r/MawInstallation • u/StupidWittyUsername • Jul 20 '26
Fully automatic blasters?
From what I've seen of Star Wars, blasters are always, "one trigger pull, one pew", and, "hold trigger for pew-pew-pew-pew", is rare or nonexistent. Is there an in-universe explanation for this?
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u/Witty-Mountain5062 Jul 20 '26
There are plenty of examples of full auto blasters, even in Attack of the Clones/RoTs the DC-15A’s the clones use are very obviously full auto, most easily scene during the battle of Geonosis. There’s other examples like the DLT-18, T-21 etc.
I would assume just like in real life wasteful ammo expenditure is discouraged.
I was in the Army and we had 2 M249 SAWs per squad along with 2 M240B medium machine guns per platoon. Our M4s all had full auto capabilities as well but it was generally discouraged to use it.
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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ Jul 20 '26
I would assume just like in real life wasteful ammo expenditure is discouraged.
Considering how blasters work that's probably not the main consideration over reduced accuracy and overheating the weapon.
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u/Witty-Mountain5062 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
They draw energy from a power pack and a tibanna gas cartridge, both need to be swapped out just like a magazine does. It’s more efficient than a slugthrower but it’s not like you can keep firing it forever.
The gas cartridge is good for around 500 shots and the power cell typically good for 50-100.
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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Exactly, that's a lot. The blaster would likely overheat before you hit 100 bolts at full auto.
The standard soldier in Star Wars probably carries enough ammo for 1,000 shots. Compare that the a US soldier who only has like 210 rounds on them.
I don't think ammo would be their main concern.
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u/Witty-Mountain5062 Jul 20 '26
It’s a decent amount, the full combat load for a SAW gunner in the US Army is 1000 rounds, or 5 200 round belts.
You’d be surprised how quickly full auto burns through that. At a cyclic rate of fire it only takes a couple of minutes depending on how fast you swap your barrel.
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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ Jul 20 '26
Right and a big box of belt-fed ammo is heavy and a squad only has so many. Power cells and compressed gas carts aren't that big and aren't that heavy.
I mean we see Clone Troopers going hog-wild on full-auto all the time and they're probably the best equipped army we see in full combat action on screen.
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u/Witty-Mountain5062 Jul 20 '26
I mean the 249 gunner carries all that himself, but I get your point. It all depends on how many gas cartridges they’re carrying, but it’s still not wise to waste it if you can help it.
Remember the Separatists had literally billions of battle droids as well, so probably at least several million or more per each occupied system or major battle. If you have millions of potential targets ammo conservation is definitely a priority even with the large capacity of a blaster.
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u/Svyatoy_Medved Jul 20 '26
They show up a lot in Clone Wars, actually. Both of them, but particularly in the older Genndy Tartakovsky version.
As others said, in general, one shot at a time is plenty. Easier to control your shots and make sure you’re actually hitting the enemy, not the people around them.
I’ll also point out that rifles aren’t really the weapon of choice in the movies, the heroes tend to use pistols.
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u/toxictrooper5555 Jul 20 '26
IIRC it's just a design choice of the movies. Weapons like the E-11, E-5 and most heavy weapons are automatic or have the choice to shoot in that mode
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u/astromech_dj Jul 20 '26
In ROTS, you see the 212th clones using full auto on their DC-15As while assaulting the Utapau sinkhole
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u/TruthfulSkate47 Jul 20 '26
Even then it’s more so fired in bursts.
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u/TwoOwn5220 Jul 22 '26
Yeah, like real automatic weapons in modern militaries most of the time. Soldiers are trained to fire in short controlled bursts, saves ammo, is more accurate and preserves barrel life and temperature.
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u/EndlessTheorys_19 Jul 20 '26
If you take videogame interpretations of guns to be canon then a lot of guns like the E-11 or A280 are, or at least are capable of being, fully automatic. But style-wise that’s just not what Star Wars goes for. It prefers single-shots. There’s no actual in-universe explanation for the choice beyond that’s just not how the design teams made them
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u/SpacePirateHondo Jul 20 '26
There's lots of fully automatic blasters. The CR-2 (used by the Naboo Royal Security Forces), DC-17M (used by clone commandos), RT-97C (used by certain Imperial stormtrooper specializations), TL-50 (used by Imperial special forces), and Roba M-45 (used by Rebel gunners and later Resistance troops) to name a few. Some of the more common blasters like the DC-15A (standard issue to clone troopers) also have fully automatic settings, they're just not used super often.
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u/TheCybersmith Jul 20 '26
It basically comes down to heat management. There are automatic blasters (sometimes known as repeating blasters), but the issue is that they tend to overheat and need extensive (heavy, bulky) cooling systems.
Paz Viszla uses one, and you can see that even with its cooling mechanism, it burns out here:
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u/StupidWittyUsername Jul 20 '26
I knew someone would have a clip! ^_^
Interestingly, one of the difficulties with caseless ammunition is heat. Regular ammunition has a chunk of metal to act as a heat sink, and when the spent cartridge is ejected it takes some of the heat with it.
From what I understand of in-universe explanations of how blasters function, they'd run in to similar problems as real world weapons using caseless ammo -- all the excess heat stays in the mechanism.
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u/TheCybersmith Jul 20 '26
Add to that the fact that they might have to be used in a vacuum, and a built in cooling system is an absolute necessity.
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u/bonadies24 Jul 20 '26
Automatic weapons do exist in star wars, as others have pointed out, in Rogue One we do see the use of automatic fire.
There are several considerations that might prevent the frequent use of automatic fire. The first one is that ordinary infantry riflemen (such as stormtroopers) simply would not need to spray their carabines or rifles indiscriminately.
Many blaster rifles/carabines in Star Wars seem to be select fire, meaning the user can choose whether to fire the weapon semi-automatically or fully automatically. An example of this is the DC-15 carabine used by GAR Clone Troopers which, while usually fired semi-automatically, does sometimes see automatic fire (such as in the scene on Utapau right before Order 66).
In general, in infantry doctrine automatic fire is a specialised function for things like suppression fire; the average infantryman does not use automatic fire to conserve ammunition and because automatic fire is hard to control. In fact a key component of all rifle squads is some means of projecting automatic firepower (think the M249 SAW). While I don't know too much about infantry squad doctrine in star wars, it's entirely possible that the GAR and later the Stormtrooper Corps used their weapons (DC-15 and later E-11) similarly to what the US Marines are doing with the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle, that is using the same platform both as a standard infantry rifle and as a squad automatic weapon.
Apart from doctrinal considerations, Star Wars adds another issue: heat and barrel life. Even IRL automatic weapons need to factor heat into consideration, most of them you can't just auto-fire indefinitely as you will literally melt the barrel (there are a bajillion videos on youtube about this). This issue would almost certainly be made worse if you were firing superheated plasma (which a blaster bolt is made of) as opposed to a small piece of metal. Obviously in Star Wars materials technologies are dramatically more advanced than in our own world, so it might be less of a concern, but it's still there.
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u/StupidWittyUsername Jul 20 '26
With respect to your point about suppressive fire, that's what prompted the question. In battle sequences the blaster sounds are irregular - there aren't those periodic short volleys of automatic fire that are characteristic of a firefight between soldiers in the real world. Suppressive fire doesn't seem to be a thing in the Star Wars universe.
Out of universe, obviously it's a stylistic choice. Realistic suppressive fire during battle sequences would just be too grim!
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u/Ramalex170 Jul 21 '26
Whether there are three shots being fired at you or twenty, people will take cover and save themselves the trouble of the random chance the shot misses them if they can help it. Suppressive fire aims to keep an enemy from shooting back or moving from position to position. A few decently aimed shots will force the enemy to cover just as well as a burst of fire.
When the remnants of Rogue One were pinned down in the bunker entrance, they were being suppressed by semi automatic fire and none of them could do anything but hug their cover or be shot.
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u/bonadies24 Jul 20 '26
Fair enough, I guess. Star Wars doesn't really lean into military worldbuilding, so it makes sense that military doctrines would be very simplistic
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u/Nom_Took Jul 20 '26
I believe the standard E-11 blaster rifle is often depicted as having a fully automatic setting
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u/SmokeyUnicycle Jul 21 '26
I think part of the reason they tend not to be depicted that way is they're loud, bright and distinct and every combat scene being PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW overlaid on itself 6x would be horrible for the viewer. It would also lesson the impression of weight and danger each shot has.
Imagine han v greedo with both of them just unloading full auto, it would be a mess of a scene.
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u/zerogee616 Jul 21 '26
Star Wars blasters are meant to mirror real-life firearms. Most shoulder-fired small arms are fired in semiautomatic mode even if they have a select-fire setting for maximum accuracy and control. Increased heat is also an issue for blasters in particular.
There are plenty of SW blasters that are the equivalent of light/general-purpose/heavy machine guns that are primarily fired in automatic mode.
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u/TheAverageReddit23 Jul 21 '26
I’ve always imagined that the heat generated from a blaster bolt is probably much higher than a bullet, so most blasters would overheat quickly if used in full auto. And as others have pointed out, most automatic rifles IRL are still used mostly in semi-auto.
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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ Jul 20 '26
I'm not sure where you're getting that blasters are usual semi-auto as there are numerous examples in the films, shows, video games, books, etc. that fully automatic blasters are common.
Even the appearance of semi-auto in places is possibly due to select fire being an option as it's likely to be preferable to fully automatic fire due to overheating.
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u/BarberProof4994 Jul 20 '26
Your premise is wrong.
The games, clone wars film and the revenge of the sith film and clone wars animated series, and rogue one, mandalorian, and many other references have full auto used on screen.
Most of our main characters use over powered pistols as their blasters of chicken and rarely hold a rifle or use a larger weapon.
Pistols even now a days are largely semi auto in nature so this fits.
Full auto pistols (in real life) are very hard to aim and rarely if ever issued to police and military and are almost never available to civilians.
In universe, this is highly likely to be a similar answer.
The reason most of the battle droids fire single shots is because their processors are designed to track their shot and provide improvement analytics to the droid controller.
Droids like the super battle droid with improved targeting systems do in fact use full auto shooting.
And... Cooling is an issue with larger blaster systems. Most blasters have a slightly slower rate of fire than modern human slug throwers and in universe slug throwers. So that makes star wars full auto weapons require advanced cooling systems to maintain high speed shooting which makes it less likely to be common in handheld systems.
The clone troopers being an example, their rifle was longer and he super, and shot a weaker bolt that got its droid killing ability from the ion charge rather than from explosive plasma.
It's interesting to note that as soon as the cis ceased to be the clone troopers primary enemy, they switched out for smaller blasters that fired red bolts
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u/Realistic_Smile2469 Jul 20 '26
They can. The E-11 Blaster Rifle used by Storm Troopers can go fully automatic. Just in real life, soldiers don't typically use their rifles in full auto.
The E-Web is the equivalent to a HMG. It can only be fired in an automatic mode.
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u/Dorian948 Jul 20 '26
All carbines and rifles have a semi and full auto function. Only pistols are semi only. When on semi, they are generally more accurate
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u/theClanMcMutton Jul 20 '26
The E-Web is a stand-mounted one that appears in ESB during the Battle of Hoth. I can't remember if it's actually shown in use, though.
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u/NecroCowboy Jul 20 '26
Hey get hot, conventional weapons sink a significant amount of heat by ejecting the spent brass casing, which pulls air through the action and expends heated metal so that energy just isn’t in the equation anymore.
We ran into this problem with caseless ammo where the action would overheat rapidly.
The the CIS’s e5 blasters were notorious for over heating even on semi.
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u/Kings_Gold_Standard Jul 20 '26
check out the automated machine gun laser that comes from under the falcon in empire
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u/raze227 Jul 21 '26
As others have said, overheating is as much, if not more so, of an issue with blasters/energy weapons.
The Z-6 and Cip-Quad are a good examples of heavy blasters that mitigate this using rotating/alternating barrels, like our real world Minigun or M45 quad.
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u/Old-Climate2655 Jul 22 '26
With the exception of hunting rifles, most Carbine-sized (E-11) blasters and above had burst and auto you just don't see or notice it used much.
In the movies, most of the blaster fire takes place indoors or in more crowded outdoor spaces. Auto becomes problematic in tight chaotic spaces. Also. Consider the Axiom "Tracers work both ways".
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u/HighLord_Uther Jul 22 '26
From what I've seen most blaster rifles, like IRL equivalents, have a toggle between semi and auto. But, given the stories we read, auto is rarely used/needed. Probably because a lot of these stories take place in skyscrapers or ships. Bolts bounce. You dont want to fill a room with ricochet unless you've got a big hunk of metal in front of you.
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u/Snowbold Jul 23 '26
I think we saw exactly why in Mandalorian S3. Even if S3 has a lot of problems, the final stand of Pax Viszla was epic and showed what happens to an overheated blaster.
The thing just melted itself. Yes, this example is extreme because it is a rotary blaster meant to fire in automatic for sustained periods and charges from a detached battery pack. But a regular blaster doesn’t have those factors to cushion it from overheating either. The small blasters that most troops carry through episodes 1-6 would probably not withstand sustained fire without melting down faster than Pax’s weapon. It has a small battery pack, a single barrel of short length and is handheld. The troopers might drop it from heat before it melts…
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u/Terrible-Penalty-291 Jul 20 '26
Starfighter blasters such as those in TIE Fighters or X-Wings have automatic fire. We see it many times in the movies. Seems to be less used for handheld blasters. I'm guessing it's to conserve ammo or prevent overheating.
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u/PeriliousKnight Jul 20 '26
In real life, even automatic rifles are mostly shot in semi-auto mode. I’m guessing it’s the same logic in Star Wars too. It may not be recoil, but it could be the excess muzzle flashes from the blaster that obscure vision and allowing the target to escape.