Feel free to slap me upside the head with a Power Fist if the answer to this question's glaringly obvious, but I'm not exactly sure where to find this. When it comes to standard ammunition for weapons (ie, bolt pistol, bolter), how many clips are Marines supposed to have? I thought the Astartes Backpack Ammo Supply was it, but it seems to be for Heavy Weapons than standard Basic Weapons. Is it 'enough until thematically appropriate'? Or is there something I'm missing?

In theory, they can get as many as they want - the armoury section says "enough". In practice, the amount will be limited by what they can carry. If they have contact to friendly forces where they can store ammo and get it air-dropped (for example) when they need it, ammo won't be a problem. If they're deep-striked into enemy territory with the next friendly contact hundreds of miles away, they'll only have what they can carry and perhaps a little extra in their pod if the mission doesn't require them to be overly mobile.

You've probably already noticed the problem: What can a marine carry? By weight, a lot . By bulk, no idea. We don't know how many pockets standard power armour has - marines don't seem to be in the habit of using webbing.

I guess it mainly depends on whether the marine wants to retain combat ability (in which case I'd assume somewhere around 10 clips for his primary weapon and 4 for his secondary along with the standard 6 grenades if he doesn't carry utility stuff) or not (meaning he can be loaded with extra packages until his form approximates a cube) - though in this case a single shot from a tau pulse rifle would likely be enough to cook off something and blow the marine into low orbit.

I suppose it comes down to what type of story you want to tell.

I imagine the 'you're low on ammo' mission would be cool once or twice and let the marines go all Arnie in 'Predator' but it would probably get old fast if the GM is constantly making the marines run out of ammo.

You are the elite forces chosen from the very best of the elitest uberwarriors ever made and are bankrolled by a shadowy unaccountable organisation with an unlimited budget. If the bosses can't scrape together a few crates of bolts then the space-recession must be biting really hard....

The answer I think is that the deathwatch can request as much ammo as they like from the quartermaster but the real debate is about what the combat load of a marine is.

The concensus seems to be about 6-10 spare mags for your bolter (remember you have 3 in there already) and maybe half that for your sidearm along with 6 grenades.

Cifer said:

It's possible that the magazines are magnetized to simply stick to the armour. This would allow numerous magazines attached to the legs and such.

HappyDaze said:

Now, I'm not certain of the mechanics of this, but how prone is bolter ammo to exploding if damaged?

Just sayin.

Of course, I'd just attribute it to hammerspace.

The magazines are supposed to be armoured, but probably not that armoured.

1. Grenades: Ten (10) maximum.

2. Bolter: Six (6) Bolter magazine reloads, and three (3) Bolter magazines loaded.

3. Bolter-Pistol: Three (3) Bolter-Pistol magazine reloads, and one (1) Bolter-Pistol magazine loaded.

4. Backpack Ammo Supply reduces maximums to three (3) Bolter magazine reloads, and six (6) grenades maximum.

5. Jump Pack reduces maximum to either. . .
5A) three (3) Bolter magazine reloads, and six (6) grenades maximum.
5B) six (6) Bolter-Pistol magazine reloads, and six (6) grenades maximum.
5 Note 1) Assault Marines who duel-wield Bolter-Pistols tend to upgrade them to include Fire Selectors in order to increase ammo supply.

6) Techmarines, for 30-reqisition, can carry an armored ammo-crate via Servo-Arm containing either . . .
6A) thirty-six (36) Bolter magazine reloads, and twelve (12) Bolter-Pistol magazine reloads.
6B) eighteen (18) Frag Grenades, and eighteen (18) Krack Grenades.

I am just guessing. I figure a crate of ammo per a half-kill-team, six (6) marines, seems about right. So each full-kill-team, twelve (12) marines, may bring along two crates of bolt ammo and two crates of grenades. I figure they normally put this stuff in a Rhino, but having a Techmarine Servo-Arm carrying a crate seems fitting.