Quick Refresh of an old vid - Accidentally makes a vid 3x longer than the original I recently thought I need to update some of those old vids - Bolters should be straightforward - I knew I was wrong when the intro for this vid was nearly the length of the entire old vid lol. If you enjoyed please SUB - LIKE - COMMENT - it makes a big difference for the channel, and supports me full time

I love the idea that even 38,000 years in the future drum mags still jam

"So how does the whole ammunition situation work with bolters?" "The emperor requires the bolter to shoot so it shoots. That is all you need to know"

Im bedridden recently for several months now and watching/learning the massive 40k lores kept me occupy and entertain during this hard time. Thank you Luetin for your hard work. Bless you. Edit: Thank you for all your wishes everyone.

I’d say the no extra mags thing is just for aesthetic purposes. That mag lock tech they have in the books makes their smooth ceremite armor into a highly customizable gear organizer. That said I imagine Astartes’ love of melee weapons to be at least partially due to ammo resupply concerns.

In one of the Space Wolf books, one marine noticed the members of his squad were using standard Imperial Guard weapons and went fucking nuts demanding to know why they had abandoned their bolters only to find they'd ran out of ammo days ago.

5:40 Glad you explained how the logistics for ammunition in 40k works! 😁

The magazines are actually teleportation devices connected to a massive ammo supply

The Omnissiah has gifted us with knowledge once again! May his servant Luetin be continually blessed.

I always appreciate when the lore takes logistics into account. Guy Haley did a good job in his Dark Imperium novel where Justinian Paris, an inceptor, attempts to conserve his ammunition as he makes a mental note that the resupply pods haven't dropped yet. In the later books of the series Haley also occasionally inserts ammo concerns into his stories.

So Tank Commander here. We do use depleted uranium in modern Tank armor defeating rounds for all stated reasons in this video, but they are also "self sharpening" as it peals off on impact in such a way to slice through armor. ;)

I loved the explanation about the ammo capacity and supplies. I agree.

When a Mark-19 and a UMP-45 love each other very much, the stork-servitor delivers a bolter!

The Space Marine video game (kind of) dealt with the ammo logistics as you suggested, with numerous drop pods scattered around the levels with extra weapons etc. I now just assume that for every astartes drop pod full of marines they probably also launch a dozen or so pods that are just full of ammo, aiming them either at the same landing ground as the marines, or closer to the enemy so the marines can fight their way foward and resupply as they go.

I can personally attest that anyone going into combat, even those who don't plan on being in combat long, will carry as much ammo as they can. Even if you don't plan on being in combat long, the situation often doesn't go along with your plan so you wanna be prepared for a longer engagement.

In my old rogue trader campaign i was the gm, one of the characters who played a rogue trader had a praetorian guard squad of 100 very well trained guards in human power armour all armed with human balanced bolters. It always caused human civilizations to fall all over themselves when he turned up with them in tow.

Regarding ammunition, I distinctly recall the Horus Heresy books covering this at least somewhat. During the disastrous mission to Davin that the Luna Wolves undertook prior to the Heresy, the narration indicated the Astartes filling and refilling the magazines for their bolters via some automatic "ammo hoppers" installed in the Stormbird troop carriers they landed in. Thunderhawks presumably would also have those, being as they are a quick-and-dirty down-sized copy of Stormbirds. I would also presume that some Astartes legions and chapters have some equipment drop pods with which to resupply their troops for extended engagements - it would seem out of character for, say, the Imperial Fists to not plan their logistics to allow for such.

About ammo, in 'Dark Imperium' the issue is at least touched upon once, when primaris inceptors make landfall: "Assault bolters were powerful weapons, but if used unwisely they would run through their ammunitions stores in seconds. Justinian checked his fury. The resupply pods had yet to land." p.119-120. I believe later on there is again mention of the pods, once they land.

Someone in the 40k lore subreddit covered the logistics of the lasgun. Basically if they used bullets they wouldn't be able to load as many guns onto shipments: which is very important to equip the Imperial Guard when the Imperium is oft said to be a million worlds

I think my favorite part of this was talking about the Vulcan cannons and how can they possibly not run out of ammo in a instant? We then move onto what a bolt round actually is and never answer that question.

Anyone ever notice that the Bolter is basically a perfected Gyrojet? Interesting that. A nearly forgotten, failed gun from history becoming the staple of 40k

Someday you should do a video on the most important piece of Imperial wargear: THE OVERSIZED PAULDRON

You've been on a tear with the videos recently man, legion of the damned is one of my favourite videos you've done. i hope your keeping on top of your health and all that. Cheers.

"One of the most commonly used patterns used by Astartes.... The Godwyn Pattern." Shows an image zoomed in of a Mars Pattern. Love it.

Dude, I love your videos. To me, noone explains the 40K universe as detailed and researched as you do. You are critical with the sources at hand and the information they give us, if it is logical or not. The vids are very often well structured, have awesome pictures and fitting music (props to the artists). Your voice is one of the best storyteller voices I ever heard. Thank you for your dedication to the emperor!

on ammo, in the novel 'deathwatch' the kill team have a number of servitors with them carrying ammo. they leave them at rendezvous points and some get ripped apart by genestealers, but even so there are several scenes where they swap ammo around edit: also deuterium, as an isotope of hydrogen, is still highly flammable and explosive

I love how he starts to touch upon how to keep up with how fast these weapons chew thru ammo at the beginning...ANNND take a right turn in the video and just nopes out of that conversation.

Now I'm imagining that metalic Dueterium is somehow inclined to stay metallic once forged, but also becomes radioactive for a bit and needs to shed at least some of the spare neutrons for a bit before depleting into an incredibly dense round core that can be rigged for a nuke blast in a pinch

The way Luetin just glides past the logistical nightmare that is the imperium of man is truly something studied by scholars to this day.

43:11 The Space Marine video game does exactly this! I like your ideas about scouts and cherubs carrying ammo, too. Honestly, I always assume that the Imperium simply omits these kinds of things from their stories, to focus more on the holy warriors of the emperor. Ammo bearers are around on the battlefield, they're just not mentioned.

Spare bolter mags are stasis/maglocked to the underside of the astartes power armor pauldron, it's why the pauldrons are so big and the boltermags/ammo impervious to harm or even environment deterioration.

Inquisitor Martyr kind of sucked when it first came out but with updates it became a really good game. Highly recommend for anyone who likes Warhammer 40k and Diablo style games.

I know it's 3weeks late, but Uranium also has self sharpening property when going through an armored target, improving the armor penetration by quite a lot

I just got done pulling out and organizing all my 40k stuff after not doing anything with it in months and started painting. I'm pleased to have just noticed this, these are always great to paint to. The inquisitior game looks pretty sick, I'm going to have to consider buying and playing it tonight. Thanks man!

Crack on Luetin, I am so chuffed to see you getting all these 40k gaming company gigs. It's outstanding to see that they recognize the quality of your work, and the value of your channel for marketing to the 40k community!

I chose to believe that Deuterium is either A) an alloy/advanced material that coincidentally is translated from High Gothic with the same word as the hydrogen isotope, or B) bolters actually shoot mini hydrogen bombs that detonate on impact.

Man, if we think that irradiated battlefields are bad, just imagine the type of battlefield a clip of vortex rounds leaves behind. Yeah your enemies are dead, but reality itself has holes punched in it all over the battlefield

Hey Luetin, I just watched this movie called Fantastic Fungi. And it has some amazing things to say, and isn’t just a documentary on mushrooms. It’s not at all what you’d expect and it made me think of warhammer. Gave me model ideas and effected the way I see the world. Also I thought of the orks and tyranids, as well as humans and the similarities are astounding.

Every time I see or read something in fiction where it's like "Ordinary bullets don't hurt the enemy", my mind immediately goes to bolters. Mass-reactive shells are a solution to a wide variety of alien, robot, and monster problems.

I picture logistic servators and mechanicus moving close behind and dragging bags of ammo or hover cabinets full of reloads being fed to space marines on the battlefield. Or maybe large ammo drops in various areas.

My two cents on the topic... On the absence of iron sights, scopes and stocks on human-scale bolters: since Space Marines are specialized in hit-and-run attacks and close combat in confined places like fortifications and spaceship corridors, it's not expected that most bolters will be used at long range, and therefore don't usually need classic aiming elements. As Luetin mentions, the helmet's interface, armor's ability to absorb recoil and the wearer's own genetic enhancements are probably enough to pinpoint enemys at normal ranges; the use of buttstocks to give extra stability does not seem necessary either, and the rounded shoulder pads of most Astartes armor would prevent their use anyways. So most Space Marines din't use any kind of external sight and that's fine, but on the other hand some illustrations did show Space Marines (both Tactical and specialists) wielding bolters with telescopic sights or lasers; Primaris MkII "Cawl" pattern bolters have a very wide front post but no rear sight, and what appears to be some RIS/Picatinny rail of sorts mounted on top, wich could be used to mount laser designators, thermal sights or other types of aiming aids. That's kinda weird... On the lack of spare bolter ammo on most Space Marine figures: if most Space Marines carry their bolters as a primary weapon with a single magazine of 20 or 30 bolts, that's a big problem. This will not last long even for hit-and-run tactics, nor defending a trench for an entire day against hundreds of xenos. The idea of ​​Explorers or Servitors constantly hauling ammo to their Tactical Marine brothers on the front lines is also problematic, as lacking the armor and life support system of a Tactical Marines it's unlikely that this kind of support units could keep up... so a belt with a couple of mags per figure would do the trick. In any case and as Luetin said, the fact that most of the units lack visible ammunition in their respective figures is probably due to that in the balance between realism and aesthetics, GW opted for the latter. On the lack of secondary melee weapons on Marines equipped with bolters as a primary option: very few Marine figures that use bolters also carry chainswords or sheathed daggers. Considering the low ammo capacity of bolters and the absence of spare ammunition readily available, and unless Tactical Marines know some 40k Kung Fu of sorts, fist fighting larger and more ferocious races like Orks or Tyranids looks like a bad idea. But again, I think that in this particular topic GW has decided to prioritize aesthetics over realism: if all figures had to carry all necessary equipment for their respective missions (food, water, ammunition, trench tools, battery packs, etc.), they would not look like heroic space warriors, but the Michelin man. On the principle of operation of bolter weapons and composition of the ammunition itself: if I'm not mistaken, bolter principle of operation is very similar of any contemporary assault rifle like an AR-15 or AKM: by pressing the trigger a bullet is fired (bolt in this case) through a rifled barrel, and part of the gases from the shot are reused to expel the empty case and load a new shot. Considering the extremely short barrel of most bolters, a prerequisite for moving with ease in the confined spaces of ships and fortresses where Marines often operate, the bolt will not get its lethality from a high muzzle velocity (it would need a longer barrel for that) but from its big mass and/or explosive charge. So yes, a bolter is not a long-range precision weapon, rather some kind of automatic "shotgun" with detachable magazines firing big slugs, like a Saiga 12. Considering that the caliber of the bolt is stated to be 0.75 inches, it is perfectly plausible that the projectile tip has an armor-piercing cap or high-explosive compound, like most 20mm autocannon ammo of contemporary Oerlikons or CIWS have. Also striking is the fact that all human-scale bolters I've seen had what looks like a muzzle brake at the end of the barrel, i.e. a muzzle with holes in the sides to redirect the exploding gases from the cartridge and reduce the feeling of recoil. That's a nice touch. And about the "deuterium core" matter... whatever. Sounds cool, so I'm fine with it ;)

One of my favorites. Can't wait to hear this given some love! You're the best luetin09. You got me into 40k Years ago

I simply Love your detailed expanation at 5:55. Cheers for that, had me chuckeling.

Tiny addition to segment regarding bolts composition - iirc on at least couple occasions there were mentioned that Mechanicus vessels which support Astartes fleets, as well as spacemarines themselves in case of necessity can and will produce bolts from whatever material they have available around, so composition can be reasonably different.

Plot armor is a common thing in SciFi. 40k has plot ammo supply.

43:16 Great idea Luetin, now I want to make a drop pod kitbash with ammo reserves. Maybe I can use it as a terrain feature/crusade mission obj.

dude I could listen to you're videos for hours lol, love the way you explain the MASSIVE amounts of 40K lore, you're one of the main reasons I get so into 40K.

Little bit of Fudd lore for you. A 12ga shotgun round is about .75 caliber which is also close to 20mm cannon rounds. Based on scale (eyeballing a 10' supersoldier and a magazine that looks like a shotgun mag) some of the smaller 20mm rounds might be a better comparison. The two-stage round makes a bit of sense as it would solve a few problems with "gyrojet" style ammo, specificly the low muzzle velocity and reliability problems. The same thought process is used on the javelin missile to reduce recoil and backblast. I kind of want to make my own "bolter" rounds to try it out... On a side note depleted uranium isn't that radioactive. Most of the spicy bits have been stripped out (hence "depleted") leaving it only mildly radioactive. It is also an alpha source so it isn't dangerous radioactively unless you eat it. Bigger problem on the battlefield is that it is just straight up toxic and produces fun, easily absorbed oxides when it hits something solid, like tank armor.

Always happy to see new content from the lore master of 40k

the introductory ad is really well placed. i can't promise i'll buy the game, but your intro will definitely make me check it out!

That poetic and powerful closing thoughts about the bolter symbolism was truly beautiful and well done. As always your videos are an absolut pleasure to listen. Keep the good work mate!

It'd be nifty to hear a story of some Gaurdsmen using an Astartes bolter as a heavy weapon platform after the SM was killed and the IG were black on ammo.

"If I went through them all we would be here for another half-an-hour" Don't threaten me with a good time Luetin

Your videos are always so great! Those ending lines got me hype and I'm not even doing anything haha.

AMAZING!!!! Brilliant content as always my friend. Thank you for your passion and the awe inspiring extents you go to in bringing us such in depth lore. The long hours of hard work and research are very much seen and appreciated.... thank you...

Inquisitor Martyr is the second most played game on my Steam account with over 400 hours. I am totally stoked for the addition of Sororitas characters.

The loremaster speaks? Gather round brothers as we hear the tales of the Imperium's mightiest wargear!

Thank you for getting me into 40k lore dude! i love 40k since ive been a kid but never got into lore as im not a keen reader, but your buttery voice and condenced context is perfect! im sure you wont read this but none the less, thank you for the amazingly captivating vocal explanations of warhammer lore! i very much appreciate :3

thankyou for your dedication to bringing us this lore, it has really made painting quite fun and just makes me want to paint and build more XD

Bolters are the most iconic weapons in scifi. Fight me. They are the only reason that after 30 years of barely noticing tabletop games, 40k stuck in my mind, and eventually became the hobby it is for me today(Embrace the Void). The sheer brilliance of the design work on the bolt gun is magnificent. It sticks in your mind like nothing else does and nothing else will. I even converted my primary flywheel blaster for pro-level nerfing into a Carcharodon bolt pistol. The feel of it in your hand truly feels like an instrument of holy wrath. Exactly like you took a blessed warhammer and converted it into a scifi gun.

So I went and found the numbers because I was wondering if the gods of lore did research and discovered something about Deuterium. Nope. It just sounds like a really dense metal. Depleted uranium has a density of about 19g/cm3. Solid deuterium has a density of 0.2059g/cm3. Depleted uranium is 92x denser than solid deuterium. For reference cork has a density of 0.25g/cm3, it is less dense than cork.

The deuterium part is probably an callback to an old sci-fi concept of a nuclear pistol bullet, where a bullet is filled with a material that will start an explosive fission or fusion reaction just by reaching critical mass. This material is stretched so that is just below this critical mass and will reach it by being compressed on impact.

The comic timing of the "so moving on" after discussing the strangeness of these weapons not running out of ammo made me laugh like a looney. I probably scared the people on the bus

Each shot is a hymn to mankind's divinity.

To me the ammunition supply chain is similar to that scenes in Matrix 3, where a guy, a wheelbarrow and some guards go into the battlefield to reload the weapons of the mechas. In 40k with slaves, servitors and other specialized machinery, you can constantly supply ammunition and other equipment to the front lines, specially at the begining of a conflict.

5:52 Thank you for finally explaining that question of ammo usage!! You’re a godsend!

Dude, keep going on tangents. I love hearing about it. You make some your best points taking those tangents dude. I always learn something.

If the intent of the core is to bolster penetration, then uranium sounds better because that is used in armor piercing Sabot rounds. If detonation is the key purpose, then they probably picked deuterium because they heard it in a book about atomics and thought it sounded cool

A note on the whole caseless thing, the closest IRL relative to bolters would be gyrojets, a prototype from the 1960s, but one of their very many issues was that at extreme close range the bullet was going slow enough to basically be harmless. The bolter's initial propellant charge is likely just as much to allow it to be used at close range, at least it'd seem like.

I thought I'd seen this video before but with more lore and sweet sweet detail? Hell yes, I love your long form vids LT. I really hope we get some type of bolt weapon when darktide comes out.

I do love to see old videos get remastered. Fabulous work as always!

Someone asked me about the bolters, after my explanation she asked me if such an overpowered weapon was really necessary, I then showed her the tyranids and orks, she then admitted that they might not be overpowered enough. When everything in the galaxy that tries to eat you, at best, is overpowered, your weapons can't be overpowered.

It'd be cool if they just had bolter magazines maglocked to every possible space on their front side; everywhere they could reach. Makes me want to make a Space Marine miniature with like 30 mags just glued all on his chest/arms etc. Like an age of sail captain with 6 pistols on their chest. Would probably look sick if you did it right.

love his videos so much research and information he began my deep dive into warhammer 30k/40k and got me started into the hobby

Regarding Space Marines facing ammo issues: In one of the Space Wolf novels a Great Company stuck in a protracted meatgrinder is shown to have run out of bolter ammunition and resorting to guard-issue las weapons and heavy stubbers as well as just about anything they can scavenge on the battlefield.

I like how the Custodes had ammo thrall servitors that would refill their spears then throw it back to them. It was described in the webway fight that had the emperor fighting the original sin Drach'nyen

Luetin doing his best to educate us about bolters, meanwhile the automatic subtitles talk about "Balkan weapons and Alaskans"

This one was epic to me Luetin, I watch Forgotten Weapons with Gun Jesus and Royal Armouries' Jonathan Ferguson every other day and so to have you, of whom I have watched hundreds of hours of your creations, and their vaguely similar format embedded into one of your videos...I mean, I could not get something better in my feed. Already rewatching. Thank you Luetin! Maybe one day you could do a collaboration with either one of those lovely gentlemen :) That would break the gun community, easy million views. All the best Luetin.

Always top teir content, strange that I once saw you for ArmA content and now it’s for my first nerd love of 40k

In the future where you gave lasers, sometimes you need to shoot rapid-fire grenade launchers just to send a message

It's possible that the Depleted deuterium is a different substance than the real thing, in Starcraft the Terrans have a metal called Vanadium, which isn't like the real metal, but still has the same name.

perfect timing because ive been binge-ing this game haha great job as always @Luetin09

I loved the ammo solution you gave, so detailed! Lmao, I was listening honestly waiting for you to give the actual answer, and you just kept going. I fell over laughing.

Thank you for sharing you wisdom about holy bolters, Remembrancer. There are a few equally iconic and devastating pieces of personal weaponry in fiction.

From the words of a all knowing man, "So moving on." His faith just slaying all the heretics.

Hey Luetin, how about a 'Top 5 questions I would ask the emperor (if I could summon him from the warp)' video? It would be interesting to hear what you would ask.

Thank you for doing proper research, soo many people just blurt out what is on a wiki and not care and just make content, great production in this video.

On ammo supply, I think it was part of the Soul Drinkers series of books, but they did have a situation in which they ended up getting stuck in and were low on supplies, in which Marines had to start scavenging weapons including a comical depiction of marines using Lasguns.

Actually I might have a idea why they used deuterium, Gundam is the father of real robots, it was Aired in 1978 If not mistaken. and one of the things that it specified and shows is the reaction of a Minovsky Particle generator that uses Deuterium and breaks it down into Helium 4, anyway maybe the one in charge of that part thought it would be cool to add that word, but Depleted Deuterium might refer to Light waters in Nuclear Reactors. I remembered this because I'm a gunda fan and once did read about reactors, But my guess is that they just used what sounded cool XD.

What I really miss from the early days is when Luetin used to narrate the quotes at the beginning.

the bit about the ammo at 5:45 was gold. i dont come to Luetin09 videos for comedy but this was gold.

Watching this and hearing/seeing clips of the Bolter in action in Darktide...this will be a wonderful week 😀

The real life gun with self propelled ammo, the gyrojet, had a lot of problems. One of the big ones being that the projectile wasn't really moving very fast as it left the weapon. Like you might be able to stop it by putting your finger in the barrel. So probably for the best that the lore says Bolters us a conventional charge in addition to the rocket.

Rounds with depleted unobtanium.

I have two thoughts on 'depleted deuterium' 1. The biggest issue I have with 'depleted deuterium' is that it is just hydrogen. The depletion of the deuterium would just be the loss of the neutron that makes it deuterium in the first place. 2. The 'depleted deuterium' could be just the neutron from the deuterium. From that it could be harvested from neutron stars, where even a 1mmx1mm cube in a bullet would be extremely heavy

I’m not even into war hammer like that but I love these videos, calming voice and cool subject matter. Maybe I am a warhammer fan, the most involved I am is playing necromunda HG and boltgun. Great lore and world man

I did enjoy the very in-depth explanation of the ammunition feed systems capacity. Incredibly informative! Soooo, moving on.... 🤣 Edit: There is also another good reason for using a primary charge to eject the round before the rocket motor ignites. Well, two really, though it's not likely to be a problem for those running around in armor. But it is the same principle as many RPGs. The primary charge gets the projectile far enough away from the user so the rocket motor doesn't burn them. The second reason is one of the failures of the Gyrojet rifle and pistol designed and tested during the Vietnam war. The round was nearly useless at close range since it took time for the projectile to accelerate to its final velocity. Obviously Gyrojet rounds didn't explode, but it took a good 10 to 15 yards or so before it had built up enough speed to be effective. I may be a bit off on that as it isn't often anyone gets a chance to shoot one of those. While the actual firearms themselves are fairly rare, there are still a number of them around. The ammunition on the other hand, is far, FAR more rare and incredibly expensive when it does show up for sale. Fortunately, Taofledermaus was given the opportunity a few years back to fart around with a viewer's gun and make a video of it. Super cool to watch if you get a minute. But that is about as close to a Bolter as anyone is going to get in the real world at the moment. But I just write off all the technicalities and allow for suspension of belief. It's Sc-Fi. While it is nice when the technology of it does make sense, it doesn't have to. It is fiction after all.

I see bolter rounds as 40mm gyro jet rockets that have a two stage propellant similar to the Javelin Missile. In other words, these things can be very real in our world.

far too long since i´ve watched ur channel, will keep up with the vids ;) missed this

Boltguns are very cool, but the idea completely falls apart if you make the mistake of looking too close. The same thing is true of the plethora of Gatling-type weapons. Some things are better viewed from afar.