Dig out the Space Marines

[Connor MacLeod]

As for what bolters can or can't do, it depends heavily on the ammo used. There's ALOT of kinds of ammo, and they seem to vary in characteristics (including destructive effects). Some just punch large (fist or head sized) holes through the targeT (some human sized, some space marine WRT hand/head, though.) Some will blow apart a persons' head, chest, or even entire body rather messily (again human or space marine.)

Some bolts can vaporize part of a body (head, shoulders.) or the entire body. Some may just create cauterized wounds. Some have considerable kinetic impact, some have less so.

There are frag shells, kinetic penetrator shells, acid shells, incendiaries, and probably others (guided shells even, akin to Arbites Executioner rounds, though these aren't neccesarily common.)

The highly thermal (vaporizing/cauterising) are not exactly uncommon or rare, but they aren't always used (At least not amongst all troops.) The more straight "explosive" kinds seem more common.

[MJ12 Commando]

Although Sentinals look quite cool from what I've seen, it was my understanding that they have no ranged weapons whatsoever?

They can bend several inches of metal with no apparent difficulty, move at at least 100 m/s, throw those robot bombs which destroy a hovercraft in one shot, and if you believe Second Renaissance, their cutting laser has sufficient thermal effects to cut through a tank and fry the crew in about a second.

The APU guns, from the clip posted, look to be at least 40-50mm, which means they'll likely be able to take a fair amount of bolter fire per unit, and they should be able to fight a SM in HtH.

So they should be able to get some kills anyhow.

Ironically the Agents might actually be less useful than the Sentinels.

[Cykeisme]

I've NEVER seen wide-beam phasers vaporize ANYTHING. (Stun, yes, but vaporize?) Besides, will those things do anything to ceramite, other than scorch the paint?

"This is an affront to my armour's machine spirit! KILL! KILL! KILL!"

[Cykeisme]

Whoops, maybe I should have noticed there were three pages.

As was already stated, judging on the size of the ammunition for the APU guns, despite the size of the guns themselves, I don't think they're very powerful.
Considering the ease with which they knocked Sentinels out of the air (it's hard to tell with the number of Sentinels in the swarm, but probably less than five hits average before a Sentinel is disabled), bolters should have significant effect at least; heavy bolters and bigger would scrap swarms of those things in moments.

The APU guns, from the clip posted, look to be at least 40-50mm, which means they'll likely be able to take a fair amount of bolter fire per unit, and they should be able to fight a SM in HtH.

How would the caliber of the APU guns affect the number of bolter fire they can sustain?
The Space Marines would likely decide to maximize efficiency by setting their bolters to semiautomatic and killing each exposed APU pilot with a single shot. It's going to be head/torso gibbing, like Connor pointed out.

[Ford Prefect]

How would the caliber of the APU guns affect the number of bolter fire they can sustain?

He's talking about the fire that Sentinels can take, not the fire APUs can take. As you say, in a scenario involving APUs versus Space Marines (or pretty much APUs versus anyone with guns), the APUs get butchered.

There are frag shells, kinetic penetrator shells, acid shells, incendiaries, and probably others (guided shells even, akin to Arbites Executioner rounds, though these aren't neccesarily common.)

Don't forget the silenced bolts most commonly used when sniping with a bolter.

[brianeyci]

Hey it's 3 AM but I just thought of how to quantify the Delta Flyer's shields... in VOY "Thirty Days" the Delta Flyer goes to the center of an ocean planet. It's been too long, but if I remember right the planet was artificially holding water together. Just a quick scan of Memory Alpha says 500 kilometers. Can probably figure out maximum with one planetary mass with the Delta Flyer in the center... I'm not going to attempt the calc because I don't have physics training, but it seems a simple matter of plugging in the numbers. That combined with VOY "Future's End" can give us shields and firepower, as long as there's someone who's experienced enough with explosives to tell us how much it takes to explode the trailer of a truck (and it may be a miniscule amount, I have no idea how to calculate that other than crudely scaling the fireball.)

[Gullible Jones]

Although Sentinals look quite cool from what I've seen, it was my understanding that they have no ranged weapons whatsoever?

They can bend several inches of metal with no apparent difficulty, move at at least 100 m/s, throw those robot bombs which destroy a hovercraft in one shot, and if you believe Second Renaissance, their cutting laser has sufficient thermal effects to cut through a tank and fry the crew in about a second.

Wait wait wait... 100 m/s? That's more than 220 mph... Are you sure that's right?

(Maybe it is right. The presence of such powerful cutting lasers suggests that they have miniature fusion reactors or something, if it's actually the case. Why wouldn't they use the lasers against the guys in APUs in the movie though? If they're that short ranged they're going to have problems. Still, I have a hard time believing that a general-purpose robot can fly as fast as a light airplane.)

[MJ12 Commando]

Whoops, maybe I should have noticed there were three pages.

As was already stated, judging on the size of the ammunition for the APU guns, despite the size of the guns themselves, I don't think they're very powerful.

It's fairly obvious that there gun barrels are actually quite large and there is no visible way for them to fire subcaliber ammunition without violating Occam's Razor horribly. I think it might be because the toy had the ammo belts scaled differently or something, because I recall the APUs having quite large projectiles in the movie.

It's especially apparent that the guns are supposed to be using much, much larger ammunition types because the port where they feed in is much, much wider than the ammo shown in the toy.

Considering the ease with which they knocked Sentinels out of the air (it's hard to tell with the number of Sentinels in the swarm, but probably less than five hits average before a Sentinel is disabled), bolters should have significant effect at least; heavy bolters and bigger would scrap swarms of those things in moments.

Remember, the visible "shots" are tracers. Most military forces use a mix of 4 regular-1 tracer round, so 5 hits "average" is going to be quite a bit of bolterfire. In Final Flight of the Osiris, it takes twin autocannon turrets about a second to take out single Sentinels, which might be a better guide given that it focuses on three or four of them at once.

And "moments" may be too much. Those bombs they can throw are quite dangerous, seeking, and should be able to get mission kills on Space Marines.

Assuming they're smart, they toss a bunch of Tow Bombs in a salvo from kilometers away and then kill the stragglers who will likely no longer have working ranged weaponry for the most part and will be forced to engage in melee with knives, which is a disadvantage when the Sentinels have multiple fairly strong limbs that can be used and a cutting laser that should be able to get through the armor a SM wears.. This should net them a win.

Assuming they're stupid, yeah, they'll lose.

[MJ12 Commando]

Rewatching the Final Flight of the Osiris: You see two big fuckoff autocannon (probably about 50mm, like the APU ones should be) on the Osiris damage a Sentinel to the point where it can't keep up with at least ten shots.

I think we can put the tiny bullets to a FX or modeling gaffe and say that Sentinels should be at least moderately resistant to bolterfire.

Not that it changes the fact that unless they start flinging bombs from a distance they'll lose this.

[Winston Blake]

It's especially apparent that the guns are supposed to be using much, much larger ammunition types because the port where they feed in is much, much wider than the ammo shown in the toy.

Hmmm, I chose the toy because it showed the scale of the guns. Here's one from the movie:

The operator of the nearest APU can be seen if you look closely, giving some scale to the ammo belts on either side of [her?]. These are clearly necked-up compared to the toy ammo, in fact they look practically straight-walled. Anyway, as you said, they'd probably need to use those Tow Bombs to win.

Assuming they're smart, they toss a bunch of Tow Bombs in a salvo from kilometers away and then kill the stragglers who will likely no longer have working ranged weaponry for the most part and will be forced to engage in melee with knives, which is a disadvantage when the Sentinels have multiple fairly strong limbs that can be used and a cutting laser that should be able to get through the armor a SM wears.. This should net them a win.

Assuming they're stupid, yeah, they'll lose.

For the purposes of this matchup, I think we actually can assume that they're stupid, see below. Hell, they may be no more intelligent than dogs.

Why wouldn't they use the lasers against the guys in APUs in the movie though?

For that matter, why didn't they throw rocks at the guys in the APUs. Ancient Neanderthals had better tactics than Sentinels.

Still, I have a hard time believing that a general-purpose robot can fly as fast as a light airplane.)

Given that they have a wholly different propulsion system, I don't see it as a valid comparison. After all, they can defy gravity with no visible means of lift.

[Teleros]

Assuming they're smart, they toss a bunch of Tow Bombs in a salvo from kilometers away and then kill the stragglers

Don't forget the Marines have had a week to prepare, and they're siege specialists: unless those bombs were ungodly fast the Marines will probably have time to get into shelters etc.

A few more pics of the APU:
http://www.kingamadeus.com/pictures/blo ... ge_apu.jpg
http://www.uemedia.net/artman/uploads/m ... sbig12.jpg
http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/a ... _02_01.jpg

Also from the design of the APU:

THE APU (Armoured Personnel Unit) is a human-piloted offensive/defensive mobile platform. It is anthropomorphic with bipedal locomotion and two independent 30mm belt-feed guns. The APU and the APU Corps form part of the defence against the Matrix, in particular the Sentinels.

That's at least what the guns are supposed to be it sounds like...

[Ritterin Sophia]

'Machine guns' that were obviously larger than an M2 HMG and fired explosive rounds. More like 20mm autocannons. They may even be more powerful than bolters.

Perhaps it should be pointed out that Godwyn pattern boltguns are almost 20mm.

Hmmm? I'd heard Bolters and Bolt Pistols were .50 calibre and Heavy Bolters were .75 calibre. This would put the Bolters at 12.7mm and the Heavy Bolters at 19.05mm.

[Karza]

'Machine guns' that were obviously larger than an M2 HMG and fired explosive rounds. More like 20mm autocannons. They may even be more powerful than bolters.

Perhaps it should be pointed out that Godwyn pattern boltguns are almost 20mm.

Hmmm? I'd heard Bolters and Bolt Pistols were .50 calibre and Heavy Bolters were .75 calibre. This would put the Bolters at 12.7mm and the Heavy Bolters at 19.05mm.

Current Codex: Space Marines says on page 11 that the standard SM bolter is .75 cal.

As I recall there are smaller calibre bolters too, for the Guard and other forces that can't handle such large weapons. Can't provide a direct source for that though.

[MJ12 Commando]

Note to self: Why oh why am I debating in favor of the Wachowski brothers?

Oh yeah because silly or not the APUs are at least somewhat explainable and Sentinels are really awesome looking.

Anyways, 30mm cannon with unknown ballistic performance and ammunition type means that bolters and heavy bolters *should* be effective, assuming that they're using AP rounds that they've scavenged.

On the other hand, they'll still need a bit of fire, which should let some of the Sentinels close to melee range.

On the dock battle and their lack of throwing bombs: I *think* that given the circumstances of Zion they were trying to take the place intact without destroying anything, which is how you can kinda-sorta explain the use of a giant Sentinel swarm instead of just dropping bombs.

We know that at least some of them have bomb launchers and that if you trust Enter the Matrix, if it's important enough they will use them, they're just rare. If they have a few they might be able to soften them up, but unless they have enough to do a massive bombardment they probably won't win.

[Teleros]

Anyways, 30mm cannon with unknown ballistic performance and ammunition type means that bolters and heavy bolters *should* be effective, assuming that they're using AP rounds that they've scavenged.

Do we have any screenshots of the damage caused by the shots? Might help determine what sort of ammunition they use. Any evidence for say HEAT rounds (like bolter shells) for example?

On the dock battle and their lack of throwing bombs: I *think* that given the circumstances of Zion they were trying to take the place intact without destroying anything, which is how you can kinda-sorta explain the use of a giant Sentinel swarm instead of just dropping bombs.

Which explains those massive drilling machines as well. Oh wait ...
I think I'll just go with "retarded tactics" and leave it at that .

[MJ12 Commando]

Well, the drilling machines were necessary to get into the place, and that's kinda excusable.

I personally think that when debating SF, never attribute to stupidity what you can adequately attribute to contrived circumstances, because otherwise it just gets really stupid 99% of the time.

But that still doesn't change that Tow Bombs are rare and if the Sentinels have them they probably won't have more than a handful. Enough to inflict some losses, scatter the SMs, whatnot, not enough to actually let them win.

[Tasoth]

As I think of this scenario and the fact that the assaulting forces more or less have to charge up a narrow pass, this image of the marines putting up a constant sheet of fire keeps coming into my mind. Just by staging the fire from heavy weapons teams and even the tac marines means that reloading won't impact the sheer weight of fire. And this would leave the dreadnaught open as a more flexible part of the equation, what with being able to be mobilized against hot spots and the bigger hardware coming through. By the way, what exactly is the dread equipped with?

[Ford Prefect]

By the way, what exactly is the dread equipped with?

Maybe one of those big-ass multiple missile launchers?

[fusion]

One thing is that orbital support is a fairly often used tactic in 40K. So the bunker that the Imperial Fist make must be able to fend off teratons of TNT of fire power.
Also bolters are consider to be more powerful than las pistols which are GWs in fire power evident by Connor MacLeod's cals.
Also the problem with the Sentinels is their bombs are of unknown fire power and is very unlikely to break though the wank bunker of the Space Marines.

[Ford Prefect]

One thing is that orbital support is a fairly often used tactic in 40K. So the bunker that the Imperial Fist make must be able to fend off teratons of TNT of fire power.

I'm sorry, but the suggestion that the imperial Fists can build a field bunker cpable of fending off orbital strike is ludicrous. They're defensive siege experts in that they have an incredible grasp of how to best position their fire teams in order to provide maximum fire coverage and so. It's not like they shit adamantium or anything like that; rockcrete or ceramite couldn't stand up to a sustained lance strike unless it was extremely thick; at least on the order of several hundred metres.

Also bolters are consider to be more powerful than las pistols which are GWs in fire power evident by Connor MacLeod's cals.

I'm fairly sure that there's not very much support for that level of power, except maybe the almighty fish calc.

[Tasoth]

By the way, what exactly is the dread equipped with?

Maybe one of those big-ass multiple missile launchers?

A hellfire dread would probably do well in the SM's favor as they get a multi launch missile launcher loadable with Krak warheads and the option for an assault cannon or dual linked lascannon. You can trick that sumbitch out for anti-vehicle operations or simply leave it with the assault cannon to keep it well rounded.

[Ford Prefect]

A hellfire dread would probably do well in the SM's favor as they get a multi launch missile launcher loadable with Krak warheads and the option for an assault cannon or dual linked lascannon. You can trick that sumbitch out for anti-vehicle operations or simply leave it with the assault cannon to keep it well rounded.

It might be a little uncessary to have all that concentrated firepower in most of these scenarios. Some might say something about 'overkill'.

[Peptuck]

A hellfire dread would probably do well in the SM's favor as they get a multi launch missile launcher loadable with Krak warheads and the option for an assault cannon or dual linked lascannon. You can trick that sumbitch out for anti-vehicle operations or simply leave it with the assault cannon to keep it well rounded.

It might be a little uncessary to have all that concentrated firepower in most of these scenarios. Some might say something about 'overkill'.

"There is no such thing as 'Overkill.' Only 'Open fire' and 'I need to reload.'"

[The Grim Squeaker]

A hellfire dread would probably do well in the SM's favor as they get a multi launch missile launcher loadable with Krak warheads and the option for an assault cannon or dual linked lascannon. You can trick that sumbitch out for anti-vehicle operations or simply leave it with the assault cannon to keep it well rounded.

It might be a little uncessary to have all that concentrated firepower in most of these scenarios. Some might say something about 'overkill'.

Dude, when they're being slaughtered by the Sluggy Freelance gang and you say the word "overkill"... "Shakes head".

Repeat after me children: "There is no Overkill, only "Open fire!" and "I need to reload""

[Lord Revan]

how canon are those fired from orbit buildings from the DoW computer games?

since while offially Holy Terra is the homeworld of the Imperial Fists in thruth they like the Blood Ravens have their Chapter keep "mounted" on one of the their spaceship (the Phalanx in the case of the Imperial Fists)