It shows that even the almighty Emperor of Humanity thought that Marines were so bad-ass that he would pass the name on to his ultimate soldiers. It is a strange jump from Techno-Barbarians to Space Marines though.
I also like to think that Space Marines was something that stuck from outsider perspectives. The Emperor names them Astartes, the Space Marine moniker could have come later from people outside the process.
The average person these days does not usually know how the word Marine originated so its understandable if the title kept a particular relevance outside of its original meaning/use.
And this is too serious a topic. But at least its not about projectile size.
Of course, space marines are just a colloquial name.
They are the Adeptus Astartes, which evolved from the Legion Astartes.
Perhaps there was a history of the emperor's genetically altered soldiers making large naval invasions back on terra, assuming the oceans were still there when the wars over terra were occuring?
Who knows.
Well, they can survive unprotected in space and the standard backpack (not the one used by assault marines) double as a directional thruster that allows them to move around in zero-G enviroments.
The fantasy science behind a bolter is pretty fucking clear to understand. In the current times (we'll call this now times), we have .50cal anti-infantry weapons. These weapons turn anything with in their optimal range and behind light cover, to mince meat.
These .50cal weapons generally take 2 round to put a man down. You can do it in 1 precise shot (such as with a sniper rife), but with something like a mounted fully automatic weapon...the odds of hitting directly on target and not just winging someone are pretty low (also, the odds of you just accidentally putting two rounds into him because you're firing on the highly wasteful fully automatic mode).
We also have higher caliber weapons, but lets ignore those. Because right now we are talking about guns designed for their intended target pool. Anti-infantry. The fantasy Bolter is designed to shoot its bullet into a target, and kill it in one round. Conserving ammo, causing fear, and taking advantage of the increased skills of a space marine.
The Bolter is also designed for one intended target pool. Anti-infantry. Do you see a theme here? The .50cal mounted machine gun is to heavy, to unwieldy, and impossible to aim for a human being without bracing it first, or using some kind of bracing device. The Bolter, a .75cal weapon, can be fired by the space marine with one hand, from the hip or sighted, in fact, the space marine can fire two of these in each hand sighted down on different targets!
Back to modern warfare, the .50cal weaponry is pretty much universally feared. It rips through light cover, is highly effective and destroying human bodies, and can be used to suppress an area, they can also get really lucky and destroy light armor with a few well placed shots. It can not, however, break through moderate to heavy cover, or do anything but ping off medium and heavy armor.
In fantasy land of 40k, the .75cal bolter...operates much the same way! It is not designed to destroy heavy armor, it is not designed to punch through a solid steel reinforced wall and hit the target on the other side.
The magical bolter does exactly what it is designed to do. It puts a single round into a single target, and destroys that target, with one round. It's target pool is human/humanoid/squishy bug things.
I'm pretty sure, a gun that fires a .75cal AP, Explosive round, at a pretty solid distance...Doesn't need any improvements. It's a modern .50cal machine gun (used on thousands of vehicles as anti human/humanoid weapons), that only needs 1 round to kill, except, it can hit you anywhere with that round. Once that .75cal round is inside you, you're dead. Oh! Oh! and it's fired in a hand held package.
That is the entire point you are desperately trying to counter. It doesn't need a bigger round, and probably the only reason they don't go smaller, is because they designed a ton of these bolters, and like NATO, don't want to re-tool.
Actually, .50 BMG can easily kill with one shot. In fact, near misses can still be lethal. And braced or not, you really can't shoot a .50 cal machine gun unless it's mounted due to the way it is designed. It uses a butterfly trigger that would be difficult if not impossible to shoot single handed. And .50 cal is more than capable of destroying lightly armored vehicles, especially with DU or tungsten rounds.
It's always been my impression that they were called space marines, not because they fight in space... but because they travel through space in order to find other planets/races to asskick into submission. Obviously they're job is to kill, I mean cleanse, everything on land sea and air (or whatever the hell other kind of environment exists) on other worlds.
But we MUST discuss the merits of caliber size when it comes to genetically engeneered acid-spitting 8ft tall 500 pound supermen that wear 5 tons of fusion powered armor.
Speaking of acid spitting. Was that just with that one legion, Snake-something or other ( I have the omnibus but cant recall there name ) or could they all do that? I thought it was dumb in the book I read but if they can all Space Marines can do that then I am more OK with it.
Are we really arguing that a society that actively shuns progress, and will execute those who try to create new, greater technologies, aren't sufficiently advanced enough because they're regular ass guns are only a little better than our experimental technology today? Really?
And really, you're missing things. Considering that perfectly accurate laser guns that can blow off limbs are considered beneath them, there's probably a reason they go for boltguns.
Speaking of acid spitting. Was that just with that one legion, Snake-something or other ( I have the omnibus but cant recall there name ) or could they all do that? I thought it was dumb in the book I read but if they can all Space Marines can do that then I am more OK with it.
Consists of two identical glands, implanted either into the lower lip, alongside the salivary glands or into the hard palette. The gland works in a similar way to the poison gland of venomous reptiles by synthesizing and storing deadly poison, which the Marines themselves are immune to due to the gland's presence. This allows a Space Marine to spit a blinding contact poison. The poison is also corrosive and can even burn away strong metals given sufficient time.
Some lines (I want to say Imperial Fists is one?) have had their's atrophy and can no longer implant it. It's not unreasonable to believe that in some lines it might have increased in potency.
Thanks Nobody. The case I saw it in was a Marine that had been bitten by an indigenous snake and he commented how it had no effect and later spit it in some dudes face.
Considering they wear a full helmet the majority of the time I could see how it would not be used very often or even necessary considering every other tool they have.
Thanks Nobody. The case I saw it in was a Marine that had been bitten by an indigenous snake and he commented how it had no effect and later spit it in some dudes face.
Considering they wear a full helmet the majority of the time I could see how it would not be used very often or even necessary considering every other tool they have.
yeah, Marines also have increased resistances to poisons due to the Oolitic Kidney (scroll up in the link I posted earlier).
Typically you only really see Marines using their Betcher's Glands in cases where they were captured and disarmed as a weapon or a way to weaken restraints.
But we MUST discuss the merits of caliber size when it comes to genetically engeneered acid-spitting 8ft tall 500 pound supermen that wear 5 tons of fusion powered armor.
Well to be fair a heavy bolter fires 1.0 cal ammo standard instead of .75 but the mechanics of how the round works are the same.
You know, that means a bolter round is relatively unimpressive by modern standards. For reference .75 cal is about 20 millimeters (well, 19 nearly on the dot but I'm going to round) and I can only remember them being impact fused high explosive or armor piercing HE in the fluff. I'm pretty sure I recall the US trying to field radar fused 20 mm shells in infantry weapons to give folks the option of having it explode above, in front of or slightly behind whatever you're shooting at (from what I recall the project got canned over budget issues). Incidentally, its also about the same size as a 12 gauge round, and those are used (poorly) in full auto weapons these days.
1 cal works out to about 25 mm, which I can't find anything good for, but from what I remember if you go up to about 1.57 cal (40 mm) you can get pretty much everything but a swiss army knife coming out of your barrel, and those are definitely carried by modern infantry (since Vietnam I think actually), but I have no idea what a reasonable rate of fire or load is for those (other than slow and not much).
Well, if you're worried about varied ammunition types, then I guess you'll get a kick out of the bolter alternate ammunition.
I mean, you want to talk about firing a swiss army knife, there's acid tipped rounds. Solid, gas propelled silent rounds. Napalm rounds. Psy rounds. Fragmentation rounds. Armour piercing rounds.
OK, don't care about the damage discussion of a fictional round fired from a fictional gun.
I will say that the actual model IS a vehicle mounted weapon in many cases. If you are not seven feet tall then it is a beast of a weapon.
Ermm... What vehicles mount boltguns, exactly? I know a lot of vehicles can take storm bolters, and chaos uses twin linked boltguns, but... regular old boltguns?
As for non-space marines, plenty of inquisitors, and even higher ranking guardsmen use boltguns. They're smaller versions, but still.
OK, don't care about the damage discussion of a fictional round fired from a fictional gun.
I will say that the actual model IS a vehicle mounted weapon in many cases. If you are not seven feet tall then it is a beast of a weapon.
Ermm... What vehicles mount boltguns, exactly? I know a lot of vehicles can take storm bolters, and chaos uses twin linked boltguns, but... regular old boltguns?
As for non-space marines, plenty of inquisitors, and even higher ranking guardsmen use boltguns. They're smaller versions, but still.
Do hurricane bolters count?
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
edited September 2010
Fuck, gonna make me try and track down some pictures? Well, this will take a while, see you guys later...
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Chaos Rhinos have twin-linked bolters, but other than that the game doesn't currently have anything with just a single regular bolter. Land Raider Crusaders have 'hurricane' pattern sponsons, which are literally just 2 sets of 3 bolters connected to a big ass ammo box.
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
edited September 2010
Any space marine ride wouldn't bother with something that small, but I was thinking of some very light imperial guard unit perhaps.
Edit: Or a heavier tank with one on a pintle mount.
Yes Chrome, pintle is a freakin' word!
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Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
edited September 2010
This discussion makes the God-Emperor cry. I know this as I have a direct line through GW ever since they dedicated a whole line on the annual budget reports to me.
Now I want to see Space Marines take over the Death Star. Poor Storm Troopers
I always kind of wondered how the Space Marines got their name, in-universe. Usually, archaic military unit names come about as established units evolve over time. That's why you still have Cavalry units, Fusiliers and the like. Those units used to be mounted on horseback and armed with a fusil (musket), respectively, hence the names. The names remained, even though the equipment is gone. The US Marine Corps will probably evolve into a space marine force in the future.
On the other hand, IIRC, Warhammer Space Marine chapters were created by the Emperor- they didn't evolve from an actual marine force. I'm not sure why you would name a newly-created space-faring elite force "Marines" given that history.
Pretty sure the term Space Marine (Which is used in the canon by Imperials.) comes, originally, from the fact that Space Marines would typically drop in from outer fucking space in pods about the size of a bus to kick the asses of the Emperor's enemies.
They were also typically the preferred force to use to breach and take targets that were in, you guessed it, space, on account of the fact that they have sealed power armor (Which is handy if you have to fight in a vacuum), and the fact that most things that decide to make their lair in space tend to be way above the capabilities of the Imperial Guard to handle.
So they used to do naval operations. Sort of like Marines do. Only instead of water. It's space. Hence the logic behind naming them [strike]Spess Mahreens![/strike] Space Marines.
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
edited September 2010
Most works of fiction that have space navies have organisations that fill the same purpose.
Space Marines are hardly unique to 40k.
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When they were created they were very unique. Saying that 25 years later doesn't have the same significance. At any rate, it's not the name, but the details, that make them stand out.
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I also like to think that Space Marines was something that stuck from outsider perspectives. The Emperor names them Astartes, the Space Marine moniker could have come later from people outside the process.
The average person these days does not usually know how the word Marine originated so its understandable if the title kept a particular relevance outside of its original meaning/use.
And this is too serious a topic. But at least its not about projectile size.
altmann is just a silly, silly person
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Well, they can survive unprotected in space and the standard backpack (not the one used by assault marines) double as a directional thruster that allows them to move around in zero-G enviroments.
Actually, .50 BMG can easily kill with one shot. In fact, near misses can still be lethal. And braced or not, you really can't shoot a .50 cal machine gun unless it's mounted due to the way it is designed. It uses a butterfly trigger that would be difficult if not impossible to shoot single handed. And .50 cal is more than capable of destroying lightly armored vehicles, especially with DU or tungsten rounds.
And really, you're missing things. Considering that perfectly accurate laser guns that can blow off limbs are considered beneath them, there's probably a reason they go for boltguns.
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It's one of the standard implants for Space Marines.
Some lines (I want to say Imperial Fists is one?) have had their's atrophy and can no longer implant it. It's not unreasonable to believe that in some lines it might have increased in potency.
Considering they wear a full helmet the majority of the time I could see how it would not be used very often or even necessary considering every other tool they have.
yeah, Marines also have increased resistances to poisons due to the Oolitic Kidney (scroll up in the link I posted earlier).
Typically you only really see Marines using their Betcher's Glands in cases where they were captured and disarmed as a weapon or a way to weaken restraints.
No, it can't. That's a myth.
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Not what I heard from a ranger buddy.
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I laughed.
Nearly hitting someone with a High Explosive .50 only having it hit the wall inches from the guys head can kill the guy. That counts doesn't it?
I will say that the actual model IS a vehicle mounted weapon in many cases. If you are not seven feet tall then it is a beast of a weapon.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
I'll admit, I laughed pretty hard at this
Well, if you're worried about varied ammunition types, then I guess you'll get a kick out of the bolter alternate ammunition.
I mean, you want to talk about firing a swiss army knife, there's acid tipped rounds. Solid, gas propelled silent rounds. Napalm rounds. Psy rounds. Fragmentation rounds. Armour piercing rounds.
Hooray for fiction, I guess?
Ermm... What vehicles mount boltguns, exactly? I know a lot of vehicles can take storm bolters, and chaos uses twin linked boltguns, but... regular old boltguns?
As for non-space marines, plenty of inquisitors, and even higher ranking guardsmen use boltguns. They're smaller versions, but still.
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
Do hurricane bolters count?
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
And I was really wondering, considering I've played most armies that can use bolters...
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Wait, pictures of what? I couldn't tell what you were trying to find.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Edit: Or a heavier tank with one on a pintle mount.
Yes Chrome, pintle is a freakin' word!
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Pretty sure the term Space Marine (Which is used in the canon by Imperials.) comes, originally, from the fact that Space Marines would typically drop in from outer fucking space in pods about the size of a bus to kick the asses of the Emperor's enemies.
They were also typically the preferred force to use to breach and take targets that were in, you guessed it, space, on account of the fact that they have sealed power armor (Which is handy if you have to fight in a vacuum), and the fact that most things that decide to make their lair in space tend to be way above the capabilities of the Imperial Guard to handle.
So they used to do naval operations. Sort of like Marines do. Only instead of water. It's space. Hence the logic behind naming them [strike]Spess Mahreens![/strike] Space Marines.
Space Marines are hardly unique to 40k.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
I can not wait for more news so things get more hilarious.
Space Marines, while part of the Imperium, kind of stand apart. They don't follow the rule of the High Lords, but will help them if asked (nicely).