Why do space marines have scopes on their bolter/bolt rifles?

[Helias_Tancred]

Because the way a space marine's helmet and armor works, they are totally unnecessary. From what I recall the features in the helmet can fulfill the actions of a scope on their bolter or bolt rifle. Outside of the Eliminators and Scout snipers, there's no need for a scope if you're a space marine.

 

But I guess it looks cool?

[Grotsmasha]

I always assumed the helmet got it's data from the scope, like it's an integrated system.

[Cpt_Reaper]

I too, assumed that the scopes were smart-linked to their HUD. Look at Halo, Spartans don't look through the scope, it displays the image in their HUD.

 

Could some Astartes prefer to look through the scope...sure. But it'd be more of a personal preference I imagine.

[BrainFireBob]

40k. Assume it's 2 STCs. One for improved accuracy. All hail the Omnissiah.

[Rik Lightstar]

It's for when they take off their helmets, which we all know is something Marines love to do.

 

Rik

[Xenith]

I think we seen recently that the scope is a backup/redundant system in case the helm fails or is damaged. Some might prefer to fight without helmet, in which case the scope helps! 

[Captain Idaho]

You're all wrong - it's for when fighting Tyranids and you need to use a magnifying glass with the sun to burn off the really small bugs.

[apologist]

The Fraters above, like @Grotsmasha and @Cpt_Reaper, have put it well – in practical terms, the scope either connects with or supplements the autosenses of the Power Armour. You could poke the boltgun round a corner, for example, or detach the scope and hold it. As @Xenithand @Rik Lightstar say, it also gives redundancy when working without a helm, or if the helmet is damaged.

 

Taking things in the Imperial cultural context, there's also almost certainly a ritual element to the presence of accessories like scopes. What was once a purely practical device resulted in improved combat capabilities and higher accuracy. Over time, as weapons development and understanding are lost, repressed or more tightly controlled, the actions of cleaning and maintaining it becomes an end in itself. Over the centuries, the movements and accompanying words become doctrinal and ritualised.

 

Eventually, the understanding of why the scope improves combat capabilities becomes secondary to the fact that it works. That the ritual of maintenance is done becomes detached from the functionality of the item itself.

 

In turn, the scope then becomes the focus of veneration and respect, perhaps being invested with a sense of an anima – the 'Machine Spirit' – either integral to or part of the boltgun's own 'spirit'. Whether or not the scope is used as originally intended is thus largely irrelevant, to the Chapter's broader cult. It is sufficient that it is present in combat, and that is enough (in the Chapter's mind, at least) for the combat capabilities and higher accuracy to be ensured – whether or not it actually works*.

 

Compare the little superstitions and rituals that we all do in the modern-day – perhaps grumbling out loud to our computer to save some work, or crossing our fingers that the engine of our car turns over. While consciously I think we'd all agree such actions are silly and superstitious, for the Space Marine such ritual has power – perhaps more than the practical aspects of maintenance.

 

In short, a Space Marine's understanding of his equipment and armament is very different to how we (or in-universe, the Kin, for example) understand and interact with an artefact. 

 

___

* This is not, however, to imply that Space Marines are mindless. While I think there's conceptual space for the most extreme hardline Chapter to have Marines going into combat with scopes that literally don't work, or that they don't look through (i.e. the taken-to-extremes absurdities attributed to the orks); the vast majority of Space Marines would have the nous and pragmatism to use the scope as intended.

 

What I'm getting at here is that Imperial forces put the cart before the horse: there's a deep cultural misunderstanding that it's the presence of the scope, rather than the functionality of its optics, that's critical to the combat improvements.

Edited April 21, 2023 by apologist

[Casual Heresy]

34 minutes ago, Captain Idaho said:

You're all wrong - it's for when fighting Tyranids and you need to use a magnifying glass with the sun to burn off the really small bugs.

 

And when the guard picked up on that they invented the twin-linked lasgun.

 

But the serious answer is likely as others have said, it's an input to the helmet's HUD and functions as a normal scope when a marine goes helmetless.

 

But have to say @apologist, I love your theory!

[Urauloth]

Here's a complicating question: Why is it almost exclusively loyalists that use them?

[Grotsmasha]

I guess an in-universe perspective would dictate that traitors are typically less well equipped, as in scopes may be harder to replace?

[Marshal Reinhard]

50 minutes ago, Urauloth said:

Here's a complicating question: Why is it almost exclusively loyalists that use them?

Cuz there's no scope models with spikes on them

[Urauloth]

Do you think there's an in-universe reason, though? Did the traitors leave all their cases of scopes behind on Terra?  Did looking through scopes become impractical in the Eye because you start seeing weird stuff that isn't what you're aiming at? Can you just not mount a scope properly on a gun with horns growing out of it?

[apologist]

I think it's more likely there's a design reason for it – and that's faction aesthetics. Imperial Space Marines have clean curves and lines, and functional-looking equipment for a professional, 'tactical' look. Chaos Space Marines are far more baroque, with banding, mutations and asymmetry. Their functional equipment is often merged with daemonic or over-elaborate additions.

 

Scopes fit the design team's Imperial Space Marine feel, but work against the Chaos Space Marine aesthetic.

 

If you want an in-universe reason, @Grotsmasha's explanation is the best overall fit, I think. Relatively poor supply lines, non-standard equipment and individualisation is common amongst Chaos Space Marine warbands; all of which would contribute to relatively few scopes being present in comparison with Imperial Space Marines.

 

Of course, one of the great joys of 40k is that it's so open. There's a thousand reason you could come up with why your army doesn't have scopes – perhaps part of a pact with their patron to avoid pleasing Vash'torr; the scope no longer meshes with the altered senses of the Astartes; or the simple whim of the warband's leader.

[Helias_Tancred]

22 hours ago, Grotsmasha said:

I always assumed the helmet got it's data from the scope, like it's an integrated system.

 

Okay. Makes sense, but ... what about auto bolt rifles, and boaters without scopes?

[Grotsmasha]

1 hour ago, Eilio Tiberius said:

 

Okay. Makes sense, but ... what about auto bolt rifles, and boaters without scopes?

Head-cannon time, but I've ALWAYS assumed that the little nubbin atop the barrel of EVERY bolt-varient was a sensor housing too, like the machine spirit of the suit defaults to the nubbin sensors, but when the user decides to use the scope, the machine spirit will use the enhanced optics / sensors of the scope.

 

[b1soul]

Scopes grant plus five ranged accuracy

[Tacitus]

For the same reason their caseless ammunition keeps leaving shell casings all over the floor. 

[Arkangilos]

On 4/22/2023 at 10:27 PM, Tacitus said:

For the same reason their caseless ammunition keeps leaving shell casings all over the floor. 

Are they actually said to be caseless?

 

I don’t recall (and can’t find anything) that says they are caseless, but I have read stuff talking about their casings.

 

I could be wrong but I believe that the idea it’s caseless is from people thinking that because it is self propelled it won’t have casing, but I recall it being a multistage thing: first the standard propellant launching it from the barrel and then the rocket taking it the rest of the way and making it even faster.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Arkangilos

[Jamafore]

On 4/29/2023 at 1:14 AM, Arkangilos said:

Are they actually said to be caseless?

 

I don’t recall (and can’t find anything) that says they are caseless, but I have read stuff talking about their casings.

 

I could be wrong but I believe that the idea it’s caseless is from people thinking that because it is self propelled it won’t have casing, but I recall it being a multistage thing: first the standard propellant launching it from the barrel and then the rocket taking it the rest of the way and making it even faster.

 

I think at one time they were stated to be caseless, but that was a long time ago. Nowadays they don't explicitly say it but all there pictures of shells and firing them lead you to believe they have casings.

 

The multistage thing, iirc, came about from folks trying to reconcile the caseless usage with the visuals of spent bolt shells

Edited May 5, 2023 by Jamafore

[Arkangilos]

4 hours ago, Jamafore said:

The multistage thing, iirc, came about from folks trying to reconcile the caseless usage with the visuals of spent bolt shells

The multistage isn’t to reconcile that it is caseless, but that they are self propelled rockets.