My analysis of Bolters, with theory on how they work in terms of real world firearms.
The bolter, or bolt gun, is the distinctive weapon of the Imperium in 40k. Whether wielded en masse by the Space Marines or Sisters of Battle, or used as an insignia of rank in the Imperial Guard, bolt weapons are a symbol of Imperial might. Unlike many things in the 40k universe, they have a fairly consistent portrayal, although there are… let’s say about three distinct portrayals. Space Marine/Astartes Bolters, the Godwyn-Pattern, Adepta Sororitas/Sister of Battle Bolters, the Godwyn-De'az Pattern, and the Imperial Guard pattern, which are… well, don’t have a specific pattern named, but let’s call them human-sized. This last one is the one used by Commissars, Sergeants, Officers, Arbites, Inquisitorial Henchmen, and so on.
Since in the tabletop, all of these share stats- 24" range, S4/AP5 Rapid Fire, we’ve got to look a little deeper to get the details on the differences. So, the fiction typically describes Bolters of all patterns as .75 Caliber (that’s about 19mm to you Metric types; and to you gun types, that’s half a millimeter more than a 12-gauge shotgun’s bore), with rocket-assisted “mass-reactive” explosive shells. Space Marine variants are specifically noted to be larger, heavier, and with more recoil, but also doing more damage. Note that I’m only considering the standard issue bolter variants, ignoring Deathwatch and Sternguard special issue ammunition and variants. Let’s just say that the rounds are big enough to have variation in the payload and rocket that these things could work. The main lore-side sources I’m relying on are the Dark Heresy rulebooks, specifically the Only War, Blood of Martyrs, and Deathwatch Core books. I’ll also be referencing my memory of the Necromunda book, and wishing that I had a copy of the Inquisitor book for an earlier bit of crunchy lore.
Alrighty! Let’s compare numbers:
Human: 1d10+5 damage, Penetration 4, 100m range, 24 round magazine, no special rules
Godwyn: 2d10+5 damage, Penetration 5, 100m range, 30 round magazine, Tearing special rule
Godwyn-De'az: 1d10+5 damage, Penetration 4, 90m range, 30 round magazine, Tearing and Reliable special rules
All damage is explosive-type, fire rate is 5/round on auto, 2-round burst, semi.
And, to give a baseline to compare against:
M36 Lasgun: 1d10+3 Energy damage, Penetration 0, 100m range, 60 shot magazine, semi or 3-round burst
This is considered about as powerful as an M2 Fifty-cal, with a shorter effective range, and not as good of a penetration characteristic. Oh yeah, these games have rules for the Ma Deuce:
Heavy Stubber: 1d10+4 Impact damage, Penetration 3, 100m range, 75 round magazine, 8 shots/round on full auto. Ogryn-proof special rule
So, to clarify within the rules of the game, a standard human can take about 30-40 points worth of damage before dying. Penetration 4 is enough to ignore standard Imperial Guard body armor, while Penetration 5 is enough to almost completely negate storm trooper (elite, but unmodified human troops) carapace armor. Now, I’d argue that the Godwyn-De'az’s shorter range is a symptom of power/range creep over the life of the game, so let’s say they all have essentially the same range. The ranges are also all pathetically short when compared to real life firearms, but this is pretty standard in tabletop games, and especially in tabletop games where melee is pretty important. (By the way, this is an interesting thing in terms of game design. Anecdotally, I’ve heard that 40k was originally supposed to have realistic weapon ranges, but the way things were working out, of the three: Decent sized models, functionally sized game areas, realistic range; they could only choose two. So they chose the first two, and that meant that it was very easy to move into base-to-base contact, which meant that melee had to be included, and therefore became a big part of the game. Until Seventh Edition. Because fuck your charges.) So, for the sake of realistic comparison, let’s say that all of these have a “real world” effective range of about 300m, which is considered[citation needed] typical combat range.
Now, let’s talk about some real life guns that the Bolter could be considered to be based on. The first, the one that’s always brought up in this kind of discussion, is the Gyrojet. This was one of the many designs that came out in the postwar period, when the world was settling into the Cold War. By the way, if you’re interested in firearms history or design, this period was possibly the richest in terms of sheer ridiculousness of design. Project SALVO, the G11, the development of underbarrel grenade launchers, all sorts of crazy shit was going on then. Anyway, the Gyrojet was a firearm designed to be as lightweight as possible, and to do this, the designer made the barrel as light as possible. If you’re not aware of exactly how firearms work, and please don’t take this as an insult, I have to remind myself fairly constantly, they harness an explosion to propel a projectile. This explosion creates pressure, and the barrel and action need to be strong enough to withstand this pressure, and keep from blowing up in the user’s face. The Gyrojet used a very small powder charge to get the projectile to clear the barrel before the rocket motor engaged, which allowed the weapon to be very lightweight and low recoil relative to the size of the projectile. With missile or rocket launchers, this is called “soft launch”, which is how the RPG-7 and Javelin operate. Anyway, the system wasn’t commercially successful, but remains an interesting proof of concept. The biggest flaw with the system (not counting the difficulty in manufacturing the rounds) was that at very close ranges (under 15m or so), the not-yet-fully-accelerated projectile was ineffective.
Next up is less a gun and more of a round, the FRAG-12 loading that was developed alongside the AA-12 shotgun that everyone gets their panties wet for. Anyway, the FRAG-12 is a fin-stabilized explosive round that fits in a shotgun shell- which is a hair smaller than a bolter shell- with several different possibilities such as Fragmenting Anti-personnel, Armor-piercing (half inch of RHA penetration). So we have a precedent for an effective explosive round being deployed in that size, and is fin-stabilized but with no propulsion beyond the initial charge, to an effective range of 200m. Therefore, in theory, a rocket-assisted version of this would be able to reach at least 300m to be a “realistic” weapon.
The final specific type of real world weapon to look at is the grenade launcher, and especially automatic grenade launchers. The first interesting thing to examine is the hi-low pressure system used in NATO 40mm grenades, which allows for both a large initial push, but rapidly drops pressure to safe levels so that the grenade can be used in very lightweight launchers. The second is the fact that essentially all automatic grenade launchers are blowback operated- the HK GMG, the US Mk. 19, the Russian AGS-17, and then I stopped looking them up. So, from here, I think we’ve got enough to work with and start to make some inroads on the Bolter.
Now, an interesting thing I’ve noticed is that while the Godwyn-derivatives used by the Sisters of Battle and Space Marines are often referred to as “Holy bolters”, bolters in use by other branches of the Imperium are not. Given the Imperium’s view of technology, this implies that the Godwyn family are more complex, while the “standard” pattern is easier to make, but less powerful or reliable. Now, as I mentioned, blowback is a very common action in automatic grenade launchers. It’s also one of the simpler types of action, as well as being fairly reliable if proper care is taken of it, but finicky if not. So I’d suggest that the “standard human” bolter is a blowback weapon firing a 19x89mm (.75 caliber, 3 ½" magnum shotshell length) rocket assisted projectile. This both allows for short range effectiveness, i.e. pre-rocket firing by the sheer mass of round, a manageable, but very heavy, recoil impulse, and realistic combat range and damage.
So now we have the question of the Godwyn-family. You’ll notice that I’m calling them a family, and so I’m going to assume that both of these patterns utilize the same action. However, the Astartes Godwyn bolter does significantly more damage, and the recoil of it is often described as being impossible for normal humans to handle. The Godwyn-De'az uses the same damage profile as the standard human bolter, so I’m going to assume that they use the same 19x89mm projectile. Now, we need to find a way that the Godwyn pattern can do more damage, while remaining .75 caliber, and able to use the same action type as the Godwyn-De'az’s smaller round. I believe the important part is to look at the Godwyn’s slightly higher penetration characteristic. The Godwyn bolter probably uses a bottle-necked cartridge unlike the straight-walled cartridges that I’m assuming for the 19x89mm shotshell-based round. This would give the Godwyn’s bolts higher initial velocity, which could be further boosted by the rocket assistance, which would give better penetration characteristics, and possibly allow for a heavier explosive charge/fragmentation material/several possibilities for the warhead versus the smaller version. So let’s call this one the 19x90mm to distinguish it. For an example of what I’d think it would look like, probably the 5.45x39mm round scaled up.
Alrighty, so the damage discrepancy is settled, the next thing is the action. While my instinct is to go for gas-operation, the space that appears to be the gas tube is typically described as the bolter’s autosenses which are slaved to the user’s armor. So without that as an option, I’d suggest that the Godwyn-family is roller-delayed blowback. This gives better recoil handling than blowback, especially when combined with power armor, could be used with both straight-walled and bottle-necked cartridges, which allows for the damage discrepancy in the Godwyn and Godwyn-De'az pattern, and is more reliable (if properly maintained) than standard blowback, while also being complex enough to ritualize the maintenance process.
TL;DR: The Standard human bolter is a space hi-point firing unholy abominations made by bastardizing the FRAG-12 with the Gyrojet. The Godwyn-De'az is an MP5 doing the same. The Godwyn is a G3 shooting a hilariously oversized 5.45 round bastardized with the FRAG-12 and the Gyrojet.
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