I thought sabot rounds or missiles where the only thing that could hurt a transformer. Cemetary Wind used a machines guns on Ratchet and hurted him?

 

Its been around 10 years since the first movie. I think its safe to say there have been some off screen advancements in anti-Transformer tech.

 

To be honest they kinda broke that rule right away when Lennox killed Blackout with a grenade launcher to the crotch besides what the hell's special about sabot rounds anyways?

 

According to Lennox while bullets don't penetrate suppression fire rattles Transformer circuits.

Basically Cemetery Wind are using NEST tactics which the Autobots taught to NEST.

 

You guys need to watch the movies more closely.

Sabot rounds burn hot enough to damage Transformers.

Lennox's crotch-shot to Blackout happened right in the middle of the airstrike Epps also called in on him at the same time.

N.E.S.T. developed special ammunition and tactics to combat Decepticons, some of which included relatively lighter firearms since they "jack up their circuitry," etc.

 

Lennox's Blackout kill was using Sabot rounds. They'd gotten infantry variant Sabot shells from Sector Seven.

And that was in movie one. By ROTF they've modified human arms to do decent damage to Transformers without requring Sabot rounds. If you listen at once point you can hear Lennox or Epps or one of the soldiers ask for a clip of some fictional ammunition which is something NEST seemed to have created.

 

Nothing particularly special about sabot rounds that would make a huge difference with rifles or pistols. It improves the accuracy and you get an increase in the velocity but not such an increase that it would make a regular gun into a super gun. If it's an armor piercing punch you are going for then the type of material the bullet is made of becomes the important bit. Although you can combine sabot round with armor piercing materials to get a little extra kinetic punch thanks to the increased velocity.

Sabot rounds mostly come into play with tanks since the increased accuracy combined with the aiming aids that allow pin point shots on the move that couldn't be done by the tanks of World War II.

I think it just came down to the writers wanted something that sounded cool without actually knowing anything about guns. If you had to shot at something armored and you don't have a tank most people are going to yell for AP rounds instead of sabot rounds.

 

There was some confusion by the writers. The first notice of effective weapons was high temperature burning metal such as magnesium or thermite which damaged Scorpinoc.
A sabot round is just a very high velocity projectile that is small diameter with a very high sectional density. Didn't really bother the transformers.
Heating transformium past the melting point and up to burning temperatures appear to be unrecoverable wounds.
The shot to the crotch in the first movie was a flare or thermite through a damaged gap in armour into the inner parts.

 

I was wondering about the smelting machines in KSI, that were aimed at Ratchet's head.

Given how durable Autobot heads can be, it looks like those hear guns are cranked to a low setting.