What advantages would handheld laser weapons have over traditional bullet-based weapons? Why would you use them?
>>45785592
Lack of recoil
Accuracy
Ammunition
Look at gurps; compare status blocks. It's fairly obvious.
>>45785592
>pinpoint accuracy
>no bullet travel time or adjusting for gravity/wind
>silent
>most likely hold more shots in a single charged battery than a conventional handgun has bullets in a magazine, but this is up for debate
>no recoil
>>45785682
Well, I'm not sure silent is quite correct (they still make a sound when boiling whatever they're hitting) but other than that, yes. You do have to contend with dispersion of the laser in atmosphere, though, which is why they would see much more usage in space.
>>45785682
>silent
this is unlikely, but they'd probably be quieter than guns. from what I've read laser weapons would most likely be rapidly pulsed to have a drilling effect from successive explosive vaporizations inside of the cavity left by the previous vaporization event. this would lead to a electronic zapping sound at whatever the frequency of the pulses is.
useful if you're fighting enemies who can dodge bullets
if you're fighting enemies who can dodge lasers then just give up
good luck putting a laser with enough oomph to kill anything into a pistol sized weapon
if battery tech keeps being a bitch it might not hold more shots than a handgun though
>>45785592
40K (of all places) makes the surprisly reasonable argument of logistic.
A lazgun has no matter tactical advantage over a auto gun let only a blotter But it has massive strategic value, you don't have to worry ammo supplies or having the right type of bullets between armies on different worlds. All you need is a working wall socket or failing that, a warm fire
>>45785617
>Ammunition
This seems really, really unlikely. Even if you can make really compact power cells (which is really fucking hard) , they're probably quite a bit more reactive than chemical firearms. Whats more, they would be more sensitive to temperature. They would also be much, much more expensive to manufacture and charge than ballistic weapons (assuming ballistics are still using chemical propellant.)
It sort of depends on what you mean when you say "handheld laser weapons," because while we can speculate with a little more certainty about something like a shoulder-fired, big battery pack powered thing used to ablate the armor on tanks we're at least able to talk shop. If you mean handgun sized things that shoot pulse lasers or something we've got pretty much nothing to work with.
In general, if I had to guess, handheld directed energy weapons aren't really that practical of an idea to begin with, but stuff like computer aim assisted mounted weapons are really clever and already being tested now.
Stabbing people with bullets when you're an infantryman works just fine, and probably will for a long time (considering that we're still using really primitive ballistics anyways.)
>>45785682
> pinpoint accuracy
Lasers are not as collimated as you think, though of course they do go where you point them. As an example, a current military-grade laser sight such as the LLM01 has a spread angle of about 0.044 degrees. That doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that at 200m, this works out to a spread diameter of 0.3m, which turns your pin-point hole into more of a dinner plate or cereal bowl.
>>45786166
Ammunition not in terms of magazine size or anything, but imagine sieges or space battles.
You can't just go out and make bullets, you need infrastructure to obtain the necessary chemicals and metals.
On the other hand, so long as you can make power you can fire your energy weapons. A sci-fi ship could recharge capacitors with solar sails or similar, then retract sails and expend that energy in combat. No need to mine asteroids or planets until your sails need to be fixed.
Logistically it makes some sense too. Everywhere you want to defend will likely have some power setup, so you can reuse power packs instead of constantly shipping bullets all over the place.
That said this only really works in science fantasy or soft sci-fi. As soon as you go hard sci-fi it's ship mounted coilguns at best for futureguns.
>>45785682
>most likely hold more shots in a single charged battery than a conventional handgun has bullets in a magazine, but this is up for debate
That's setting specific. In a realistic near-modern setting, conventional hand-held weapons will hold many more shots per mag than a laser.
Better nanotech results in the same thing. You'd need serious business energy revolutions like room-temp superconducting loops to change the balance.
>>45786305
Yeah, nobody said shit about ship mounted lasers. For ship to ship engagement that's clearly the way to go, if for no other reason the engagement distances alone. We're talking infantry weapons. Small arms.
If you mean something like marines ON long distance ships though? Ehhh, I think ballistics are still the way to go.
>You can't just go out and make bullets, you need infrastructure to obtain the necessary chemicals and metals.
And the inferstructure is something presumably we would have mastered by then. 3d print monomaterial ballistics on the fly. Not actually that hard, and useful if you're on a long distance excursion anyways. Imagine how much energy you would be saving that you could use towards literally every other system. Energy weapons HAVE to consume a lot of this, one way or another. Might as well save on some of that.
If you're a marine using a weapon firing a 3d printed slug, your on ship-computer could analyze the atmospheric properties of wherever you're going to be fighting and made slugs that are appropriately hydro/aerodynamic. Lets not forget that good ballistics can't be refracted or diffused, like lasers can.
In addition, you're probably only ever going to need to mine a single substance to make the weight of the slug if you go halfway and use electromagnetically propelled ballistics.
I'm kind of ok if laser weaponry can never advance beyond the level of 'giant fucking rocket launcher sized monstrosity' because that style is sexy as hell to me. I want giant ugly tesla cannons, not sleek little pew pews.
>>45786472
You're also probably going to have to mine asteroids and shit one way or the other to make routine repairs, collect reaction mass, and mine oxygen and crap.
>>45786472
So will man-portable railguns ever end up being a thing? What are the logistics and chances of that happening as compared to anything energy related? It seems like electromagnetic propulsion would be the logical endgame of ballistics.
>>45785682
>>45785813
So basically, lasers would make great sniper rifles, but not much else.
>>45786532
Depends on how hard the beam gets dispersed by the atmosphere. Laser weapons do have a limited effective range while on a planet with atmosphere, and require more power over a longer range.
>>45786523
Again, total speculation, but the main benefit of electromagnetic propulsion is the removal of chemical propulsion agents. You CAN use more rail-oomph to make a conventional projectile hit harder, or to fire a much larger projectile, but those add the issue of that whole thing called "recoil" to your infantry. Infantry are comparatively bad at dealing with recoil when you're talking about weapons that are starting their fielding history on board destroyers and shit.
I think the endgoal is to use more energy to have a smaller round do what we did with larger projectiles (mass effect style.) I think this would be the most practical endgame sort of handheld firearm until we discover space mcguffin tech, but even then, it would face the same issues as wholly energy-based small arms, just to a lesser extent. Energy storage, etc, etc.
Just consider the following: in the real world, people have actually been looking into this seriously for quite a while now. I'm sure there were folks in DARPA a few decades back who were convinced we would have man portable automatic coilguns or something by now as standard fare. What they've come up with is the technological barrier EVERYONE is running into that we struggle so much with, and that is energy storage. Meanwhile, ballistics only really have to wait on improvements to manufacturing technology to catch up, and as we all know, that's the fastest growing market of technology right now.
>>45786790
I think we're more likely to get some sort of handheld weapons that essentially shoot grey goo before we get anything like sci-fi laser weapons.
It could damage amorphous enemies who are immune to bullets
>>45785813
The battery is the only issue. There is zero reason for a laser weapon to be a long-arm.
>>45786166
I sort of agree. You'd need a power cell that's way more convenient than modern cartridges.
For an energy weapon to win over conventional weapons, it'd need to performs the duties of a conventional weapon more efficiently or provide benefits (say, in vacuum/hostile atmosphere) over the conventional firearms. By "duties", it's not just the ability to kill, but maintenance, production, etc. Not every weapon is objectively better than the previous one, it just generally fits the required need better. In the early days automatic fire nor even a magazine wasn't needed (weapons with magazines even had ways of disabling it and making the soldier load each cartridge by hand). Then automatic rifles took over. Then you got assault rifles with their less powerful cartridges. Today automatic rifles have made a resurgence in the forms of DRMs, even assault rifles firing larger rifle cartridges. It's not like those weapons are "better" than the weapons that came before, they merely fill a niche the precious ones couldn't.
Bonus: any battery sufficiently powerful to power a laser rifle that isn't shit, will be a pretty damn nice bomb too.
In Dune, personal shields that stopped anything going over a certain velocity were common place. People even had to be re-trained for melee combat to swing slower because normal swing speed was high enough to be stopped.
Of course, a lasgun caused both the shield and the gun to explode violently so lasers weren't good either.
>>45787076
There is.
The more powerful the beam, the more capacity the battery has to hold.
The more capacity the battery has, the more likely to explode like a warhead so a chassis that can prevent, and in the worst cases, contain the damage would be necesary.
Think about Battletech and their "cooking ammo" mechanic in an infantary scale with an explosion that is not that much smaller.
>>45785970
>All you need is a working wall socket or failing that, a warm fire
like how you can charge an iPhone by heating it in the microwave.
>>45787118
Depends on how the energy is stored and released. It's possible that the ammo is merely fuel for the weapon's own internal generator.
>>45787436
Yeah dude, laser weaponry in an over the top sci-fi setting is the same a modern day smart phones. You hit the nail on the head.
>>45785970
Not to forget that all facilities making power cells just have to conform to the standard socket, enabling regiment from Valhalla can use lasguns from Triplex and power cells from Necromunda.
>>45787557
>not getting it
Kek, what a cuck.
>>45787769
Ah christ, go back to /v/. Take your shitty "memes" with you.
>>45786166
Firing a gun in a vacuum is harder than firing a laser in a vacuum.
but yeah I don't think bullets are going away soon. We've been using them for over five hundred years for a reason.
>>45787781
That's due to lubricants not working very well in a vacuum, otherwise guns work just fine.
>>45787817
What's the problem, exactly?
wasn't the us navy conducting trials of railguns (for naval combat, not hand-held) a few years back? how did that go? I remember seeing some youtube video on it...
>>45787851
They tend to evaporate off, you could fix the problem by using different oils. There's also temp problems, but everything has that problem in space.
>>45787853
The charging capacitors overload so much to produce high wattage, and there is not enough heat dispersion so the railgun charging package explodes. Also, the magnetic coils cause such massive gravitational dialation that the coils themselves warp when a magnetic slug is shot through them. Electromagnets are a pain in the ass at large scale, but at small or MASSIVE scale they rock the cock.
>>45787923
Don't they use graphite as a lubricant in some things?
>>45787954
Yeah, dry powder lubricants exist. You might need to make a special space gun, as ordinary firearms weren't designed with a vacuum in mind, but nothing prevents them from working. Recoil is basically the only issue.
>>45787817
>>45787781
Uhh... what about oxygen for the gunpowder to burn? I assume you'd need special ammo with oxygen included
>>45788026
>Recoil is basically the only issue
And heat. Without air, air-cooled firearms get dangerously hot, very quickly.
>>45788026
You don't need a very powerful gun in space. A small, light bullet with high speeds is just as deadly at 30 yards as it is at 3000 yards, thanks to no wind, air resistance nor drop.
>>45788186
No, gunpowder does not need oxygen.
>>45788186
>I assume you'd need special ammo with oxygen included
Yes, it's called a self-containing cartridge and is available universally around the world in pretty much all the calibers.
>>45788212
Well, no external oxygen. All the oxygen it needs is contained in the chemicals the gunpowder is made of.
>>45788187
Heat is an issue for anything that isn't a self propelled projectile.
>>45788186
>I assume you'd need special ammo with oxygen included
Firearms have NEVER relied on atmospheric oxygen. Not even the very first of them. The whole difference between gunpowder and any other flammable powder is that gunpowder includes an oxidizer.
Additionally, dumping heat is a major concern in space, and firearms have a convenient heat sink in the form of the brass, which carries the majority of the heat generated from firing away with it when it's ejected. A laser weapon, however, would melt itself fairly quickly in space, as the optics you're pumping all that energy through have nowhere to shed heat to.
Granted, the gun will melt itself too, primarily from friction with the barrel, but not as quickly as a laser likely would.
>>45788194
>A small, light bullet with high speeds
Has the same net recoil as a big, heavy bullet at low speed.
>>45787924
>massive gravitational dialation
Are you actually fucking retarded? They have nothing to do with gravity.
It's just simple fucking magnetism. The rails generate a magnetic field. The rails are themselves metallic. Thus, the field that flings the slug downrange at ten times the speed of sound is also doing it's damnedest to tear the rails apart and fling the bits downrange too.
>>45788321
>which carries the majority of the heat generated from firing away with it when it's ejected
Only from the breech, which helps with rounds not cooking and going off. But for the rest of the barrel the friction and expanding gasses transfer their heat into it just fine.
Then again, you don't need that powerful cartridges in space, since the bullet is not going to lose its effectiveness over range. So a small fast bullet with little recoil fired from a gun with a heavy barrel, possibly with those old timey heat sinks. Accuracy probably preferable over spraying, so single shots and bursts with computer assisted targeting. Maybe find ways of making machine guns with liquid cooling (have cooling liquid kept in atmospheric pressure to avoid boiling off in vacuum). Good old Maxim shit. Or maybe rotating Gatling type barrels with a more modest rate of fire.
>>45788495
>Only from the breech
I did mention that. About 60% of the heat is generated from combustion and carried away by the brass, even in atmosphere.
>>45788212
>>45788261
>>45788321
Nevermind, then
>>45788495
I don't imagine liquid cooling helping that much, easier to just have solid radiators.
>>45788335
Yes, but less than a big heavy bullet at high speed.
Something like a 5.7x28mm has marginal recoil compared to a, say, 7.62x51mm, and thanks to next to no external forces, it remains as effective half-way to the Moon as it does at point-blank ranges. On Earth a bullet needs speed to get somewhere and mass to retain that energy in flight to counteract air, wind and gravity. In space those forces are no any real factors and thus you don't need mass for the bullet to retain flight. A small, fast bullet will punch through a space suit just as well as a but fast bullet, but the recoil you feel is way less.
>>45788562
Well, it's good for carrying the heat from the barrel to the radiators.
It also opens up the option of working a refrigeration circuit in there. Compress the coolant, run the now-heated coolant through the radiators, decompress over the barrels while firing.
>>45788608
>A small, fast bullet will punch through a space suit just as well as a but fast bullet
Well, no, not really. Space suits aren't balloons, they don't pop as soon as they get a hole in. Both a pinprick hole and a quarter-sized gash are effectively a kill, but the former gives the target time to return fire before he loses enough compression that he's disabled.
Or slap a patch over it.
>>45788616
I don't think you can shed the heat fast enough to warrant it.
>>45788547
>60% of the heat is generated from combustion
Which continued along the length of the barrel. That heat is transferred to the barrel itself directly, not through the medium of the brass casing.
>>45788608
>>45788663
It depends on whether armored suits are used as to what calibre you would need.
>>45788665
There's nothing keeping you from only running the refrigerant once you start firing. You could just gradually compress and cool the fluid between firefights and give yourself a buffer before you need to start radiating heat directly at all.
>>45788667
You don't understand. I'm saying that 60% of the total heat generated by the combustion of the powder never leaves the brass, because it's ejected before it can transfer to the frame.
>>45788562
>I don't imagine liquid cooling helping that much
You do know that a water cooled machine gun can pretty much keep firing as long as it has water and ammo, right? During WW1 the British ordered 10 Vickers guns to fire on a German position for 12 hours straight. The gun that expelled the most rounds would get an award. The 10 guns poured some 250 rounds short of a million into the position, the winning gun firing 120,000 rounds.
>easier to just have solid radiators
How much heat do you think those are going to transfer in space, where there is no air? A heat sink works by transferring the heat it gathers into the air around it.
>>45788722
Easier to replace a barrel in my mind
>>45788758
That's water you'd have to carry into space just for cooling. Radiators are also the way you shed heat in space.
>>45788722
>You don't understand.
Probably because you didn't make your case very clearly. Also, do you have some source on that number?
>>45788807
>Also, do you have some source on that number?
Not a real one; just shooting the shit with various gun nuts over the pros and cons of caseless ammo. That value is, of course, a generalization, and the exact amount is going to vary with the round and weapon.
>>45788804
>That's water you'd have to carry into space just for cooling.
I didn't say water for the space gun, I said liquid coolant. And for machine guns that rely on more firing than the standard infantry weapons.
>Radiators are also the way you shed heat in space.
Yes, and they're usually pretty massive installations. Of course you can have both.
>>45788804
>That's water you'd have to carry into space just for cooling
Nigga you're going to want a shitload of water in space anyway, for drinking, humidity control, radiation shielding, coolant, reaction mass, you name it. Water is great.
>>45785592
Cool sounds.
>pew pew
>>45788857
Then you should know that the thing with caseless ammo is not the overall heat of the barrel, but the heat of the breech where the cartridge sits. If it gets too hot, then it can cook off the round in it and cause it to discharge.
But ejecting the brass casing does not help to alleviate the heat from the rest of the barrel. That powder will burn all the way along the barrel and the friction from the bullet will generate heat as well.
>>45785682
>silent
Laser weapons is not "silent". They merely do not make notable sound on firering, instead 90% of it will be concentrated on whatever being hit cracking and exploding from rapid heat change.
The greatest advantage of laser weapons is ironically enough barrage fire. Since materials are more brittle to constant heat flux, since it fatigues the materials.
>>45788870
There isn't much call for a machine gun in space. Liquid coolant only matters in terms of its mass as well, it wouldn't speed up overall cooling.
>>45788949
Once again, I never said that the brass carried away ALL the heat, only a very sizable fraction, and especially compared to a laser weapon which sheds none.
>>45788663
Surely a combat space suit would be armoured. And a big slow bullet is not as good at piercing armour as a small fast one. And you should know a soldier doesn't have to be dead to be out of the game. If you get a hole in your space suit, no matter how small, that hole will be a problem if you don't fix it and the time you spend trying to patch it (not to forget any possible gunshot wound you might have suffered) is time you're not firing back at the enemy. If it goes through, you might need help with patching up your suit, meaning that's two dudes out of the fight for some time.
>>45786245
So long range volley fire to burn everything at once?
Snipers get fucked.
>>45789005
>There isn't much call for a machine gun in space.
Why not? Surely there's use for a weapon that can have sustained fire over the regular guns that can't fire many rounds consecutively before building too much heat.
>it wouldn't speed up overall cooling
Then why are water cooled machine guns better at sustaining fire than air cooled ones?
>>45787266
The more capacity the battery has, the more likely to explode like a warhead so a chassis that can prevent, and in the worst cases, contain the damage would be necesary
Depends on how much infantry you have whether or not you really "need" this.
Also how the energy is stored. Not all batteries work the same.
>>45789005
>There isn't much call for a machine gun in space.
Why would you make baseless statements of fact about a hypothetical combat environment.
>>45785592
The answer (to me) has always been really simple actually.
Armors.
Asuming bulletproof gear has advanced enough for the need of more powerful weapons.
Sure you could dismiss this this saying that the same bulletproof shit could be applied to laser, but what do i know. I am not ca scientific. Sound logic tough :^)
>>45789082
Because water transfers heat faster than air, in space you have a closed system though, so that heat is going to transfer away at the same rate. Sustained fire isn't as useful as there isn't much call for suppression in space and guns are far more accurate.
>>45789129
These are my opinions, Its not like I cited any sources.
>>45789005
Well actually it would, because of its density/heat coefficient be usefull in transfering heat away from the 'combat side' of the ship (if we Re talking ship combat ofc, man portable is meh) then you could have radiators on the side facing aeay from the enemy. Hell, it might actually be tacticly viable to get your enemy etween you and the local sun because its easier to aim at a spot infront of a wall of sun. Also your radiators would have an easier time on your "dark" side
>>45789156
You stated it as a fact, you didn't say "I don't think there would be much call for machineguns in space" you said that there is no call for machineguns in space.
>>45789230
Ship weapons would use liquid coolant yes, I'm only talking about man portable ones. I still think powerful single shot weapons would be more useful than rapid fire ones.
>>45789140
>Because water transfers heat faster than air, in space you have a closed system though
Where does the water on an Earthbound machine gun go to? Because it's pretty much expelled as it boils off, replaced by new water. You pump coolant through over the barrel and store the used, hot coolant separated from the fresh coolant or transfer that heat to heat sinks. When the coolant runs out or can't transfer more heat, you replace the coolant pack.
>Sustained fire isn't as useful as there isn't much call for suppression in space
Why not?
>and guns are far more accurate.
Modern guns are accurate as well, yet we have a need for machine guns. WW1 rifles were accurate and the machine gun was still important.
>>45789292
So did many general in the 19th century. And here we are, with automatic weapons on every dude and machine guns everywhere.
>>45789302
Unless you dump coolant you still have all the heat to deal with. A machine gun is much more difficult to compensate for recoil for in space and there's very little cover present in space.
>>45789377
>Unless you dump coolant you still have all the heat to deal with.
Well that's just what I said. Circulate the coolant and store it separate from the uncirculated coolant and when it's out, dump it and replace the coolant. Or transfer the heat from the barrel to a heat sink elsewhere, which you can eject.
>A machine gun is much more difficult to compensate for recoil
If it fires as light of a cartridge as the infantry guns, and is much more massive than the infantry guns, then it shouldn't be too much to handle.
>there's very little cover present in space
Vacuum doesn't exist just in space. Vacuum also exists on the surface of many, many celestial bodies on which fighting can be conducted.
And so what if there's no cover. If your squad has a dude who can pump out as much fire as 10 dudes, you've effectively double the firepower of the squad without adding extra dudes.
>>45788396
No, perhaps it is YOU that are retarded.
Even when the Large Hadron Collider runs at high levels it causes minor gravitational fluctuations that can be recorded globally. It's relatively minor, like only causing seven volcanoes to erupt all at once.
>>45789648
10/10
>>45789509
Because mass is a huge concern when it comes to space, the less stuff you need to bring the better. I will concede that planetary fighting would be a much different premise.
Lasers are unrealistic for ship to ship warfare on a planet. Lasers shoot straight and will not be able to deal with horizon effect at long range. Ship to air or intermediate range would be the restriction.
We cant generate enough man-portable power to reasonably operate a sniper rifle for any real duration. Man portable railguns are more realistic here, but rapid fire is out of the question because batteries don't discharge fast enough to operate a railgun standalone, though they can charge capacitors which can at a limited rate of fire. A bolt action 50-cal would still have the advantage here. Railguns are ideal for ship to ship, ship to ground and ship to air warfare as they can deal with the curviture of the planet, have a nuclear reactor powering them, and space enough for large capacitors. Chemical propellant weapons still have the advantage of rate of fire here.
Plasma weapons are more reasonable than laser, but still require a nuclear reaction to power. Man-portable is out. Until we can master cold-fusion, plasma is too unrealistic period. the closest reactors we have are alone the size of large warships when considering the reactor itself and the infrastructure to operate said reactor. They still also require hydrogen fuel.
Until battery and capacitors dramatically improve, combined with the fact that no one is going to want to carry a small nuclear reactor around on their person, laser/rail/plasma weapons in a man-portable system are still unrealistic. Gunpowder and grease will rule the man portable system for a very very long time.
>>45789920
It's a concern when calculating fuel consumption. When sending stuff up there, it's basically worth its weight in gold. But the military doesn't drive around on Prius'. If the extra cost is what can secure a victory, then lets do it, because failure is hard to explain with "well, winning was too expensive."
Also, who sends soldiers to charge over the no-man's land of interplanetary space? Of course foot soldiers would fight on celestial bodies of, at tops, in boarding action.
>>45789977
I imagine infantry combat in those scenarios would be pretty rare, so they wouldn't bother. Same reason they don't issue LMG's to vehicle crews.
>>45790074
Open space, celestial bodies or boarding action?
>>45786863
people massively overestimate the destructive capacity of grey goo. it's incredibly vulnerable to heat and light, and it probably wouldn't work very quickly because of fuel requirements and overheating problems.
>>45790074
>Same reason they don't issue LMG's to vehicle crews.
Except they do issue LMGs to vehicle crew.
>>45789140
It also just takes flat out more energy to heat water than most other things. Particularly when we have to keep the temperatures and chemistry safeish for humans and cant have vats of molten salt or similar around.
>>45788663
also elastic space suits that can't depressurize (except for the helmet) are seriously being considered.
>>45787631
>just have to conform to the standard socket,
There are different types of charge-packs (at least 5), all of them designed to fit different weapons. In the Ghosts series, when they are invading the world of Phantine, they have a serious supply problem as the Munitorum adepts requisition Class 5 packs for the entire deploying force, because the majority uses 5, but the Tanith use Class 3's, so they basically went into combat with the ammo they had on them and that was it.
Even still, there is a HUGE level of standardization for an entire galaxy worth of standard rifles. You can still most likely get a hold of your correct charge pack on any decently developed world or port.
>>45789648
>It's relatively minor, like only causing seven volcanoes to erupt all at once.
I present pic related in the spirit of this comment.
>>45785592
What are actually the real effects of a real high-powered laser? Because I have heard a bunch of different things, some say they would burn a hole through the target, others say that they would vaporized the target from sheer heat and others still say that they would make the target EXPLODE. So which one is right?
>>45788930
I think a laser-gun could make an ominous coil-whine noise UNTIL you fired it, but I could be really wrong.
>>45790381
Yeah well, that's one BL novel. If you look at pretty much all the las weapons that have come out since then, they all use the same power cell type. The munitorum manual only mentions the "standard munitorum approved" power cells with various different appearances, but all with the same plugs and connection method. And all the las power cell dice containers GW made were identical, even though designation indicated they were all from different planets with different capacities, etc.
>>45790633
the most realistic theory I've heard for the effects of a handheld sized lethal laser would be a pulsed drilling effect. this is when a short laser pulse explosively vaporizes the surface water/other materials on the target and the next pulse is timed to hit the deepest part of the temporary cavity formed by the shockwave. this would continue for as long as the original cavity took to close or until the vaporized debris became opaque to whatever light frequency you were using. both of these effects would likely happen faster than a human could register.
>>45790633
Results would vary depending on power output, pulse duration and spot size.
Basically the shorter the duration of the pulse the closer the effect is to "surface material vaporizes and explodes". The longer duration the pulse the closer the effect is to "burns a hole".
In the case of weapons firing multiple microsecond pulses the effect would resemble having a hole poked through the target without pronounce burning effects.
>>45790633
A modern megawatt range high energy laser like THEL would be like taking an oxy-acetylene torch to somebody from several kilometers away.
