Lasgun
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The humble Lasgun is the standard armament of the average Imperial Guardsman in the Warhammer 40,000 setting, and therefore is probably the most common weapon in the Imperium and possibly the galaxy as a whole, given the incredible size of the Imperium and its armies. It is a laser weapon renowned for reliability and ease of use. Also the Lasgun can be set to different power settings such as low power/fully-automatic or high power semi-automatic. It is unknown if a Lasgun would have ANY recoil or stopping power due to the fact that the weapon fires a non-physical projectile You will find that light does indeed carry momentum and that the lasgun most likely has a rate of fire of about 1 shot per 30 nanoseconds culminating in a recoil force of exactly 15 newtons, which is precisely equivalent to that of the .22 calibre bullet,LIGHT HAS NO MASS FUCKTARD(Light has no rest mass, but while moving it has "mass" (Relativistic mass is an idiotic concept that has been obsolete for decades, light has momentum, which can cause recoil) renowned for its very low recoil. Thus the Guardsman can EASILY hit targets even on full auto. The power cells that the weapon takes give it high "magazine" capacity and can be easily recharged with access to any standard Imperial power supply, direct sunlight, and even heat - a relatively common practice of Imperial Guard units cut off from supplies is to place their Lasgun power packs in open fires, although this does cause them damage, and is frowned upon. Being hit by a Lasgun has similar effects on a person as a high velocity 30mm armor piercing shell does, which is to say, it will blow off limbs on glancing hits and cause torsos to disintegrate.
It's also well known for being rather pathetic compared to the arms and armour of the other armies of the setting (except the Tyranids, Lasguns can do some pretty hefty damage against Gaunts who tend to be about as fragile as a Guardsman and have shorter range with their shooty weapons), useful only by virtue of the fact that Guardsmen come in ridiculous numbers (except against Tyranids or Ork mobs) and the application of statistical probability. The weapons are often derisively referred to as "flashlights", based on their individual usefulness, although this is more of an example of how ridiculously tough everything else in the setting, a Lasgun at full power can pierce 2-3 meters of concrete with ease, which means that all the weapons and armor in the setting are stupidly, stupidly powerful. The weapons are rather more useful in Dark Heresy than they are in the wargame, as their reliability, availability and plentiful ammunition become real considerations, and they are rather more useful against the human foes that an agent of the Inquisition is likely to face.
It is universally described in the fluff as discharging with a sharp crack as the beam ionizes the air it passes through, but some authors describe the lasround as either a "bolt" as in Star Wars or as a "beam" as in Dawn of War. Although other features of the weapon vary - some Black Library works and items such as the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer describe the weapon as possessing a fully automatic firing setting, but this feature is not represented on the tabletop or in Dark Heresy - this can be explained away by virtue of the fact that there are many different patterns of Lasgun produced throughout the Imperium. The Lasgun also comes in carbine, pistol, and sniper (referred to as a "long-las") varieties, and the Imperium fields many other weapons based on the same technology, such as the Hellgun (basically a more powerful Lasgun powered by a backpack power pack), and the mighty Lascannon, and the even bigger Volcano Cannon, and then the even bigger Defense Laser, and the bigger still Las weapons mounted on starships.
One thing about Lasguns is that they can be used as last-ditch grenades by basically making the entire power pack empty into the gun without ever actually firing it. It turns the Lasgun from a low-mediocre rifle crappy flashlight into an explosive comparable in power to, say, a melta charge. It can really fuck up the shit of even a Chaos Dreadnought, who thought they were going to make some Guardsmen go squish, and instead find their face gets blown off.
The name is rather obviously a portmanteau of "laser" and "gun", but argument rages over how the word is meant to be pronounced. Many claim that the "las" should be pronounced "layz" or in other words say that it's pronounced with a long "a", as the first part of "laser", but others contend that this sounds retarded, and "lazz-gun" or a short "a" sound is a better pronunciation . With no official verdict given, the debate is likely to continue. The latter seems more likely considering it's spelling, Laser is only pronounced with a long "a" because there is an "e" after the "s" so it's rather reasonable that because there is no "e" after the "s", second "a" after the "a", or a "y" after the "a" (you need one of these to get a long "a") in Lasgun that it should be pronounced with a short "a". Srs Bzns.
Although better known as Flashlights, some players also call it "The AK-47's of the 41st Millennium", but kinda ironically, instead of being reliable, tough, inaccurate and having a tendancy to show up in the hands of just about everyone you don't want to have one. It's reliable, common as fuck (like 100 for every human in the galaxy common), pretty damned tough, and accurate but that is only by 40k standards. If a lasgun were to be manufactured in our time it would be the perfect infantry weapon with power (in terms of flesh damage) equivalent to the 20mm shell commonly used in some anti-material rifles and the Vulcan mini-gun we like to stick on jets.
There is also some dispute as to the color of the "beam". Some fluff claims it to be blue, while games like Dawn of War portray it as red. The popular Dan Abnett series Gaunt's Ghosts say that the Imperial weapons fire blue "beams", while the Chaos weapons fire red. Which is kind of bullshit because all Chaos weapons are just old Imperial weapons that they stole because they're fucktards.
Okay....let's look at this scientifically, light comes off as different colours depending on it's frequency, which is related to how much power it has, so it stands to reason that Lasguns would fire different coloured beams depending on how much energy they have left in their power cell, or, conversely, what state of disrepair they're in. So no colour is 'right'. Some wavelengths contain more energy than others, and assuming that the shot is relatively high energy, it would likely be at a wavelength above the visable spectrum, meaning the actual damaging shot would be invisible. On the other hand, it is possible that they might fire a tight, lower-energy beam nearly concurrently with the actual damaging beam as a sort of "tracer round". This could be adjusted to certain wavelengths to produce specific colors, which might serve friend-or-foe identification purposes to tell from which side the shots are coming from.
FUCK SCIENCE. IG/ SPESS MEHREENS/ CHAOS ARE TOO PANTS ON HEAD RETARDED TO FIGURE OUT COMPLEX SHIT LIKE THAT. THAT CHAOS=RED IMPERIUM=BLUE SHIT IS JUST COLOUR CODING "GOOD AND EVIL" BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE STUPID FUCKS AND DON'T UNDERSTAND EVEN THOUGH CHAOS IS COVERED IN SPIKES AND BLOOD.
I CAN'T TURN CAPS LOCK OFF