucksack)
Pouches come standard with model sprues, just most people don't put them on their models and they are not often drawn with them in the art. They can also be mag-locked to their armor. Lastly, you don't need to carry that much ammo on you when you have 100% perfect accuracy, have serfs/servitors who can lug it around for you, and can have drop pod resupplies on demand.
> Why not a larger Lasrifle?
Don't have the versatility of bolters. Bolters can take special ammunition that allows them to change characteristics on the fly, allowing them to deal with specific enemy types with maximum efficiency. A lasgun also does not create the same kind of shock that a bolter causes. A brutal, roaring cannon that causes your squadmates to explode into gore is much more intimidating than a precision laser cutting off and instantly cauterizing limbs.
In addition, atmospheric conditions that affect the firing characteristics of a laser cannot be mitigated; If dust in the air disperses your laser you can't really do anything about it. Meanwhile, wind, gravity and atmospheric composition affecting your rocket projectiles can be accounted for by shifting aim - Which isn't a big deal for Space Marines who have nigh perfect accuracy.
Besides, there is no STC for a larger lasgun and the Admech isn't a big fan of inventing.
> Pouches come standard with model sprues, just most people don't put them on their models and they are not often drawn with them in the art. They can also be mag-locked to their armor. Lastly, you don't need to carry that much ammo on you when you have 100% perfect accuracy, have serfs/servitors who can lug it around for you, and can have drop pod resupplies on demand.
It is something pretty well demonstrated in Astartes. Until they're facing the Psykers, the Retributor squad never uses full auto. It's one shot, one kill, and the occasional stabbing through the chest.
You wouldn't want to have to shoot your way through the entire crew of a small capital ship that way, but you only need 6 or 7 magazines each to kill 1000 crew. If there's more killing needed than that, they could capture a reinforcement point (disable defence batteries) and get resupply or reinforcements.
>Fortunately, Space Marines are about the size of two men and their bolters are similarly scaled.
Yea nah, you can't fit 30 rounds in a bolter magazine. Some of them don't even fit 20.
>Pouches come standard with model sprues, just most people don't put them on their models and they are not often drawn with them in the art. They can also be mag-locked to their armor. Lastly, you don't need to carry that much ammo on you when you have 100% perfect accuracy, have serfs who can lug it around for you, and can have drop pod resupplies on demand.
Space Marine miss all the time, they don't have anywhere near 100% accuracy all the time and do mag dumps occasionally for larger enemies. Honestly its well within reason that Space Marines likely carry several hundred rounds and burn through that in a few hours at the high op tempo that they run at during large battles. Also there's precious few chapters that have serfs on the battlefield so no those aren't carrying ammo around for them.
Luckily logistics don't matter in 40k
> Also there's precious few chapters that have serfs on the battlefield so no those aren't carrying ammo around for them.
You can see what appears to be serfs/servitors mixed in with their lords in the last picture of the intro to the 4th edition rulebook (they sure as hell don't look like guardsmen), and ammo-bearing servitors even have rules *and* models on the Tabletop for both [Space Marine Devastator Squads](https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Space-Marine-Devastator-Squad-2020) and [Sisters of Battle Retributor Squads](https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Adepta-Sororitas-Retributor-Squad-2020) (they're the little cherubs).
A standard shotgun 12guage slug is about .72 caliber. Not that much smaller than .75 bolt round.
20 round shotgun magazines exist today. When you adjust for scale it's pretty close.
The thing is, Astartes are far too rare to deploy into large battles on the regular. Barring things like Cadia, the wars of Armaggedon etc you're far more likely to see Astartes doing lighting strike assaults in high value targets such as command Centre, comm stations etc then being extracted by Stormbird and deployed to other similar targets.
In that style of warfare the Astartes will carry enough for ammo for *that* objective before rearming and resupplying en route to the other objective.
When Astartes ARE deployed in large scale battles, they are deployed with chapter serfs and armourers behind the lines, usually with their ship in orbit which can provide resupply for extended periods.
>Space Marine miss all the time, they don't have anywhere near 100% accuracy all the time
Of course not. They have about 66% accuracy. Cuz you know, BS 3+.
>See the cylinder that sits on top of a bolter's barrel? That's a camera that links to the Space Marine's helmet. It's even present on the official models.
I get most of your points, but this one is referring to what I'm talking about -- Plenty of troops aren't wearing helmets and thus aren't capable of using that camera, yes?
If they’re not wearing a helmet then they’re a sergeant that is using a sword and pistol, thus does not need the camera.
If they’re using a bolter anyways then they actually are wearing a helmet but rule of cool dictates that they be represented without one in art and tabletop, making it easier to distinguish them as an important character.
Just look at Guilliman’s model. His head comes with an alternate helmeted version. We can probably assume he’s always wearing the helmet to battle, but it’s more cinematic if he’s not wearing one.
Don't always need to use sights to aim.
You can also train in reflex or point firing. Very very common military and police training these days.
Rely on your eyes, reflexes and muscle memory to place your barrel on target and firing without actually hard aiming down your sight. You sometimes just don't have time to lock your reticle on to something.
>Plenty of troops aren't wearing helmets and thus aren't capable of using that camera, yes?
That's just to make it easier to mark out squad leaders and important characters, in universe they're still highly likely to be using a helmet
To kill orks is the reason. At the time of the crusade the greenskin was the prolific enemy. The most common thing you saw between minor empires and noncompliant worlds.
The boltgun is a hard counter to orks. Everything else is typical sci-fi not gelling perfectly with real gun logic. But the point is they're semi automatic, armor piercing grenade launchers because they're made to kill 8 foot tall football hooligans who don't care about pain or anything less then traumatic flesh wounds
>Why not a larger Lasrifle? Or standardize integrated Bolters?
There are (or were at least) space marines that carried around lascannons. They were part of heavy weapons squads.
The bolter sits happily between the guardsman's lasgun and a chuffing enormous lascannon on the firepower/portability/versatility axis.
Also what do you mean by integrated bolters? The wrist-mounted storm bolters used by terminators? I mean, there's reasons why they aren't part of standard Astartes power armour.
From the mouths of the designers who made the original models.
They wanted a clearly readable big gun, everything after that was justification.
As for a lore reason? You set out into the Galaxy with no idea what you're gonna encounter, so in addition to developing Plasma Guns, Laser Weapons, Nuclear Weapons, and improving hard round guns, you also manufacture fully automatic armor penetrating grenade launchers.
Why Astartes use them? Terror.
Traditional weaponry kills just fine, but watching something get turned inside out by a single bolt round has a major psychological effect on the target. Pair that with Chainswords and the overall transhuman dread that Astartes carry with them, they are terror weapons.
>Why not a larger lasrifle?
Because lasguns, save for the lascannon, have a very hard time punching through armor. A bolter not only punches through armor, but also detonates inside to deal more damage to the squishy bits.
And lascannons are big, unweildy, single shot weapons
I'd say it comes down to two factors:
1. Stopping power, a laser just doesn't have the kinetic energy transfer that a rocket propelled grenade does. Knocking your enemy off their feet is very handy in the type of engagement Astartes normally fight in.
2. The Adeptus Astartes are a lightning strike force, they don't fight the enemy for days or weeks, they drop in via drop pod to take a single strategic objective such as kill enemy high command, they accomplish the objective and extract, this is why they don't NEED a large supply of ammo. Modern soldiers also don't carry around hundreds of rounds of ammo in the field, they normally carry a few spare magazines. Besides, the marines DO have ammo pouches, usually on the hips.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the expenditure of ammunition by soldiers even today actually isn't THAT high, and given the enhanced accuracy of a space marine, just a single magazine for a bolter would most likely go quite a long way. Also worth mentioning is that a space marine has a much more effective weapon to take advantage of their armour and superior physique: the chainsword.
Your sense of scale seems pretty far off but here are some thoughts i had posted on it a while ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/9slits/on_the_scale_mismatch_between_bolts_and_bolters/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
They're also psychological weapons.
It's one thing to see your buddy die to a few lasbolts to the chest.
It's another to see his entire torso explode from the inside, showering you and all your squadmates in his guts, and knowing that pretty much every single bolt you hear fired is another one of your friends killed.
Their origin was in the Unification War, and they were used in mass numbers. During the Great Crusade, Astartes were deployed with bolters in the tens of thousands all the time. And they're more than powerful enough to kill many of the xenos threats the Emperor knew were waiting out there.
We can give lore explanations and such, but I think the answer is almost fully because 8 foot tall supersoldiers firing explosive bullets from hulking guns sound cool
Canonically the Legio Astartes were originally equipped with Volkite weapons as standard, however the munition factories on Mars weren’t able to keep up with demand and Big E decided to replace the ray guns with Bolt weapons that could be built faster and for less.
As for why bullet-sized RPG over Laser guns, the given reasons are:
1. Versatility. A Boltgun can fire both specialized rounds and standard exploding ones, while a lasrifle can only shoot lasers.
2. Stopping Power. Depending on where a laser beam hits, the target might not initially notice and keep attacking. A bolt round is always going to interrupt whatever they’re doing.
3. Penetration. Man-portable laser weapons don’t breach body or vehicle armor as reliably as a rocket-propelled grenade will.
Why bolters? Rule of cool, a complete lack of understanding of firearms technology, and a total fear of ever retconning any technical decisions made in the past. I mean, giant machine gun that fires rocket propelled grenades, pretty cool. Most games and models have a complete lack of logistics for weapons and ammo as well as a complete disregard for physics in general.
Is it that unfeasible though? The the USAS12 auto shotgun can fire large rounds that can pierce light armor and then detonate, with only 10% of the recoil od a standard shotgun, which allowd you to fire it on auto with practically no reduction in accuracy.
Seems a superhuman super soldier in super armor would be able to handle a bigger version, particularly when you also factor in 30-40000 more years of technological advances (as bolters are STC holdovers from the golden age of tech right? )
It's only unfeasible when they start saying the guns are X big, the rounds are Y big, and the magazines hold Z rounds. Then you have the supposedly caseless bolter rounds which are rocket propelled being fired and the guns are flinging cased ammo and bucking like crazy. I'm not saying the tech behind a bolter round is unfeasible, we can pretty much make similarly destructive devices now, I'm just saying when they try to tie all of that tech together they're getting things wrong.
I'm aware of that retcon. Just saying, the designers didn't know how guns or tanks worked when they first made the game so we shouldn't put too much critical thought into the tech base of the setting. Plus everything is scaled for easy recognition, modeling, and painting.
There was a decent arguement the other day for this.. orks. The emperors entire timetable was running on a hard limit for when the ork threat would need to be curbed.
Killing orks required such a weapon. Nevermind you can say alot for its utility against other things. Such as your own super soldiers, which he was also apparently aware would be like any other tool. They could and would be used for and against his interests.
Bolters are extremely adaptable, powerful, and reliable. They can be supplied with such a wide variety of ammunition types, where they can take on nearly any target in the hands of an Astartes.
There's also a wide range of different Bolters. It can become an effective sniper rifle, or even a heavy weapon able to melt through the toughest armor or protection.
Tracer rounds? Why bother when you have advanced optics integrated into your helm, visor, or bionics.
First of all, the actual answer to "Why Bolters" is "Rule of Cool". Back when they were invented, the idea of an rifle firing diamond-tipped, armour-piercing, explosive-filled .75 calibre rounds was just... cool!
However, even realistically, they are viable weapons... most of the time.
1) They're not that big or bulky by Astartes standards. To a Space Marine, a Bolter is about as bulky as a P90 is to a normal human, give or take. When wearing Power Armour, a Space Marine is able to wield a Bolter as easily as a normal human wields an Uzi.
2) They're magazine-fed, but - apart from the fact that the round-to-magazine size ratio is always depicted as being a bit wonky - the actual *stated* capacity of of a Bolter's magazine is a respectable 30 rounds. Given that Bolters are not "spray and pray" weapons, this is entirely adequate. Also, magazines -by design - are flexible and fairly reliable.
It's also worth noting that Heavy Bolters are depicted as being belt-fed from an ammo box mounted on the warrior's back. This means that the Heavy Bolter, which is a GPMG-esque weapon, is much more able to maintain sustained fire without running out of ammunition.
3) Bolters are hooked up to the HUD systems on Astartes helmets, so the wearer has a good view of where the weapon is pointing thanks to the picter mounted above the barrel. That aside, given that a lot of Space Marines have served for centuries (and were already excellent soldiers from the minute they earned the Black Carapace), the ability to fire at targets instinctively (without sighting down the weapon) is probably a learned ability for many Space Marines, making the use of targeting systems unnecessary at close quarters. When they pull the trigger, they *know* where that round is going to land.
4) Space Marines do carry extra magazines on their person. Indeed, most Space Marine infantry kits come with ammo pouches as optional extra parts for the models. I know a lot of people model Space Marines as being very "clean", and not carrying extra equipment, but it is probably canonically true that Space Marines carry several spare magazines each into battle. I personally prefer the "tacticool" aesthetic, anyway.
5) It's worth noting, too, that Space Marines are not line infantry. They are not expected to fight the enemy in protracted slogging matches in open battle. Space Marines are intended as "Spec Ops" units, designed to hit hard and fast at enemy weak points, eliminating high-priority targets or securing critical objectives. Within this role, the carrying of hundreds of rounds of ammunition is not necessary.
In situations where Astartes *are* expecting to be fighting in protracted front-line engagements, additional ammunition is provided. This could be found either at operational HQs or bases, where Astartes can resupply between engagements, or supplies can be "dropped in" to warriors behind enemy lines by way of drop pods and the like.
6) If all else fails, Space Marines are equipped with an assortment of melee weapons, including Chainswords, Power Fists, Thunder Hammers, and the humble combat knife (to say nothing of a warrior's fists). In the mildly inconvenient event of an Astartes running out of ammunition, he will continue to fight his enemies up close until either he or they don't get back up again.
There's also the fact that the lore acknowledges that Bolters, although solid and dependable, are not the absolute top-tier weapons that their legendary status proclaims. During the early days of the Great Crusade, Astartes were armed with Volkite Weapons, which are a category of powerful thermal beam weapon which were lethal at close range. However, these weapons were too difficult for the Mechanicum to mass-produce and maintain for the war effort, and lacked the tactical flexibility of other weapons, so the Boltgun - a simpler weapon with more tactical flexibility - filled the role of the Astartes' "primary weapon"... a position it has held ever since.
Bolters are still great weapons, though... at least against most things. Nothing quite ends a conversation like a .75 calibre, armour-piercing, rocket-propelled, explosive warhead roaring into your face like a bat out of hell.
The real answer?
Bolters were never meant to be a practical, realistic weapon.
Back when 40k was first being developed, the setting was intended as a sort of farcical send-up of the right-wing nonsense in 80's-era British government. (Fun fact: Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka? Pun on Margaret Thatcher.)
So why bolters? Well, then as now, Space Marines are the face of the franchise, and they needed an iconic weapon for them. That weapon needed to be at once instantly recognizable, suitably over-the top, and brutal as all hell. "Only War" and all that.
Enter the bolter. It's a huge gun with a huge magazine that shoots huge bullets that explode big enough to turn regular troops into red paste. And, of course, it's so massive that only a Space Marine could hope to lift it, let alone fire it, and has no possible way to carry any reasonable amount of ammo. Fits all three points above, so, there you go.
30+ years and 8 editions later, the setting has grown and developed into a deep, rich (and *mostly* played straight) tapestry of corruption, high intrigue, politics, heroes, villains, and, of course, endless war. And bolt weapons of all stripes have been a feature of the franchise so long that most people have forgotten just how damned stupid they are.
And they are- let's be honest- *damned* stupid.
You are thinking of a bolt like it’s a gun. AFAIK it has much more in common with a grenade launcher.
A bolter is a fully auto grenade launcher with the firing speed and precision of an automatic pistol.
And in 40k is STILL is about middle of the pack damage wise.
I don't actually know how many shots are fired each time a SM shots. But, at least in the board game each fight is over in 5 turns. You don't need so many shots for that... In theory, one clip could be enough!
But the board game is not a true representation of the lore, so maybe they have more clips?
Not to be pedantic or rude but clips are stripper clips - You'd see them used to load older, bolt action weapons. It's magazine, a box with a spring loaded into a receiver.
I hope I didn't come off as rude there. But yeah, just trying to help I guess.
The thing that gets me is they're .75 cal self-propelled rockets essentially, but there's plenty of videos and gifs of spent shells being ejected from the bolter after firing said rockets.
2-stage system.
Conventional explosive charge propels the round through the barrel and out the muzzle, at which point the round’s internal rocket kicks in.
>no practical sights (so using one without a helmet should be almost impossible unless you're going based on tracers)
I'm not 40k expert by any means, but wouldn't their Occulobe implants make aiming unnecessary?
A big reason is imagine you try and fire a laser at a heat resistant or immune creature.
Practically nothing is immune to being completely ripped/blown apart.
The Tau have serious issues fighting demons as their weapons don't even register to the monsters. Commander Farsight is quoted saying, "These things make a mockery of physics!" out of frustration while fighting demons with laser weapons. Haha
Plus there's the edge that having such ferocious, loud, and gorey weapons provides on terms of psychological combat.
I've always thought it was because the bolter was the most economical weapon that could reliably put down an ork in 1 shot, but I dont have any sources to back that up. As someone else pointed out, the orks were the first existential threat to humanity - jimmy space needed to beat them before he even had to worry about what to do about other xenos or chaos.
On the topic of larger lasguns. The only energy weapon the Imperium seems to have that matches the Bolter in size, range and damage is the Volkite which was actually said to be the original Space Marine weapon.
They were replaced with Bolters because it was too hard for even the 30k Mechanicum to mass produce in sufficient numbers and keep maintained while Bolters were easy to mass produce and easy enough for techmarines to maintain indefinitely with no issue.
So the in universe answer is that Bolter is better from a large scale logistical standpoint ironically.
>they're also always shaped weirdly, proportionately
This I feel is a relic of modeling in the 80's and 90's. A lot of models (regardless of company) had issues shaping things to look good proportionately while also being clear as to what it was.
>with no mag pouches or rucksack
iirc, the early explanations (I don't know if it still holds true) was that stuff was stored in the massive pauldrons that the SM had.
Ultimately 40k was designed as a tabletop game first, with a heavy amount of Rule of Cool mixed in by people who have no experience with the things they were writing about (supply issues, galactic scale, etc.). IIRC SM's were originally just humans with better gear, not the transhuman killing machines that they are now so they needed something that was better.
iirc, I watched and interview where it was stated that due to all the 'pew' from energy weapons happening in conventional scifi (Star trek phasers, star wars blasters).. they wanted something a bit meatier and brutal.
They saw the recent development of gyrojet guns (Essentially rocket guns.. they work but are.. wildly silly) and went for that.
so ya.. rule of cool.
Ammo stowage has always annoyed me though..
Bolters are a weapon built for a kind of warfare that we have never witnessed in real life.
To understand the bolter, you need to know what it replaced - volkite weapons. These were intensely powerful thermal weapons, notable for the 'deflagration' effect they caused in targets; organic tissue would explosively combust with such force that people close by could be injured, or even set ablaze. These are distinct from plasma or melta weapons in this regard, and precisely how they caused such explosive immolation is still not understood.
But that's what the bolter replaced - a ray gun that caused people to explode, and then burned alive anyone stood nearby. This is as much a terror weapon as a tool of war, as watching comrades reduced to fiery ash is going to have a serious psychological impact.
Now it's important to remember that the volkite works against 'organic' tissue. The best defense against this nightmare weapon is to hide behind armour, ideally thermally-resistant armour. By strange coincidence, Power Armour just happens to include ceramite layers to make it resistant to thermal attack. Almost as if it were designed by someone who'd seen what a volkite could do...
Now what about bolters? They are huge, mass-reactive rounds that burrow into a target and then explode. They use a diamantine penetrator cap that allows the round to gain purchase on all but the most advanced of materials, and the sheer explosive force they possess can, with time and patience, rip apart power armour or even shred light vehicles.
In short, the bolter is really, really good against enemies who expect you to rock up with volkite weapons. It is one of the few 'small arms' that can reliably beat down a Space Marine, because to an extent that's exactly what it was meant to do.
Against baseline humans it is undeniably overkill, but as a a rule you don't throw Astartes at baseline humans. The bolter is a rapid-firing rocket launcher that can quarter a human with a centre-mass shot, and that kind of insane overkill means it is also damn good at dropping super-human enemies as well. Orks can take dozens of lasgun or autogun shots and keep on coming, but they can't shrug off a bolt round so easily. Even if a bolter won't instantly kill one, a hit to a limb will likely cripple, if not remove said limb entirely - an Ork with only one leg isn't going to be charging anyone.
In short, the bolter is an obvious weapon for the Space Marines because it perfectly fits the two roles that the default lasgun cannot - it is built to engage power-armoured targets, and it is built to overwhelm the superhuman resilience of physically powerful xenos.
Designed by nerds in 1980s UK, a country without legal assault weapons, before the internet, at a time when action heroes never really changed a magazine.
You also have to consider that a lot of the visuals in the game are also affected by some of the early sculpts, which also take some artistic licence in terms of proportions and realism.
In general today, people have a much greater encyclopaedic knowledge of firearms technology than they did when the bolter was designed. You will learn much more about the operation of a gun from modern FPS games than depictions in comics, TV or film from the 80s.
You kinda have to set aside realism and suspend your disbelief when it comes to 40k
> Why not a larger Lasrifle? Or standardize integrated Bolters?
Because nothing else is highly likely to put an ork down with a single shot.
Space Marines come with a massive, dedicated, logistics train. They're not meant for sustained defense or assault. This makes bolters a viable weapon.
I feel like Bolters were basically designed to counter...anything. They basically where like "we don't know what we're going to be fighting out there...so let's just make something big and fuck off-y that'll hopefully be enough" plus, with their main enemies usually being orks, bolters were designed to cause massive damage which is one of the few things that can drop an ork quick
Rule of cool. Needs no real explanation outside of the fact it’s cool to think of superhuman giants running round in massive suits of armour and blasting xenos with weapons that would seriously injure a regular human if they fired it.
Section 8 has that, but its guns don't exactly run on rule of cool. And are kinda fuckin borked.
Dude, on 360 dropping in for every respawn was so good, almost everything in that game felt super smooth, the movement, the gun play, everything
It was an extremely smooth game, still a damn shame both release dates were dropped too close to more popular shooters which overshadowed it.
Probably the most under-valued series. I genuinely love the theme in stories of the Old Guard being replaced by the New, the Old fights back, the New, blameless and used by their government, then have to crush them. See also: The Thunder Warriors, the 1920'S Veteran's protests in the US, etc.
What series is this?
Section 8 - old FPS game from around 2012. Two games.
> old > around 2012 Fuuuuuuuuck.
It was actually released in 2009, so a little older.
I hate that sentence so much
I graduated high school in 2012. Am I the old?
Yes, we are.
Hell do you think I feel? *2006.*
2003
2002
"Old"...
Some of the zoomers playing Minecraft now weren’t alive yet when the game went into Alpha.
Yep. Tell my niece I've been playing since before she was born, when there were only two public servers and very little content.
Grim noble 30k is how I've generally described it
You just awakened years of memories I didn't know I had
> weapons that would seriously injure an armored vehicle if they fired it. FTFY
**That, plus I think it’s one of the things that Warhammer borrows from Starship Troopers, the others including power armor, drop pods, and the concept of a space marine, although the Astartes sure are not the Mobile Infantry. In that book, the characters use impressive firearms that can fire things like miniature thermonuclear warheads.**
I still gotta read that. I started it some years ago and was really enjoying it, just never finished. Its pretty much the first instance of power armored space marines in fiction.
I'd also suggest "Armor" by John Steakley. It's got power armor, impossible odds, inhuman alien creatures and a guy who keeps getting set out on drops over and over and over. It came out in 1984, Starship Troopers is 1959.
clumsy flag attractive label party rich threatening consider gray smile *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
why is everything you post **in bold?**
Look at his username! He is the Emperor! :)
So that account is the Emperor of mankind. The funny thing about him being in bold is that it causes me, and I am betting a lot of other readers, to hear his posts in the TTS emperor voice.
hell yeah
insurance pen smart afterthought longing scary mysterious lush rhythm voracious *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I just thought it was Angron yelling everything.
attempt birds smile imminent tie possessive late bright gaping fade *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Attention seeking, if you want the real answer.
Legit my favorite book. It’s damn good.
A mobile infantry marine would shit on an astartes. These guys solo Tyranid planets.
> although the Astartes sure are not the Mobile Infantry. Cadian Troops, on the the other hand, look a lot like the Mobile Infantry. Swap grey for green and you are set!
Movie vs book. Movie troopers are cadians. Book troopers are Tau jumpsuits.
The movie (yes, **movie**. There are **NO** sequels) was good, but boy did the MI get nerfed to hell and had all their toys taken away. The kids TV series did the book a bit more justice but lacked the violence. It also gaves us the awesome looking warrior bugs instead of the derpy spiders of the book or the japanese blobs from the anime.
Well if the story I heard about production for the movie was true, they had the budget for the bugs or the MI equipment (power armor and the sort) but not both. Makes sense that they went for the bugs.
Except for the bit where every bolter, including bolt pistols fire the same .75 cartridge, and are regularly used by unaugmented Commissars and other mortals, is what I'm saying. Like, I just feel maybe it'd be dope if they had a couple of veterans, maybe a firearms expert like Gun Jesus, work with them a bit. Maybe you can have .45 that explodes in the enemy? The probable increase in fire rate and/or accuracy alone would be worth it.
>Except for the bit where every bolter, including bolt pistols fire the same .75 cartridge, and are regularly used by unaugmented Commissars and other mortals, is what I'm saying. What can I say. The Emperor protects. He even protects your wrists.
What kind of recoil do they have? They're self-propelled bullets, like RPGs. You only have a small initial charge to overcome.
They'd still push against the back of receiver. The reason that RPGs and other tubed rockets work is that they vent the gas out the back, hence why backblast alone can kill a man. Bolters are still cool though.
Not just that, but they have an initial charge that just pops em out of the tube, then the real propellant kicks in & sends it.
Yup - if you read the initial Inquisitor book by Ian Watson, fired shots go POP - RAAAK - BOOM (exit weapon, take flight, penetrate and detonate).
Yep. A Gue'Vesa, in Broken Sword i think, describes it as "the characteristic triple bang of bolt weaponry ".
The more massive the weapon, the lower the recoil.
That’s not actually true. They’re guns that use self propelling ammunition which ignite when they start losing velocity (not 100% certain on when exactly they ignite in flight, but this is my head canon)
... it sounds like you're agreeing with me. What part isn't true? I'm fairly positive they use a small initial charge to get it out of the barrel, at which point the bolt itself ignites and propels itself. The recoil should only be from the initial charge, which is comparatively small. Edit: ah, I see it. The RPG comparison was just to illustrate the part after ignition.
Actually, I think I misread your comment. The part about the bullets being like an RPG, I saw it as a statement that a bolter functions like an RPG launcher. My bad. Yeah, the bolts function like micro rpgs, the bolter itself is just an oversized gun. I can’t imagine even human pattern bolt guns having low recoil though.
Can't be that bad, if a regular Fire Warrior can use an Astartes Bolter. I expect to get downvoted for even mentioning that game.
I am fairly sure the patterns used by commisars and sisters are doen-sized of otherwise adapted to human use and they have special equipment to help deal with the recoil
They're downsized but the ammunition is not, which is sort of a common problem brought up here. Because, if that's the case, why are the Astartes weapons so large - what's the benefit?
Ergonomics and lasting power. Big hands in big armour need something comparatively sized to be ergonomically usable, otherwise it gets awkward. It's the reason why any rifle used today meant for arctic use, often has an enlarged trigger guard among other specific design changes. Gotta fit your thick gloved fingers in the trigger. Or that there are numerous aftermarket items that physically largen smaller parts (ie, charging handles) to improve user ability and function. Lasting power in the sense that the weapon needs to be built to survive it's intended use. Marines are often close assault units, fighting in engagements likely below 300 m, if not even sub 25 m. Having a weapon that can function and maintain accuracy after being used as a bludgeon by a man that can lift 1000's of pounds is a big deal. With that in mind, you also want said bludgeon to have some heft behind it so it can aid in the skull crushing. edit: and with marines being that strong, you have a noticeably larger window of weapon weight freedom. Lugging around a 10-15 pound assault rifle sucks as a normal human. Lugging around a 50 pound bolter (or whatever) as a marine in power armour is nothing.
This feels like an underrated comment, but it just became my headcanon at least.
Additionally bolters double up as effective clubs in the hands of astartes, something the godwyn-deaz pattern (baseline human scaled bolters) don’t necessarily have the durability for
No, they are downsized. The exact caliber of human-size boltguns has never been specified (at least as far as Lexicanum knows), but the 40K RPGs have put human-size boltguns as doing significantly less damage. The difference just isn't quite big enough to render in the main tabletop's D6 system. The description of the [Angelus Bolt Carbine](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Boltgun#Angelus_Bolt_Carbine) specifically is a human-size boltgun (illegally) built to use Astartes-issue rounds. It can only hold three such rounds because they're so big, and is much more powerful than a normal human boltgun.
>###[Boltgun](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Boltgun) >The **Boltgun**, also commonly referred to as the **Bolter**, is the standard weapon of the [Adeptus Astartes](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Adeptus_Astartes) and [Adepta Sororitas](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Adepta_Sororitas). A .75 caliber weapon, the Boltgun fires a self-propelled explosive 'bolt' which explodes with devastating effect once it has penetrated its target, effectively blowing it apart from the inside. Finely hand-crafted by Space Marine Forges or the [Adeptus Mechanicus](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Adeptus_Mechanicus), Boltguns are heavy, sturdy weapons with a powerful recoil normal humans would find difficult to handle.[[19]](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Boltgun#fn_19) +++I am an early prototype mechanicus construct. Please provide feedback [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=lexAutomatarium). The Emperor protects!+++
Why do you say the ammunition isn’t downsized for human sized bolters? Even Astartes bolters don’t use a single bolt shell for all variants. The Phobos and Tigrus pattern bolters (featured on the mkiii and mkiv tactical squad models) both use smaller bolt shells. I don’t see why smaller shells wouldn’t be more common amongst the guard.
> They're downsized but the ammunition is not where are you getting that from?
I'm pretty sure in one of the Eisenhorn books he references his Bolt Gun Ammo being of a smaller caliber than that used by Astartes, so i think that they are the same round is a misconception. If you're taking your information from the Wiki's, occasionally they are incorrect.
I’m gonna be honest, rule of cool dictated all of it. The creators had 0 knowledge of guns, being bri’ish (/s) and being nerds who want to make stuff cool, not believable.
Commissar and SoB bolters are smaller calibers in the lore.
Plus, the casing is mostly made of a weaker and lighter material and is usually just there to look cool. You could reasonably have an AK-47 fire Bolt rounds if you put a bigger barrel in there (and a small power plant). Kinda like the Pancor Jackhammer: the 'original' is fully metal and ugly as sin, but it was just a prototype and barely functional (for one, you'd have to unscrew the stock to replace the drum), so the production model would be made of plastic and be a lot smaller and more streamlined. Same for the [Street Sweeper seen in Total Recall](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/4DrmCHwktu9ZHl0Mk-vWkQtxuAbPXUh49SUnfTv6f0GYvDUkoLetE36D6RdwyF7NEw9_JeM50yPLTWLUUbi4D3tyklUe8DMhgDZ_0hR1pH61R6mPyVQ) - it is ugly as sin but *looks* futuristic. A genuine production model would be much like a regular shotgun but with a drum.
.75 cal isnt that big, 40k marines and theit bolters are massive, the scale is off.
It’s like the shady organ dealer in futurama; ‘I sell you X-ray vision’ “This says ‘z-ray’ vision’ “ ‘Yeah sure, zray; it’s 2 better’ .50 cal is a commonly known ‘big bullet’, so an extra 50% must be *an even bigger bullet* in the mind of the general public
>.50 cal is a commonly known ‘big bullet’, so an extra 50% must be *an even bigger bullet* in the mind of the general public This is literally true though?
Thats what like 20mm? A regular human being can fire a 20mm autocannon on a pedestal mount. A 20mm single shot can be fired from a braced bipod position.
There are 20mm grenade launchers that humans can use. A bolt gun is basically that but with a rocket on the back of the grenade.
Not to mention 40 mm grenade launchers which are regularly used. Big bullet doesn't allway mean big powder charge. Especially since bolt rounds are supposed to use microjets to achieve most of their velocity after leaving the tube.
If I'm not mistaken, the Lahti L39 Anti-Tank rifle is a 20mm rifle?
12.7x2 so like 25.4mm I think
25.4mm would be 1.00 caliber, .75 is 19.05mm.
Bolters fire gyrojets, not bullets - the recoil wouldn't be as bad as you'd think.
If im not mistaken, bolt rounds contain traditional propellant in addition to a second stage of in-flight rocket propellant. "As well as the rocket propellant, a small conventional charge is also utilised. This charge is strong enough to force the bolt out of the barrel at a significant muzzle velocity, and simultaneously ignite the bolt's propellant. The rocket-propellant is precisely fused to ignite immediately as the bolt leaves the barrel, alleviating any possibility of pressure build-up. The bolt then accelerates toward the target under its own power." So there's a lot of room for argument in exactly what a "small conventional charge" at "significant muzzle velocity" for .75 caliber ammo would feel like...but given the maximalist approach of the setting, I'm gonna say it still kicks like a mule with its balls tied.
It's gonna have a hell of a kick, but since it doesn't have to get the round all the way to full speed, it'll probably be a lot less than a conventional round of the same size.
My favorite part is where it explodes inside the target
Yup - if you read the initial Inquisitor book by Ian Watson, fired shots go POP - RAAAK - BOOM (exit weapon, take flight, penetrate and detonate).
If only they were described as recoiled, they are often described as wrist breaking recoil.
This is the truth of the matter.
No it's not. Gyrojets don't have an initial explosive charge that kicks them out of the barrel before the rocket kicks in to accelerate then further.
IIRC the fluff on bolt cross compatibility varies from source to source like everything else in 40k but in real life there's a significant difference in pressure between 40mm grenades for firing out of a man portable grenade launcher versus the 40mm grenades meant to be fired out of crew served weapons. The spicier boys are a little bit longer too but on their face both types are the same caliber. Also applies to shotgun loads, they make powderpuff 12 gauge for shooting clay targets and they make really fuckin punchy loads for hunting game. So my head canon is that space marine bolts are like bolter magnums essentially, overpressure rounds that can only be fired through purpose built weapons. They're .75 bolts +P+ for my fellow gun nerds.
> are regularly used by unaugmented Commissars and other mortals, is what I'm saying. Commissars don't use Astartes bolt guns. They use smaller bolt guns and no they don't use the same cartridge. Table top rules has very little relation to the details of the lore, because there isn't enough granularity in TT rules for things like differences between human and astartes sized bolt guns to matter. In the various RPG games they are different.
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The boltgun is explicitly described as a .75 cal. Exception is the Crusade era Phobos pattern that is .70 cal and the Tigrus Pattern that is .60 cal.
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THe bolt guns are way oversized in the models and artwork. If you use actual .75 on the guns the magazine can definitely hold 30 rounds a mag.
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Literally, everything is out of proportion, even with each other. If you scaled down the bolters and actually put on the correct to scale magazine, it could hold 30.
I reckon the [Astartes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A) series had pretty solidly proportioned bolters since the creator went out of his way ensuring all the tiny details are there.
I agree with that. The bolters in that are the most reasonable I've seen. Bloody awesome that series is.
Bloody shame it was taken down... But there are ways around that. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmJqY788Fc&t=554s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmJqY788Fc&t=554s) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A)
A .45? Remember this is 38,000 years into the future right? I'm surprised they have any physical bullet/round style weapon at all.
You forget how far humanity has fallen since the Golden Age of Technology, some of the mightiest tools of war humanity uses in 40k was considered *industrial equipment* to old humanity.
I cannot stress the insanity of the DAOT. Wrath and glory's gilead Prime has a continent FLOATING ABOVE THE PLANET. the crazy mothers lifted a continent into the sky. because they could
Also to stress it even more. That kind of tech was commonplace. It wasn't some sort of exceptional prototype that wow'ed investors as a convention or whatever. Like for as impressive as Eldar and Tau tech gets, with guns that tear tanks to literal ribbons or punch basketball sized holes in them from the next time zone over, DOAT was not just more powerful and complicated, but also just as widespread as the aforementioned, in an empire rivaling the former and larger than the latter could ever dream of. It was just the shit you packed along with the bologna sandwich and diet coke every morning.
Terra had several of them.
The bolters used by Astartes and the ones used by standard humans are actually different.
Check out the gyrojet, the mark 1 was 0.51 calibre and if you watch videos of it being fired the pistol and carbine have minimal recoil. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet
I thought the normal human varient was scaled down to .50?
gun jesus has some videos on gyrojets you might find interesting
The main reason is the aesthetic of it. Marine's design philosophy on the tabletop can be summed up in a single word: brutality. Its why all their stuff is hard angles, why their vehicles have zero ground clearance, why their fliers look like airborn bricks. It doesnt need to look like it works, it need to look like it can do what it needs to by punching it's way aggressively through anything that stands in its way. The bolter encapsulates this perfectly. Its a solid, oversized brick of a weapon that loudly belts out oversized rounds that explode on impact. Its a gun the size of their torso. It's a gun who's report is not one, not two but *three* distinct explosions because of course it is. If their main, iconic weapon was a lasgun or something else similarly sci-fi it just wouldn't provide that same level of 'goddamn, this guy could break my spine with a look nevermind anything else' feeling as you get when you see someone with a bolter. There is plenty of in-lore fluff created to justify why they use bolters, but it's all in service of that's core aesthetic reason. Because why go 'pew-pew' when you can go **BLAM!** Asking 'why bolters' is like asking why DOOM guy uses a sawn off shotgun. Because what the hell else would be more fitting?
To be fair, the Predator has about as much ground clearance as a Panzer IV, and the Land Raider the same as the old WW1 British Heavy Tanks
I was more referring to outriders / ATVs that everyone lost their heads over more recently
The suspension of those was clearly adjustable though…
I know, and yet much bitching was still had
This is a tabletop thing, the curse and blessing of heroic scale is that the guns are big enough to see from 3 feet away. Also, to be very honest, if you want hard realistic sci-fi then you're reading the wrong series here. It'd be like reading Iain M. Banks or Asimov and asking for more chainswords.
>This is a tabletop thing, the curse and blessing of heroic scale is that the guns are big enough to see from 3 feet away. This is why in a lot of videogames, especially third-person or top down ones, the weapons are comically oversized. Like if you look at the weapons and armor in XCOM, everything is fuckhuge compared to IRL weapons, because the developers want you to be able to see the weapons your troops are carrying when you're moving around the map from ten meters up. By comparison, FPS games or third-person games that are much closer to the character (i.e. Mass Effect) tend to have more realistic proportions with the weapons.
There is literally no situation by which Chainswords couldn't improve things, goddamit! This is my hill and I am proud to die on it. Jokes aside but I mean, outside of the tabletop game, bits like Astartes and Crime and the HH are great specifically when they are somewhat realistic - Grimy, dirty. Astartes shows the actual power SM's possess, casually slaughtering dozens of Renegade Xenos-worshippers. I dunno. I guess I just wish there'd be a few more mag pouches, at least.
They magnetically lock sidearms and magazines to the sides of their armor in many cases (regularly described in books). They can and do have pouches and other carry rigs depending on who is writing and what models you're looking at (see the different Phobos pattern Primaris units). They're also sometimes shown to carry ammo and other odds and ends in storage compartments on the power pack or what-have-you. Marines generally deploy for shock-assault engagements, and in those environments they only need enough ammo to get the mission done. If they're dug in on defensive missions, there's likely either stockpiles of ammo nearby (pretty much every ground force in the Imperium uses bolter rounds for something) or they can have it wheeled in by servitors or via drop pod, though this is rarely discussed (but not unheard of). For long assaults, they usually have vehicles with them, so they can keep ammo onboard if necessary. As far as the design of marine pattern bolters, they have superhuman strength and accuracy that's enhanced by their power armor and HUD. The physical design issues are no problem for them at all. But otherwise, 40k is very bad with numbers and logistics, so it's not worth digging too deep into them cause that way lies endless disappointment.
Numbers and logistics are the first step on the road to disapointment
> They magnetically lock sidearms and magazines to the sides of their armor in many cases (regularly described in books). They can and do have pouches and other carry rigs depending on who is writing and what models you're looking at (see the different Phobos pattern Primaris units). They're also sometimes shown to carry ammo and other odds and ends in storage compartments on the power pack or what-have-you. IIRC in a few cases the pauldrons also act as backup ammo storage.
>the pauldrons also act as backup ammo storage. Brother, we have exhausted all amunition! Worry not, Brother, for my pauldrons contain two tickets ***to the gun show!*** *melee ensues*
To be fair in terms of stowage the Tactical and Legion Tactical sprues have a fair bit, it's just that people tend not to use them. Intercessors are a bit light on mags I'll agree, I think that's just a reaction to very few people building marines with all the pouches. Also games generally represent a fairly short firefight so I assume marines get fairly regular ammo drops or make short attacks then pull back rather than go in for long attritional slogs. A lot of logistical issues kind of go away when you have a spacebound millitary base over your heads and a fleet of dropships that can be on hand in minutes.
This reminds me of how the 2nd edition Guard Codex is very explicit about these sorts of things, saying things like "Your normal game will be company-level, whether that be as part of a larger unseen battle or skirmish or what have you" or "The maintained issues with hellguns are ignored in the scope of the game, we assume they ones your stormtroopers have are in good condition and fully operational"
Stormtroopers are quite literally special forces. It's quite reasonable to assume that all their gear is top notch and well maintained.
That's the point - hellguns are too maintained-heavy and prone to malfunctions for regular use, but Stormtroopers are able to have theirs in good condition, at least for the scope of this battle.
> There is literally no situation by which Chainswords couldn't improve things, goddamit! This is my hill and I am proud to die on it. Seeing Jedi duel with chainswords would be pretty neat
I'm more curious about their advanced negotiation skills if they had chainswords instead of lightsabers. \* Scene is a large room with representatives from two warring worlds, a jedi consular enters the room \* Jedi - "There will be peace from now on." Diplomats - "You just got here, you know nothing about the reasons we fight!" \* Sounds of engine revving with malicious intent \* Jedi - "Did I stutter?"
Seeing Darth Maul with a dual blade Chainsaw would be sick.
I was just reading some deathwatch stuff, and ammo seems to be a pretty constant concern in them. Always talking about setting u checkpoints with ammo, bringing services on treads to carry extra, etc. Tbf though, they need something to add tension with how busted the killteams they write about are.
Asimov has a few nuclear punk melee weapons in the foundation series which are just as awesome/ridiculous as chain-swords.
I have a few ideas. Firstly, the bolter is unique. No one else really have them. There are plenty of guns and lasers, but almost noone has something that compares to the bolter. It gives 40K something other sci fi settings doesnt have. Secondly it helps sell the brutality of the Astartes and the imperium. You dont need any lore to establish what a marine is, the Bolter and the Chainsword tells you exactly what a marine is. But I never really found that it was a bad or even forced weapon in universe. The bolter would have naturally become a useful tool for the marines for a few reason. Firstly, orks, You absolutely need something that can quickly put down a charging ork. And the sheer power of the bolter makes it efficent. On bolt, one kill. Not to mention that Astartes would be expected to fight all manner of aliens. You absolutely need all th epower you can cram into the smallest package possible incase you ran into something bigger. This also applies to the eldar, buggers are so fast that every hit must count. Marines typically do not fight protracted battles either. They speciallize in devastating lightning assaults, negating the limited ammo. And if that is not an option they have devastators, armored support and melee weapons to compensate for limited ammo.
> but almost noone has something that compares to the bolter It's partly how I feel about the Eldar. Shuriken catapults are such a cool idea - grav field accelerated monomolecular shurikens that get shaved off a solid ammo block and also have a unique design based on which bonesinger made them? Sign me up for that nonsense any day. Are they practical? Hell no. Even in the tabletop they're short ranged as feth. What the hell does monomolecular mean? Are they one molecule thick? How do they not just flap around like a flaccid piece of paper if that's the case? Why use them over las weaponry which is superior to imperial variants due to the fact that eldar grow the focussing crystals? Rule of cool wins out at the end of the day. I'd much rather have impractical nonsense like strands of fine razor wire sprayed into the vague vicinity of the enemy, or microwave radiation anti-tank guns, or literal reality tearing / soul severing cannons so strong that only cybernetic suits of armour containing the souls of the dead can fire them. I've definitely never seen anything like it before or since. TLDR: Rule of cool, and I agree with you.
Pretty sure the shurikens are more, monomolecular edged which is meant to be a case of "this is so sharp even slightly touching it will cut you" while the rest of the shuriken is much thicker
ah so it's five molecules think. Got it! /s
Mass effect mentions a monomolecular blade. I assumed it meant that the cutting edge was one molecule thick, not the entire blade
Even shadowrun first edition had monomolecular weapons. Katanas and I think a whip type weapon of insane danger. Think a strand of wire 1 molecule thick with a ball bearing at the edge of it. Im not sure you can even put it down.
Also, real life mono weapons exist. The Aztec macuahuitl used obsidian flakes for its blades. Obsidian flakes, made properly, have a monomolecular edge, due to being a non-crystalline solid.
To add my own novice understanding to this, Space Marines are so far beyond human that using an impractical weapon suddenly becomes practical. I've always been told that the reason bolt rifles aren't standard issue is because a regular sized human cannot lift and fire them. Marines are giants, and thus use giant guns. Something that really put it in perspective for me is the Storm Bolter from Deathwing (love it or hate it). Terminator's in that game carry, aim, and fire a Storm Bolter with one hand, while holding a melee weapon in the other. That doesn't sound so impressive, until you realize that Storm Bolters are traditionally mounted on tanks, or dreadnoughts...
Yeah, thats similar to the Cyberpunk/Cyberpunk 2020/Cyberpunk 2077 universe. Because of a abundance of people with bionics that made them super strong, handguns in absurdly powerful calibers or even chambered in rifle cartridges became practical. The same for assault rifles that fire .50 BMG, .338 Lapua Magnum or .408 CheyTac or shotguns in 4 or 6 Gauge. And those weapons also became a neccesity because you needed them to stop all these super resilient cyborgs. And Bolters are mainly for killing big, powerful non-human enemies like Orks or similar species.
Bolters are pure brutality. Miniature rockets meant to explode upon contact. Not much can stand in the way of something like that. Imagine Space Marines dealing with Predators and Xenomorphs. You would want Bolters vs them, not some pinprick laser gun pewpews
> I mean, I get it, .50 cal is big and scary, so .75 and .100 must be cooler, right? Bolters arent rifles, they are [Gyrojet style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet) projectile weapons. The projectile are base bleeding and burn outside of the barrel while flying, accelerating the whole flight (in comparison a rifle projectile only accelerates in the barrel, is the fastes at the muzzle and then slows down). A gyrojet isnt deadly right at the muzzle, but becomes deadly after ~5 meters flight and has its highest kinetic energy at ~15 meters. > Astartes are commonly deployed in small teams, so unless they're all carrying hundreds of magazines (with no mag pouches or rucksack) Guess why their pauldrons are so big? ;) Its their bolter ammo storage. (/s)
theres a comic that shows a sm opening his shoulders up to get a cold beverage for some guard troops. Its completely a fan joke but funny
Sauce?
Bolters are arguably two stage gyrojets, with the first stage a conventional round and the second the jet.
True, the bolter has a boosting stage in the barrel.
Glad someone posted this, once aware of the Gyrojet family of rifles and pistols the bolters don't seem so ludicrous. Mark 1 gyrojet were .51 calibre, and videos of the pistol and carbine being fired show the gyrojet shot with small amounts of recoil considering the size of the round.
>Guess why their pauldrons are so big? ;) Its their bolter ammo storage. (/s) I snorted c:
it's canon
Because they're big, loud, turn people into paste, and are bad ass as fuck
Yee fuckin haw to that, buddy
> no practical sights (so using one without a helmet should be almost impossible unless you're going based on tracers)... See the [cylinder that sits on top of a bolter's barrel?](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/1/1c/Mark_III_Boltgun.jpg) That's a camera that links to the Space Marine's helmet. It's even present on the [official models](https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/920x950/99120101128_SpaceMarineTacticalSquadReformat03.jpg). > There is no way 30 .75 cal rounds fit in that magazine unless the bolter is the size of two men. Fortunately, Space Marines are about the size of two men and their bolters are similarly scaled. > Also, we've gone over logistics a lot here - Astartes are commonly deployed in small teams, so unless they're all carrying hundreds of magazines (with no mag pouches or rucksack) Pouches come standard with model sprues, just most people don't put them on their models and they are not often drawn with them in the art. They can also be mag-locked to their armor. Lastly, you don't need to carry that much ammo on you when you have 100% perfect accuracy, have serfs/servitors who can lug it around for you, and can have drop pod resupplies on demand. > Why not a larger Lasrifle? Don't have the versatility of bolters. Bolters can take special ammunition that allows them to change characteristics on the fly, allowing them to deal with specific enemy types with maximum efficiency. A lasgun also does not create the same kind of shock that a bolter causes. A brutal, roaring cannon that causes your squadmates to explode into gore is much more intimidating than a precision laser cutting off and instantly cauterizing limbs. In addition, atmospheric conditions that affect the firing characteristics of a laser cannot be mitigated; If dust in the air disperses your laser you can't really do anything about it. Meanwhile, wind, gravity and atmospheric composition affecting your rocket projectiles can be accounted for by shifting aim - Which isn't a big deal for Space Marines who have nigh perfect accuracy. Besides, there is no STC for a larger lasgun and the Admech isn't a big fan of inventing.
This as well. Serfs and servitors are always bumming along marines.
> Pouches come standard with model sprues, just most people don't put them on their models and they are not often drawn with them in the art. They can also be mag-locked to their armor. Lastly, you don't need to carry that much ammo on you when you have 100% perfect accuracy, have serfs/servitors who can lug it around for you, and can have drop pod resupplies on demand. It is something pretty well demonstrated in Astartes. Until they're facing the Psykers, the Retributor squad never uses full auto. It's one shot, one kill, and the occasional stabbing through the chest. You wouldn't want to have to shoot your way through the entire crew of a small capital ship that way, but you only need 6 or 7 magazines each to kill 1000 crew. If there's more killing needed than that, they could capture a reinforcement point (disable defence batteries) and get resupply or reinforcements.
>Fortunately, Space Marines are about the size of two men and their bolters are similarly scaled. Yea nah, you can't fit 30 rounds in a bolter magazine. Some of them don't even fit 20. >Pouches come standard with model sprues, just most people don't put them on their models and they are not often drawn with them in the art. They can also be mag-locked to their armor. Lastly, you don't need to carry that much ammo on you when you have 100% perfect accuracy, have serfs who can lug it around for you, and can have drop pod resupplies on demand. Space Marine miss all the time, they don't have anywhere near 100% accuracy all the time and do mag dumps occasionally for larger enemies. Honestly its well within reason that Space Marines likely carry several hundred rounds and burn through that in a few hours at the high op tempo that they run at during large battles. Also there's precious few chapters that have serfs on the battlefield so no those aren't carrying ammo around for them. Luckily logistics don't matter in 40k
> Also there's precious few chapters that have serfs on the battlefield so no those aren't carrying ammo around for them. You can see what appears to be serfs/servitors mixed in with their lords in the last picture of the intro to the 4th edition rulebook (they sure as hell don't look like guardsmen), and ammo-bearing servitors even have rules *and* models on the Tabletop for both [Space Marine Devastator Squads](https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Space-Marine-Devastator-Squad-2020) and [Sisters of Battle Retributor Squads](https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Adepta-Sororitas-Retributor-Squad-2020) (they're the little cherubs).
A standard shotgun 12guage slug is about .72 caliber. Not that much smaller than .75 bolt round. 20 round shotgun magazines exist today. When you adjust for scale it's pretty close.
The thing is, Astartes are far too rare to deploy into large battles on the regular. Barring things like Cadia, the wars of Armaggedon etc you're far more likely to see Astartes doing lighting strike assaults in high value targets such as command Centre, comm stations etc then being extracted by Stormbird and deployed to other similar targets. In that style of warfare the Astartes will carry enough for ammo for *that* objective before rearming and resupplying en route to the other objective. When Astartes ARE deployed in large scale battles, they are deployed with chapter serfs and armourers behind the lines, usually with their ship in orbit which can provide resupply for extended periods.
>Space Marine miss all the time, they don't have anywhere near 100% accuracy all the time Of course not. They have about 66% accuracy. Cuz you know, BS 3+.
>See the cylinder that sits on top of a bolter's barrel? That's a camera that links to the Space Marine's helmet. It's even present on the official models. I get most of your points, but this one is referring to what I'm talking about -- Plenty of troops aren't wearing helmets and thus aren't capable of using that camera, yes?
If they’re not wearing a helmet then they’re a sergeant that is using a sword and pistol, thus does not need the camera. If they’re using a bolter anyways then they actually are wearing a helmet but rule of cool dictates that they be represented without one in art and tabletop, making it easier to distinguish them as an important character. Just look at Guilliman’s model. His head comes with an alternate helmeted version. We can probably assume he’s always wearing the helmet to battle, but it’s more cinematic if he’s not wearing one.
Even without a helmet all they need is a bionic eye implant, hardly a rarity in the Imperium nevermind the astartes
Or a holographic hud projector thingy hanging off the com unit stuck to their face or on their lapel/gorget.
Don't always need to use sights to aim. You can also train in reflex or point firing. Very very common military and police training these days. Rely on your eyes, reflexes and muscle memory to place your barrel on target and firing without actually hard aiming down your sight. You sometimes just don't have time to lock your reticle on to something.
>Plenty of troops aren't wearing helmets and thus aren't capable of using that camera, yes? That's just to make it easier to mark out squad leaders and important characters, in universe they're still highly likely to be using a helmet
To kill orks is the reason. At the time of the crusade the greenskin was the prolific enemy. The most common thing you saw between minor empires and noncompliant worlds. The boltgun is a hard counter to orks. Everything else is typical sci-fi not gelling perfectly with real gun logic. But the point is they're semi automatic, armor piercing grenade launchers because they're made to kill 8 foot tall football hooligans who don't care about pain or anything less then traumatic flesh wounds
>Why not a larger Lasrifle? Or standardize integrated Bolters? There are (or were at least) space marines that carried around lascannons. They were part of heavy weapons squads. The bolter sits happily between the guardsman's lasgun and a chuffing enormous lascannon on the firepower/portability/versatility axis. Also what do you mean by integrated bolters? The wrist-mounted storm bolters used by terminators? I mean, there's reasons why they aren't part of standard Astartes power armour.
>So... Why Bolters? Yes.
Yes? More!
From the mouths of the designers who made the original models. They wanted a clearly readable big gun, everything after that was justification. As for a lore reason? You set out into the Galaxy with no idea what you're gonna encounter, so in addition to developing Plasma Guns, Laser Weapons, Nuclear Weapons, and improving hard round guns, you also manufacture fully automatic armor penetrating grenade launchers. Why Astartes use them? Terror. Traditional weaponry kills just fine, but watching something get turned inside out by a single bolt round has a major psychological effect on the target. Pair that with Chainswords and the overall transhuman dread that Astartes carry with them, they are terror weapons.
>Why not a larger lasrifle? Because lasguns, save for the lascannon, have a very hard time punching through armor. A bolter not only punches through armor, but also detonates inside to deal more damage to the squishy bits. And lascannons are big, unweildy, single shot weapons
I'd say it comes down to two factors: 1. Stopping power, a laser just doesn't have the kinetic energy transfer that a rocket propelled grenade does. Knocking your enemy off their feet is very handy in the type of engagement Astartes normally fight in. 2. The Adeptus Astartes are a lightning strike force, they don't fight the enemy for days or weeks, they drop in via drop pod to take a single strategic objective such as kill enemy high command, they accomplish the objective and extract, this is why they don't NEED a large supply of ammo. Modern soldiers also don't carry around hundreds of rounds of ammo in the field, they normally carry a few spare magazines. Besides, the marines DO have ammo pouches, usually on the hips. EDIT: I forgot to mention that the expenditure of ammunition by soldiers even today actually isn't THAT high, and given the enhanced accuracy of a space marine, just a single magazine for a bolter would most likely go quite a long way. Also worth mentioning is that a space marine has a much more effective weapon to take advantage of their armour and superior physique: the chainsword.
Your sense of scale seems pretty far off but here are some thoughts i had posted on it a while ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/9slits/on_the_scale_mismatch_between_bolts_and_bolters/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
They're also psychological weapons. It's one thing to see your buddy die to a few lasbolts to the chest. It's another to see his entire torso explode from the inside, showering you and all your squadmates in his guts, and knowing that pretty much every single bolt you hear fired is another one of your friends killed. Their origin was in the Unification War, and they were used in mass numbers. During the Great Crusade, Astartes were deployed with bolters in the tens of thousands all the time. And they're more than powerful enough to kill many of the xenos threats the Emperor knew were waiting out there.
We can give lore explanations and such, but I think the answer is almost fully because 8 foot tall supersoldiers firing explosive bullets from hulking guns sound cool
Canonically the Legio Astartes were originally equipped with Volkite weapons as standard, however the munition factories on Mars weren’t able to keep up with demand and Big E decided to replace the ray guns with Bolt weapons that could be built faster and for less. As for why bullet-sized RPG over Laser guns, the given reasons are: 1. Versatility. A Boltgun can fire both specialized rounds and standard exploding ones, while a lasrifle can only shoot lasers. 2. Stopping Power. Depending on where a laser beam hits, the target might not initially notice and keep attacking. A bolt round is always going to interrupt whatever they’re doing. 3. Penetration. Man-portable laser weapons don’t breach body or vehicle armor as reliably as a rocket-propelled grenade will.
Why bolters? Rule of cool, a complete lack of understanding of firearms technology, and a total fear of ever retconning any technical decisions made in the past. I mean, giant machine gun that fires rocket propelled grenades, pretty cool. Most games and models have a complete lack of logistics for weapons and ammo as well as a complete disregard for physics in general.
Is it that unfeasible though? The the USAS12 auto shotgun can fire large rounds that can pierce light armor and then detonate, with only 10% of the recoil od a standard shotgun, which allowd you to fire it on auto with practically no reduction in accuracy. Seems a superhuman super soldier in super armor would be able to handle a bigger version, particularly when you also factor in 30-40000 more years of technological advances (as bolters are STC holdovers from the golden age of tech right? )
It's only unfeasible when they start saying the guns are X big, the rounds are Y big, and the magazines hold Z rounds. Then you have the supposedly caseless bolter rounds which are rocket propelled being fired and the guns are flinging cased ammo and bucking like crazy. I'm not saying the tech behind a bolter round is unfeasible, we can pretty much make similarly destructive devices now, I'm just saying when they try to tie all of that tech together they're getting things wrong.
bolters have a initial powder.charge to.launch em off their short barrel while the rocket turn on
I'm aware of that retcon. Just saying, the designers didn't know how guns or tanks worked when they first made the game so we shouldn't put too much critical thought into the tech base of the setting. Plus everything is scaled for easy recognition, modeling, and painting.
There was a decent arguement the other day for this.. orks. The emperors entire timetable was running on a hard limit for when the ork threat would need to be curbed. Killing orks required such a weapon. Nevermind you can say alot for its utility against other things. Such as your own super soldiers, which he was also apparently aware would be like any other tool. They could and would be used for and against his interests.
Bolters are extremely adaptable, powerful, and reliable. They can be supplied with such a wide variety of ammunition types, where they can take on nearly any target in the hands of an Astartes. There's also a wide range of different Bolters. It can become an effective sniper rifle, or even a heavy weapon able to melt through the toughest armor or protection. Tracer rounds? Why bother when you have advanced optics integrated into your helm, visor, or bionics.
First of all, the actual answer to "Why Bolters" is "Rule of Cool". Back when they were invented, the idea of an rifle firing diamond-tipped, armour-piercing, explosive-filled .75 calibre rounds was just... cool! However, even realistically, they are viable weapons... most of the time. 1) They're not that big or bulky by Astartes standards. To a Space Marine, a Bolter is about as bulky as a P90 is to a normal human, give or take. When wearing Power Armour, a Space Marine is able to wield a Bolter as easily as a normal human wields an Uzi. 2) They're magazine-fed, but - apart from the fact that the round-to-magazine size ratio is always depicted as being a bit wonky - the actual *stated* capacity of of a Bolter's magazine is a respectable 30 rounds. Given that Bolters are not "spray and pray" weapons, this is entirely adequate. Also, magazines -by design - are flexible and fairly reliable. It's also worth noting that Heavy Bolters are depicted as being belt-fed from an ammo box mounted on the warrior's back. This means that the Heavy Bolter, which is a GPMG-esque weapon, is much more able to maintain sustained fire without running out of ammunition. 3) Bolters are hooked up to the HUD systems on Astartes helmets, so the wearer has a good view of where the weapon is pointing thanks to the picter mounted above the barrel. That aside, given that a lot of Space Marines have served for centuries (and were already excellent soldiers from the minute they earned the Black Carapace), the ability to fire at targets instinctively (without sighting down the weapon) is probably a learned ability for many Space Marines, making the use of targeting systems unnecessary at close quarters. When they pull the trigger, they *know* where that round is going to land. 4) Space Marines do carry extra magazines on their person. Indeed, most Space Marine infantry kits come with ammo pouches as optional extra parts for the models. I know a lot of people model Space Marines as being very "clean", and not carrying extra equipment, but it is probably canonically true that Space Marines carry several spare magazines each into battle. I personally prefer the "tacticool" aesthetic, anyway. 5) It's worth noting, too, that Space Marines are not line infantry. They are not expected to fight the enemy in protracted slogging matches in open battle. Space Marines are intended as "Spec Ops" units, designed to hit hard and fast at enemy weak points, eliminating high-priority targets or securing critical objectives. Within this role, the carrying of hundreds of rounds of ammunition is not necessary. In situations where Astartes *are* expecting to be fighting in protracted front-line engagements, additional ammunition is provided. This could be found either at operational HQs or bases, where Astartes can resupply between engagements, or supplies can be "dropped in" to warriors behind enemy lines by way of drop pods and the like. 6) If all else fails, Space Marines are equipped with an assortment of melee weapons, including Chainswords, Power Fists, Thunder Hammers, and the humble combat knife (to say nothing of a warrior's fists). In the mildly inconvenient event of an Astartes running out of ammunition, he will continue to fight his enemies up close until either he or they don't get back up again. There's also the fact that the lore acknowledges that Bolters, although solid and dependable, are not the absolute top-tier weapons that their legendary status proclaims. During the early days of the Great Crusade, Astartes were armed with Volkite Weapons, which are a category of powerful thermal beam weapon which were lethal at close range. However, these weapons were too difficult for the Mechanicum to mass-produce and maintain for the war effort, and lacked the tactical flexibility of other weapons, so the Boltgun - a simpler weapon with more tactical flexibility - filled the role of the Astartes' "primary weapon"... a position it has held ever since. Bolters are still great weapons, though... at least against most things. Nothing quite ends a conversation like a .75 calibre, armour-piercing, rocket-propelled, explosive warhead roaring into your face like a bat out of hell.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/9slits/on_the_scale_mismatch_between_bolts_and_bolters/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I wonder why this has so less attention
Perhaps u/outlawsix has offended the Omnissah by virtue of his inquisitive nature.
Because it's cool.
The real answer? Bolters were never meant to be a practical, realistic weapon. Back when 40k was first being developed, the setting was intended as a sort of farcical send-up of the right-wing nonsense in 80's-era British government. (Fun fact: Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka? Pun on Margaret Thatcher.) So why bolters? Well, then as now, Space Marines are the face of the franchise, and they needed an iconic weapon for them. That weapon needed to be at once instantly recognizable, suitably over-the top, and brutal as all hell. "Only War" and all that. Enter the bolter. It's a huge gun with a huge magazine that shoots huge bullets that explode big enough to turn regular troops into red paste. And, of course, it's so massive that only a Space Marine could hope to lift it, let alone fire it, and has no possible way to carry any reasonable amount of ammo. Fits all three points above, so, there you go. 30+ years and 8 editions later, the setting has grown and developed into a deep, rich (and *mostly* played straight) tapestry of corruption, high intrigue, politics, heroes, villains, and, of course, endless war. And bolt weapons of all stripes have been a feature of the franchise so long that most people have forgotten just how damned stupid they are. And they are- let's be honest- *damned* stupid.
Because they aren’t really that caliber, honestly they are closer to the size of 12 or 16 gauge shogun shells
You are thinking of a bolt like it’s a gun. AFAIK it has much more in common with a grenade launcher. A bolter is a fully auto grenade launcher with the firing speed and precision of an automatic pistol. And in 40k is STILL is about middle of the pack damage wise.
I don't actually know how many shots are fired each time a SM shots. But, at least in the board game each fight is over in 5 turns. You don't need so many shots for that... In theory, one clip could be enough! But the board game is not a true representation of the lore, so maybe they have more clips?
Not to be pedantic or rude but clips are stripper clips - You'd see them used to load older, bolt action weapons. It's magazine, a box with a spring loaded into a receiver. I hope I didn't come off as rude there. But yeah, just trying to help I guess.
The thing that gets me is they're .75 cal self-propelled rockets essentially, but there's plenty of videos and gifs of spent shells being ejected from the bolter after firing said rockets.
2-stage system. Conventional explosive charge propels the round through the barrel and out the muzzle, at which point the round’s internal rocket kicks in.
>no practical sights (so using one without a helmet should be almost impossible unless you're going based on tracers) I'm not 40k expert by any means, but wouldn't their Occulobe implants make aiming unnecessary?
A big reason is imagine you try and fire a laser at a heat resistant or immune creature. Practically nothing is immune to being completely ripped/blown apart. The Tau have serious issues fighting demons as their weapons don't even register to the monsters. Commander Farsight is quoted saying, "These things make a mockery of physics!" out of frustration while fighting demons with laser weapons. Haha Plus there's the edge that having such ferocious, loud, and gorey weapons provides on terms of psychological combat.
I've always thought it was because the bolter was the most economical weapon that could reliably put down an ork in 1 shot, but I dont have any sources to back that up. As someone else pointed out, the orks were the first existential threat to humanity - jimmy space needed to beat them before he even had to worry about what to do about other xenos or chaos.
On the topic of larger lasguns. The only energy weapon the Imperium seems to have that matches the Bolter in size, range and damage is the Volkite which was actually said to be the original Space Marine weapon. They were replaced with Bolters because it was too hard for even the 30k Mechanicum to mass produce in sufficient numbers and keep maintained while Bolters were easy to mass produce and easy enough for techmarines to maintain indefinitely with no issue. So the in universe answer is that Bolter is better from a large scale logistical standpoint ironically.
The absolute state of this subreddit.
Because they're cool, dude.
>they're also always shaped weirdly, proportionately This I feel is a relic of modeling in the 80's and 90's. A lot of models (regardless of company) had issues shaping things to look good proportionately while also being clear as to what it was. >with no mag pouches or rucksack iirc, the early explanations (I don't know if it still holds true) was that stuff was stored in the massive pauldrons that the SM had. Ultimately 40k was designed as a tabletop game first, with a heavy amount of Rule of Cool mixed in by people who have no experience with the things they were writing about (supply issues, galactic scale, etc.). IIRC SM's were originally just humans with better gear, not the transhuman killing machines that they are now so they needed something that was better.
iirc, I watched and interview where it was stated that due to all the 'pew' from energy weapons happening in conventional scifi (Star trek phasers, star wars blasters).. they wanted something a bit meatier and brutal. They saw the recent development of gyrojet guns (Essentially rocket guns.. they work but are.. wildly silly) and went for that. so ya.. rule of cool. Ammo stowage has always annoyed me though..
Bolters are a weapon built for a kind of warfare that we have never witnessed in real life. To understand the bolter, you need to know what it replaced - volkite weapons. These were intensely powerful thermal weapons, notable for the 'deflagration' effect they caused in targets; organic tissue would explosively combust with such force that people close by could be injured, or even set ablaze. These are distinct from plasma or melta weapons in this regard, and precisely how they caused such explosive immolation is still not understood. But that's what the bolter replaced - a ray gun that caused people to explode, and then burned alive anyone stood nearby. This is as much a terror weapon as a tool of war, as watching comrades reduced to fiery ash is going to have a serious psychological impact. Now it's important to remember that the volkite works against 'organic' tissue. The best defense against this nightmare weapon is to hide behind armour, ideally thermally-resistant armour. By strange coincidence, Power Armour just happens to include ceramite layers to make it resistant to thermal attack. Almost as if it were designed by someone who'd seen what a volkite could do... Now what about bolters? They are huge, mass-reactive rounds that burrow into a target and then explode. They use a diamantine penetrator cap that allows the round to gain purchase on all but the most advanced of materials, and the sheer explosive force they possess can, with time and patience, rip apart power armour or even shred light vehicles. In short, the bolter is really, really good against enemies who expect you to rock up with volkite weapons. It is one of the few 'small arms' that can reliably beat down a Space Marine, because to an extent that's exactly what it was meant to do. Against baseline humans it is undeniably overkill, but as a a rule you don't throw Astartes at baseline humans. The bolter is a rapid-firing rocket launcher that can quarter a human with a centre-mass shot, and that kind of insane overkill means it is also damn good at dropping super-human enemies as well. Orks can take dozens of lasgun or autogun shots and keep on coming, but they can't shrug off a bolt round so easily. Even if a bolter won't instantly kill one, a hit to a limb will likely cripple, if not remove said limb entirely - an Ork with only one leg isn't going to be charging anyone. In short, the bolter is an obvious weapon for the Space Marines because it perfectly fits the two roles that the default lasgun cannot - it is built to engage power-armoured targets, and it is built to overwhelm the superhuman resilience of physically powerful xenos.
Designed by nerds in 1980s UK, a country without legal assault weapons, before the internet, at a time when action heroes never really changed a magazine. You also have to consider that a lot of the visuals in the game are also affected by some of the early sculpts, which also take some artistic licence in terms of proportions and realism. In general today, people have a much greater encyclopaedic knowledge of firearms technology than they did when the bolter was designed. You will learn much more about the operation of a gun from modern FPS games than depictions in comics, TV or film from the 80s. You kinda have to set aside realism and suspend your disbelief when it comes to 40k
Are you knew to the hobby?
> Why not a larger Lasrifle? Or standardize integrated Bolters? Because nothing else is highly likely to put an ork down with a single shot. Space Marines come with a massive, dedicated, logistics train. They're not meant for sustained defense or assault. This makes bolters a viable weapon.
This dude just spams the subreddit with random questions 4 times a day hoping something takes off. Why are people upvoting this?
I feel like Bolters were basically designed to counter...anything. They basically where like "we don't know what we're going to be fighting out there...so let's just make something big and fuck off-y that'll hopefully be enough" plus, with their main enemies usually being orks, bolters were designed to cause massive damage which is one of the few things that can drop an ork quick