Vulcan mega bolter as AA?

[Magos Takatus]

18 hours ago, Sothalor said:

 

Second, however, we typically see VMBs mounted on large platforms like super-heavy tanks and Titans. There are considerations like angles of traverse and elevation - if you take a Stormlord, for instance, you'd need to rotate the entire super-heavy tank chassis to track an aircraft, and it may not be able to angle its guns up enough to even get a firing trajectory. Similarly, exactly how fast can something like a Warhound Titan reorient its weapons? There may be mechanical limitations - as an extreme example during the Second World War DEFINITELY no plane wanted to get hit by a battleship's main gun array. But that was never a concern for them because no battleship could target a plane with its main guns.

 

So it's probably overall a mixed bag. The weapon system itself in terms of rate of fire and effect on target certainly would be scary to conventional aircraft, but we don't typically see them deployed on dedicated anti-air platforms.

I agree with this. I do not think a Vulcan Mega Bolter would make a very effective AA mount because the weapon system is typically large and cumbersome. It would be difficult to hit a target with a sustained burst due to how heavy the weapon is. There's a good example of this in the MMORPG EVE Online. I could be sitting in a battleship with it's guns pointing at a frigate out to 60km moving directly toward the battleship and a volley from the battleship's weapons will do tremendous damage. However, if the frigate is circling the battleship at close range the battleship's guns will be too slow to track the frigate now that it has a higher transversal velocity. As a result in EVE Online it can be worth reducing the size of the turrets so that the battleship will be less likely to find itself unable to track smaller targets at close range.

 

The relevance of this? a Vulcan Mega Bolter is still a large, cumbersome weapon, usually clad in armour and with a not particularly impressive range. I can see it being used as a pretty frightening close air deterrent and point defence where the high rate of fire helps it, but I think even with a specially stripped down weapon mount that it would be reliably tracking fast moving aircraft.

 

Noserenda said earlier that the Vulcan Mega Bolter is designed to take out small, nimble targets which is true, but the way it does so is by saturating the ground around the slow-moving infantry with huge amounts of explosive rounds. this would probably be a lot less effective against a small, nimble fast moving target that wouldn't get hit by the explosions unless it's possible to replace the armour-piercing tip of the bolter shells with proximity detonating tips instead. 

 

I'm sure an AA Vulcan Mega Bolter would work in a pinch but I think that there would be smaller, less cumbersome and more suitable weapons that are available.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Magos Takatus

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

8 minutes ago, Magos Takatus said:

I agree with this. I do not think a Vulcan Mega Bolter would make a very effective AA mount because the weapon system is typically large and cumbersome. It would be difficult to hit a target with a sustained burst due to how heavy the weapon is. There's a good example of this in the MMORPG EVE Online. I could be sitting in a battleship with it's guns pointing at a frigate out to 60km moving directly toward the battleship and a volley from the battleship's weapons will do tremendous damage. However, if the frigate is circling the battleship at close range the battleship's guns will be too slow to track the frigate now that it has a higher transversal velocity. As a result in EVE Online it can be worth reducing the size of the turrets so that the battleship will be less likely to find itself unable to track smaller targets at close range.

 

The relevance of this? a Vulcan Mega Bolter is still a large, cumbersome weapon, usually clad in armour and with a not particularly impressive range. I can see it being used as a pretty frightening close air deterrent and point defence where the high rate of fire helps it, but I think even with a specially stripped down weapon mount that it would be reliably tracking fast moving aircraft.

 

Noserenda said earlier that the Vulcan Mega Bolter is designed to take out small, nimble targets which is true, but the way it does so is by saturating the ground around the slow-moving infantry with huge amounts of explosive rounds. this would probably be a lot less effective against a small, nimble fast moving target that wouldn't get hit by the explosions unless it's possible to replace the armour-piercing tip of the bolter shells with proximity detonating tips instead. 

 

I'm sure an AA Vulcan Mega Bolter would work in a pinch but I think that there would be smaller, less cumbersome and more suitable weapons that are available.

How is it cumbersome when mounted on a titan’s arm?

 

also AAA hasn’t relied on actually hitting a target since the earliest days of anti-air warfare. A bolt the size of a man’s skull can fit a very large bursting charge, so for most fliers we see (in game at least) one shell detonating within 8-12ft would probably cause fatal damage 

 

even if a VMB is slow to traverse on a titan’s arm that doesn’t mean a dedicated mount would be slow to traverse.

also they’re mean to destroy light vehicles as well, which means things like tauroxes, bikes, speeders etc.

 

the idea that a VMB on a titan can’t track and engage something like a jet bike or a ravager effectively seems laughable to me.

 

(now I feel like I need to reread titanicus to see if there’s any mention of titans engaging very fast moving ground targets.)

Edited April 1, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Magos Takatus]

9 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

How is it cumbersome when mounted on a titan’s arm?

 

also AAA hasn’t relied on actually hitting a target since the earliest days of anti-air warfare. A bolt the size of a man’s skull can fit a very large bursting charge, so for most fliers we see (in game at least) one shell detonating within 8-12ft would probably cause fatal damage 

 

even if a VMB is slow to traverse on a titan’s arm that doesn’t mean a dedicated mount would be slow to traverse.

also they’re mean to destroy light vehicles as well, which means things like tauroxes, bikes, speeders etc.

 

the idea that a VMB on a titan can’t track and engage something like a jet bike or a ravager effectively seems laughable to me.

 

(now I feel like I need to reread titanicus to see if there’s any mention of titans engaging very fast moving ground targets.)

It is true that you could replace the propellant and armour piercing charge of a bolter shell with an air bursting charge and modify the mount to be a dedicated lighter weight anti-air mount but at that point we are not talking about a Vulcan Mega Bolter, we have an anti-air autocannon.

 

As for being "laughable" that a Titan couldn't down a jetbike, I'm sure they could, but they would be more likely to be aiming at a squadron of them rather than trying to pick a single one out. It would be like trying to fight a swarm of bees with a shotgun. 

 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

55 minutes ago, Magos Takatus said:

It is true that you could replace the propellant and armour piercing charge of a bolter shell with an air bursting charge and modify the mount to be a dedicated lighter weight anti-air mount but at that point we are not talking about a Vulcan Mega Bolter, we have an anti-air autocannon.

 

As for being "laughable" that a Titan couldn't down a jetbike, I'm sure they could, but they would be more likely to be aiming at a squadron of them rather than trying to pick a single one out. It would be like trying to fight a swarm of bees with a shotgun. 

 

Just because you change the ammo type doesn’t mean you’re changing the weapon.

if you shoot a projectile from a VMB it’s still a VMB regardless of how you’ve changed the round from the standard ammunition type.

57 minutes ago, Magos Takatus said:

It is true that you could replace the propellant and armour piercing charge of a bolter shell with an air bursting charge and modify the mount to be a dedicated lighter weight anti-air mount but at that point we are not talking about a Vulcan Mega Bolter, we have an anti-air autocannon.

 

As for being "laughable" that a Titan couldn't down a jetbike, I'm sure they could, but they would be more likely to be aiming at a squadron of them rather than trying to pick a single one out. It would be like trying to fight a swarm of bees with a shotgun. 

 

And aircraft are much larger than jet bikes, but again this idea that titans arms move super slowly seems hilarious to me.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

7 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Just because you change the ammo type doesn’t mean you’re changing the weapon.

if you shoot a projectile from a VMB it’s still a VMB regardless of how you’ve changed the round from the standard ammunition type.

If it's not firing bolts, it's not a bolter?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

8 minutes ago, Sword Brother Adelard said:

If it's not firing bolts, it's not a bolter?

Why would it not fire bolts any more?

in fact you’d likely have to completely change the internal mechanisms and functions in order for it to shoot a conventional round.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Because Bolts are by definition mass-reactive. Not Airburst.

But all of this is just wasting time now. It seems you have all the information we can provide and the consensus appears to be that VMBs are not an ideal AA weapon. But if you want to use one in some way in that role, it's your hobby.

[Magos Takatus]

34 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Just because you change the ammo type doesn’t mean you’re changing the weapon.

if you shoot a projectile from a VMB it’s still a VMB regardless of how you’ve changed the round from the standard ammunition type.

And aircraft are much larger than jet bikes, but again this idea that titans arms move super slowly seems hilarious to me.

Sure, you can load grapeshot into a Vanquisher tank if you want and it's still a Vanquisher Cannon but that doesn't mean it would be more efficient or sensible than just using an existing weapon system like a Leman Russ Punisher. If a weapon system is using specialized ammunition like a bolt weapon and you have to fundamentally change it to a different type of ammunition like replacing armour-piercing rounds that explode inside the target to rounds that explode in proximity to a target, then why not use a different weapon system? This is like the Departmento Munitorum in lore smashing a round peg into a square hole to make a weapon do something it's not designed to.

 

I'm quite glad you are finding these "super slow" Titan weapons funny, I am amused by Warlord Titans with the reactions of space marines.

 

[Magos Takatus]

48 minutes ago, Sword Brother Adelard said:

If it's not firing bolts, it's not a bolter?

I mean, you can get specialist bolter ammo to be fair, but that's hardly shooting your argument down.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

11 hours ago, Magos Takatus said:

I mean, you can get specialist bolter ammo to be fair, but that's hardly shooting your argument down.

I mean if the specialist bolter rounds are airburst it kind of is.

[Magos Takatus]

3 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

I mean if the specialist bolter rounds are airburst it kind of is.

Partially. There is a good reason space marines are issued flamers instead of incendiary bolt rounds. Special issue ammunition for a bolter seems to be used to make the bolter more flexible rather than replace more specialised equipment. It just means that they don't have to drag a flamer and a plasma gun around with them as well as their bolter.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

5 hours ago, Magos Takatus said:

Partially. There is a good reason space marines are issued flamers instead of incendiary bolt rounds. Special issue ammunition for a bolter seems to be used to make the bolter more flexible rather than replace more specialised equipment. It just means that they don't have to drag a flamer and a plasma gun around with them as well as their bolter.

Incendiary rounds don’t remotely do the same jobs as a flamer so you can’t effectively replace one with the other. That’s why they use flamers instead of incendiary rounds.

[Magos Takatus]

I suppose that depends on how you use your flamers in-game but one of their benefits was always that they could be used to winkle enemy models out of cover. Granted they are often used an assault deterrent in modern 40k due to the way that Overwatch works. The Dragonfire bolter rounds that were usable by space marine Sternguard Veterans were a type of incendiary round used to deny cover to their enemies. Perhaps you are referring to modern military doctrine and their use of incendiary rounds but I am not sure what you were getting at, nor am I an expert in their use. Regardless I'm fairly sure they are both used to set fire to something that you are not currently standing next to. 

[Gnasher]

Re Megabolters

 

TBH I cant see any kinetic shells being any use at all except at very close ranges, as a point defence, maybe sub 10km. Space is VERY VERY BIG & any voidships will be going very fast, to land your rounds in the same space & time as the target would need a huge lead, masses of ammo & a truckload of luck at anything other than shortish range (that plus really good targeting cogitators!).  The shorter the range the better the chances...

 

Even lasers will have an issue sometimes at voidship ranges where 100,000km is still very short range. Even light takes about 8 minutes to do 150,000,000 miles at 186k miles p/s. So landing hits even with lasers over distances >186k Miles might be a challenge given the target may have travelled many miles away between firing & the round/pulse arriving in the target area.

 

Just thinking ...

Edited April 2, 2023 by Gnasher
more sense?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

5 hours ago, Magos Takatus said:

I suppose that depends on how you use your flamers in-game but one of their benefits was always that they could be used to winkle enemy models out of cover. Granted they are often used an assault deterrent in modern 40k due to the way that Overwatch works. The Dragonfire bolter rounds that were usable by space marine Sternguard Veterans were a type of incendiary round used to deny cover to their enemies. Perhaps you are referring to modern military doctrine and their use of incendiary rounds but I am not sure what you were getting at, nor am I an expert in their use. Regardless I'm fairly sure they are both used to set fire to something that you are not currently standing next to. 

How were sternguard using incendiary rounds to deny cover? Do you mean airburst rounds?

 

the only way an incendiary round could deny cover is by starting the cover on fire…something a flame thrower would be much better at.

 

having fired fairly large incendiary rounds and several small target boats and jet ski, I can tell you that incendiary rounds are really bad at starting things on fire.

14 minutes ago, Gnasher said:

TBH I cant see any kinetic shells being any use at all except at very close ranges, as a point defence, maybe sub 10km. Space is VERY VERY BIG & any voidships will be going very fast, to land your rounds in the same space & time as the target would need a huge lead, masses of ammo & a truckload of luck at anything other than shortish range (that plus really good targeting cogitators!).  The shorter the range the better the chances...

 

Even lasers will have an issue sometimes at voidship ranges where 20,000km is still quite short range. Even light takes about 8 minutes to do 150,000,000 miles at 186k miles p/s. So landing hits even with lasers would be a challenge.

 

Just thinking ...

40k fleet actions don’t take place at the ranges you’re mentioning though, they take place at ranges where fighter and strike craft can quickly traverse, at ranges in which missiles(torpedoes) can reliably strike a target.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Magos Takatus]

4 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

How were sternguard using incendiary rounds to deny cover? Do you mean airburst rounds?

 

the only way an incendiary round could deny cover is by starting the cover on fire…something a flame thrower would be much better at.

 

having fired fairly large incendiary rounds and several small target boats and jet ski, I can tell you that incendiary rounds are really bad at starting things on fire.

40k fleet actions don’t take place at the ranges you’re mentioning though, they take place at ranges where fighter and strike craft can quickly traverse, at ranges in which missiles(torpedoes) can reliably strike a target.

 

No, Dragonfire Rounds were used to deny cover, it's in the unit description and the rules. I'm not even sure if Bolters have been given airburst rounds, though the Metal Storm fragment rounds sound like they could be what you describe though?

 

I am not here to defend how effective incendiary rounds would be at denying cover in reality, a chainsword would be a terrible weapon due to it's inability to penetrate armour and tendency to be fouled when trying to cut through armour or clothing. Yet they are highly effective weapons in-lore. We just have to assume that because the Space Marine codices told us that they were used to overcome targets in cover and that the rules also allowed them to do the same . Besides, I already said that a dedicated flamethrower would surpass a gun firing modified ammunition in order to fit a role it wasn't designed for. You just proved my point.

 

At this point we are giving a Vulcan Mega Bolter armed vehicle or emplacement ammunition that is based on specialised ammunition given to elite troops, then heavily modifying the weapon itself to make the weapon lighter and hopefully more able to track faster-moving targets more reliably since it is a super-heavy weapon tracking aircraft. To make an AA tank using the Vulcan Mega Bolter you would probably need a super-heavy tank the size of a Macharius or the Rogal Dorn tank if you're taking the weight saving into account. Instead of doing that you could manufacture a squadron of Hydra AAA guns which are still rapid fire, far easier to maintain, transport, resupply and can be spread over a wider area to protect more assets from air attack. They are also not all knocked out if one is destroyed. Oh, and for modifying a vehicle chassis, a weapon turret and possibly an ammunition type the Adeptus Mechanicus now want to talk to you for tech heresy. Hopefully you won't be made into a servitor, this discussion has been interesting.  

 

The problem I have is that the Vulcan Mega Bolter is like those Phalanx Close-In weapon systems you have guarding ships with the difference being that the turret would be far bigger, adding weight to the turret which would cut down on speed and precision, making it harder to hit targets than the guns we have now. I will add however that I'm thinking of it being used to pick Crimson Hunters out of the sky when it would probably be used to attack larger targets like dropships that wouldn't be able to evade as well, would you agree? I believe that the Vulcan Mega Bolter would make a poor AA weapon for the above reasons but I have to admit that Vulcan Mega Bolters are really cool and that if a Titan Princeps decided to stop what he was doing and fire in the direction of some aircraft he'd scare the bejeezus out of whatever he was firing at! I suppose an argument could be made for a more compact weapon like the Castigator Bolt Cannon from the Cerastus Knight Castigator being a slightly better starting point? 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

5 minutes ago, Magos Takatus said:

 

No, Dragonfire Rounds were used to deny cover, it's in the unit description and the rules. I'm not even sure if Bolters have been given airburst rounds, though the Metal Storm fragment rounds sound like they could be what you describe though?

 

I am not here to defend how effective incendiary rounds would be at denying cover in reality, a chainsword would be a terrible weapon due to it's inability to penetrate armour and tendency to be fouled when trying to cut through armour or clothing. Yet they are highly effective weapons in-lore. We just have to assume that because the Space Marine codices told us that they were used to overcome targets in cover and that the rules also allowed them to do the same . Besides, I already said that a dedicated flamethrower would surpass a gun firing modified ammunition in order to fit a role it wasn't designed for. You just proved my point.

 

At this point we are giving a Vulcan Mega Bolter armed vehicle or emplacement ammunition that is based on specialised ammunition given to elite troops, then heavily modifying the weapon itself to make the weapon lighter and hopefully more able to track faster-moving targets more reliably since it is a super-heavy weapon tracking aircraft. To make an AA tank using the Vulcan Mega Bolter you would probably need a super-heavy tank the size of a Macharius or the Rogal Dorn tank if you're taking the weight saving into account. Instead of doing that you could manufacture a squadron of Hydra AAA guns which are still rapid fire, far easier to maintain, transport, resupply and can be spread over a wider area to protect more assets from air attack. They are also not all knocked out if one is destroyed. Oh, and for modifying a vehicle chassis, a weapon turret and possibly an ammunition type the Adeptus Mechanicus now want to talk to you for tech heresy. Hopefully you won't be made into a servitor, this discussion has been interesting.  

 

The problem I have is that the Vulcan Mega Bolter is like those Phalanx Close-In weapon systems you have guarding ships with the difference being that the turret would be far bigger, adding weight to the turret which would cut down on speed and precision, making it harder to hit targets than the guns we have now. I will add however that I'm thinking of it being used to pick Crimson Hunters out of the sky when it would probably be used to attack larger targets like dropships that wouldn't be able to evade as well, would you agree? I believe that the Vulcan Mega Bolter would make a poor AA weapon for the above reasons but I have to admit that Vulcan Mega Bolters are really cool and that if a Titan Princeps decided to stop what he was doing and fire in the direction of some aircraft he'd scare the bejeezus out of whatever he was firing at! I suppose an argument could be made for a more compact weapon like the Castigator Bolt Cannon from the Cerastus Knight Castigator being a slightly better starting point? 

I never said anything about mounting it on a vehicle.

i always envisioned it as a static mounted defense for a hive or fortress monastery, just like there are ground based orbital defense guns.

[Urauloth]

5 hours ago, Gnasher said:

Re Megabolters

 

TBH I cant see any kinetic shells being any use at all except at very close ranges, as a point defence, maybe sub 10km. Space is VERY VERY BIG & any voidships will be going very fast, to land your rounds in the same space & time as the target would need a huge lead, masses of ammo & a truckload of luck at anything other than shortish range (that plus really good targeting cogitators!).  The shorter the range the better the chances...

 

Even lasers will have an issue sometimes at voidship ranges where 100,000km is still very short range. Even light takes about 8 minutes to do 150,000,000 miles at 186k miles p/s. So landing hits even with lasers over distances >186k Miles might be a challenge given the target may have travelled many miles away between firing & the round/pulse arriving in the target area.

 

Just thinking ...

I think most void battles in 40k take place at shockingly close range by sci-fi standards. It's almost impossible to find numbers in the lore, but although the big las weapons like lance turrets have the longest ranges, ships usually launch their torpedoes first before anyone starts shooting. I'm guessing they wait until they have targets within a few light seconds for lance gunnery, and since a lot of Imperial ships have macrocannon broadsides that fire big shells, hitting anything with those necessitates almost point-blank range engagement.

 

This makes sense to a degree when you consider that the most important aspect of void war isn't typically delivering damage to an opposing ship, but saturating its void shields so that they collapse. Until you do that, most of what you shoot at it is ending up outside the physical universe, so if rushing an enemy and unloading an absurd number of huge guns at a foolhardy range is the way to take his shields out of play, that's what dominates naval strategy.

[Magos Takatus]

11 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

I never said anything about mounting it on a vehicle.

i always envisioned it as a static mounted defense for a hive or fortress monastery, just like there are ground based orbital defense guns.

Okay, I did include static emplacements in my argument but you could still build more emplacements of more dedicated AA batteries rather than adapting a weapon from anti-infantry suppression and elimination to interception of fast-moving aerial targets, which are larger and less efficient. If you need something to intercept fast moving targets at close range there are weapons for that, if larger  dropships or transports need to be engaged there are weapons like the Firestorm Redoubt's weapons. 

 

I've explained why I think the weapon is a sub-optimal choice for it's role, I've used in-universe lore for why I think we don't already have super-heavy Gatling bolt weapons as AA defence and I've admitted that for rule of cool it would be fun. I don't think there's much more I can add to this discussion without it devolving further into nit-picking.