The much Maligned Lasgun

[Mr Mystery]

My priest lost his noggin to an unprimed frag grenade. Which the cursed Astartes promptly picked back up and threw at someone else!

Managed to end his shenanigans in the end. I used Machine Curse (or whatever it was called) to switch off his powerplant....

[Psychosplodge]

From tumblr

Even if all else were even, lasguns would be superior to auto weapons for one simple reason: logistics.

Don’t laugh. That’s not the Imperium being cheap; tactics win battles. Strategy wins campaigns. Logistics wins wars.

Sure, an infantryman could carry a bolter… but how practical is it? Those things are huge - even the ones designed for humans. And .75 Calibre? That’s kissing cousins to walking around with a twenty millimeter cannon in your arms! Leaving aside the issue of the weapon’s unreasonable size, how much ammo could the average infantryman really be expected to hump around?

Really, bolters are only practical if you’re a Space Marine. Or Ibram Gaunt, I guess.

So why not autorifles?

Logistics again.

Your average modern infantryman is told he should be sent out into the world with 210 rounds of ammunition: six magazines on his LBE, and one in his rifle. Now, this sounds like a lot right up until the moment when someone starts shooting at you. At that point, you start realizing just how quickly you can burn through seven magazines.

Soldiers know this too, so they’ll grab whatever extra ammunition they can carry. Even at the outside, though, this usually just means another four mags or so and maybe a belt for the machine gun.

The machine gun, which eats through ammo like you wouldn’t believe, and weighs upwards of fifteen pounds when empty. Why carry it? Because rifles are really not all that great at sustained automatic fire. And even if they weren’t, thirty rounds doesn’t last long when you’re going all out.

Enter the humble lasgun.

With its high-capacity power cells. Lightweight. Durable. Each one capable of holding a hundred and fifty shots, according to Graham McNeill. And you can recharge one by leaving it out in the sun. Or throwing it into a fire.

With its variable power settings, capable of blowing an arm off at the top, or just punching a hole in you toward the bottom of the scale. Not to mention letting you extend the life of your power cell and speed up your rate of fire.

With its select fire trigger group, capable of semi and fully automatic fire.

With its incredible durability and reliability. Ten thousand shots before needing maintenance!

Why doesn’t the Imperial Guard have “machine gun” version of lasguns? They don’t need them. Every single trooper has a fully automatic weapon of phenomenal endurance capable of firing half again as many shots as your average GPMG at its highest setting, and more as you step down the power throughput.

Everyone has a machine gun. One heavier than any modern infantryman could possibly carry. And in a package weighing more than two pounds less than an empty M-16.

Everyone can carry more than a thousand rounds of ammunition on their person, and wouldn’t even need to clean their weapon after shooting through their basic combat load.

Everyone can get more ammo just by starting a fire and having lunch if they’re cut off from resupply. Though that wears out the cell… eventually.

And, in a pinch, you can fix bayonets and stab a heretic with one.

You don’t need to issue machine guns. Your troops have lasguns. You don’t need to ship mass quantities of physical ammunition. Your troops have lasguns. Send ‘em a generator. They can make their own. And even if you feel like sending them enormous quantities of cells, your ammunition will still weigh less and take up less space on the transport. Why? Your troops have lasguns!

Honestly, bolters may get all the glory, but lasguns are miracle weapons in their own right.

[grimmas]

WHAAAAT using tumblr as a source!!!!! I've never been so...... Oh hang on it agrees with me carry on, very sensible piece

😃

[Kirsten]

yeah, I love lasguns, I'd quite like to see more variety of them in game. if I were in 40k it would be my weapon of choice I think.

[grimmas]

Just as an aside the first time Lasguns were described in detail was the Confrontation game and they weren't actually Laser weapons at all. They fired energy "bullets" (probably like Star Wars blasters) that exploded in a burst of heat and light when they hit a target. This caused massive damage to exposed flesh but apparently could be discharged very easily by any form of armour and thick leaf cover (I could never work out why this was a thing in a game set I the necromundian underhive). Things did change fair soon after that and they were refluffed, as it were, into Laser weapons.

- - - Updated - - -

In a Deathwatch game we did, a Space Shark destroyed a Rogue Psyker by picking up a stunned Marine and throwing him at the psychic abomination. We couldn't agree on who got to paint the kill marking on their armour afterwards.

That's possibly one of the most Space Marine of things I've heard. Did the the Space Shark mutter "We bring death" as he bowled away?

[Psychosplodge]

WHAAAAT using tumblr as a source!!!!! I've never been so...... Oh hang on it agrees with me carry on, very sensible piece

😃

I had to spend an entire five minutes looking for where I'd seen that.

[Path Walker]

Yup.

No matter the pattern, the bog standard powerpack will fit your Lasgun - and that keeps you fighting.

Actually, according to Gaunt's Ghosts, where a Munitorum mix up leaves the 1st and Only with the wrong pattern of battery pack, that's not strictly true.

But it doesn't invalidate anything you've said, it seems from that passage like there are maybe three types of power pack for all the various models of lasgun. A lasgun is an amazing weapon, if any modern army had them today, they'd be very difficult to contend with in a sustained ground war.

[Mr Mystery]

I stand duly corrected

They really are miracles of warfare. As has been said, there's very few moving parts to worry about. Other than a trigger and the catch holding in the power pack, I can't think of any that would be necessary.

Not only does this simplify maintenance, but in such a technologically ignorant setting as 40k, it prevents anyone getting curious and knackering their main weapon by tinkering too much.

They're presumably good to operate in any environment too (this might have been mentioned already).

[grimmas]

I always thought it was a case of Mr Abnett getting it wrong like he did with Colonel-Comissars. Power packs are STC so they should all be the same. Of course they seem to have forgotten about STCs a bit. Of course their might be variety between different STCs but it does affect the standard part.

[Path Walker]

I always thought it was a case of Mr Abnett getting it wrong like he did with Colonel-Comissars. Power packs are STC so they should all be the same. Of course they seem to have forgotten about STCs a bit. Of course their might be variety between different STCs but it does affect the standard part.

Yeah I figured there were either several STC plans for lasgun power packs or that the STC had been corrupted over the millennia, changed as it's copied from world to world introducing inconsistencies. Shows the genius of design of the lasgun while also allowing for the dunder-headed-ness of the Imperium.