Dynamic Loadout Weapon Guide

Overview of the many different kinds of weapons that aircrafts can carry in Arma 3.

Introduction

In this guide I will show you how to use and how effective each weapon of the Arma 3 vanilla jet arsenal is against ground targets

This guide shall be for people who want to fly jets in ArmA 3 and don´t know what weapons they should choose on the battlefield.
The arsenal ranges from internal guns all the way up to laser guided bombs as seen in the right timeline.

Most of these info´s are from my personal experience and from the ArmedAssault Wikipedia. This entire guide may be not up to date in the near future anymore, but I will try my best to update this guide. Also there are some notes behind some weapons that need to be mentioned.

The effectivity ranges from Bad-Red (Ineffective) -> Decent-Yellow (Takes many/long/hard to kill) -> Good-Green (Easy to destroy/kill)
The damage tests have been made at NATO, CSAT and AAF vehicles, I only mention NATO vehicles as a reference here, similiar vehicles have similiar armour values etc.


The effectivity will be shown in coloured pictures for each weapon/weapon catagory

For example:

Good
Decent
Bad

Air-to-Air Weapons will NOT be mentioned, because most A-A weapons destroy nearly any aircraft in 1 hit and are a topic on it´s own.
I maybe doing a guide for Air-to-Air weapons in the future.


So let´s begin!

Primary Weapons - Main & External Cannons

30mm Gatling Gun (based on the GAU-8/A Avenger)

Range: 4km
Ammunition: 1000 Rounds
Warhead: High-Explosive-Tracer (HE-T)
Type: Projectile
Vehicle: A-164 Wipeout

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NOTE: The first salvo has a decent recoil kick.

30mm Cannon (based on the Gsh-301 30mm Cannon)

Range: 4km
Ammunition: 500 Rounds
Warhead: High-Explosive-Tracer (HE-T)
Type:Projectile
Vehicle: To-199 Neophron

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NOTE: The cannon has an even bigger kick, so you need to compensate for the recoil.

20mm Twin-Cannon

Range: 3km
Ammunition: 300 Rounds (External Gun)
Warhead: High-Explosive-Tracer (HE-T)
Type: Projectile
Vehicle: A-143 Buzzard

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NOTE: This cannon is basically only good to suppress infantary or disable vehicles.

20mm Minigun (based on the M61 20mm Minigun)

Range: 3km
Ammunition: 450 Rounds
Warhead: High-Explosive (HE)
Type: Projectile
Vehicle: A-149 Gryphon & F/A-181 Black Wasp II

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Gsh 30mm Cannon (based on the Gsh-30 30mm Cannon)

Range: 4km
Ammunition: 180
Warhead: High-Explosive (HE)
Type: Projectile
Vehicle: To-201 Shikra

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Rockets

Shrieker Rocket Pods HE-Variant (based on the Hydra 70 Rocket Pods)

Range: 4km
Ammunition: 7 x Rockets per rocket pod
Warhead: High-Explosive (HE)
Type: Single-fire Unguided Rocket

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Shrieker Rocket Pods AP-Variant (Note: Anti-Personnel, NOT Armor-Piercing)

Range: 4km
Ammunition: 7 x Rockets per rocket pod
Warhead: High-Explosve-Fragmentation (HE-Frag presumably, no official data known)
Type: Single-fire Unguided Rocket

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DAR Rocket Pods (based on the Hydra 70 Rocket Pods)

Range: 3km
Ammunition: 12 x Rockets per pylon
Warhead: High-Explosive (HE)
Type: Unguided Rocket

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NOTE: These rockets can suppress entire squads, but they also have a high fire rate. So you should fire salvos with 2-6 rockets only to be precise.

Skyfire (fictional)

Range: 3km
Ammunition: 19 x Rockets per pylon
Warhead: High-Explosive (HE)
Type: Unguided Rocket

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NOTE: Similiar to the DAR, but a little bit less accurate and a slower fire rate.

Tratnyr HE & AP Rocket Pod (based on the S-8 Rocket Pod)

Range: 4km
Ammunition: 20 x Rockets per pylon
Warhead: High-Explosive (HE) & Anti-Personnel (AP)
Type: Single-fire Unguided Rocket

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NOTE: Counterpart to the Shrieker, same damage value´s, but less accurate and bigger ammo count.

Missiles

Macer & Macer II AGM Guided Missile (based on the AGM-65G Maverick)

Range: 6km
Ammuntion: 1 x or 3 x missiles per pylon
Warhead: High-Explosive-Anti-Tank (HEAT)
Type: Infrared/Laser Guided Missile

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NOTE: By default you only 6 of these on your A-164, so it´s best to prioritize hard targets first like tanks or anti-air vehicles. A direct hit destroys every vehicle, even tanks.

Scalpel ATGM IR-Guided Missile (based on the 9K121 Vikhr Missile)

Range: 6km
Ammunition 1 x or 3 x per pylon
Warhead: High-Explosve-Anti-Tank (HEAT)
Type: Infrared/Laser Guided Missile

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NOTE: These missiles are not very manuverable, so they should be used at longer ranges.

DAGR Infrared Guided Missiles (fictional)

Range: 3km
Ammunition: 12 x missiles per pod
Warhead: High-Explosive-Anti-Tank (HEAT)
Type: Infrared/Laser Guided Missile

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NOTE: These are basically guided DAR rockets, they have the same damage values and splash radius.

Sharur Air-to-Ground Missile (based on the Kh-25MTP)

Range: 6km
Ammunition: 1 x per pylon
Warhead: High-Explosive-Anti-Tank (HEAT)
Type: Infrared Guided Missile

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KH25 AGM (based on the Kh-25 Missile)

Range: 6km
Ammunition: 1 x per pylon
Warhead: High-Explosive-Anti-Tank (HEAT)
Type: Infrared Guided Missile

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NOTE: The To-201 Shikra can equip those, but can carry only a few of them, so they should be used only against tanks.

Radar Guided Missile

AGM-88C (based on the AGM-88 HARM Missile)

Range: 16km
Ammunition: 1 x Missile per pylon
Warhead: High-Explosive (HE)
Type: Radar Guided Missile

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NOTE: This missile only locks on radars and it one hits any radar vehicle. Additionaly you could theoratically use even a passive radar to lock onto radar contacts. However these missiles can be avoided by the enemy if he/she turns off his radar and pops smoke.

KH-58 (based on the KH-58 Missile)

Range: 16km
Ammunition: 1 x Missile per pylon
Warhead: High Explosive (HE)
Type: Radar Guided Missile

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Bombs - Guided & Unguided

GBU-12 Laser Guided Bomb (based on the GBU-12 Paveway II)

Range: ~Roughly 10km
Ammunition: 1 x per pylon
Warhead: 227kg (500lb) TNT (Basically High-Explosive)
Type: Laser Guided - CCIP Bomb

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NOTE: The GBU-12 LGB can destroy anything with one direct hit, even buildings.
You need a laser to use this weapon properly or dive-bomb, the bomb has an LOAL (Lock-on after Launch) feature, which means that once the bomb is released, it searches for the first and nearest target in range and guide itself into it. Use the CCIP mode to dive-bomb properly.

CBU-85 (based on the CBU-87 Cluster Bomb), RBK-500F (based on the RBK-500F Cluster Bomb & BL-778 (based on the BL-755)



Range: ~10km
Ammunition: 1 x per pylon
Warhead: Canister including about 25 small high-explosive (HE) bomblets
Type: Laser Guided - CCIP Bomb

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NOTE: The submunition is only really effective against infantary and tires. Also watch out, some of the submunitions may not explode on impact (UXO), which makes them dangerous for friendlies passing through the bombed area. USE WITH CAUTION!

Mk-82 (based on the Mk-82)

Range: ~10km
Ammunition: 1 x per pylon
Warhead: 227kg (500lb) TNT (basically High-Explosive)
Type: Unguided Bomb

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NOTE: This bomb isn´t guided so you need to work with the CCIP mode in your cockpit to deliever precise bomb strikes.

KAB 250 LGB (based on the KAB-250 LGB)

Range: ~10km
Ammunition: 1 x per pylon
Warhead: 256kg (565b) TNT (basically High-Explosive)
Type: Laser Guided - CCIP Bomb

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LOM-250G (based on the FAB-250M-54)

Range: ~10km
Ammunition: 1 x per pylon
Warhead: 256kg (565lb) TNT (basically High-Explosive)
Type: Laser Guided - CCIP Bomb

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GBU-51 SDB (based on the GBU-51/B Low Collateral Damage Bomb)

Range: ~10km
Ammunition: 4 x Bombs per pylon
Warhead: 227kg (500lb) High-Explosive (HE) [Note to myself, this data may be not correct.]
Type: Laser Guided - CCIP Bomb

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NOTE: These smaller bombs are nearly as good as their older brothers the GBU-12, but they come in packs of four for longer operations. These bomb tend to be slower because they glide into their target, also they have a quite decent smaller splash radius and are really meant for precision bombing.

End

I think that was all! If you still have any questions regarding any of these weapons, how they work, functions, data or whatever leave it down in the comment section.

And if you want to know how I know so much, I have over 800+ hours in flying in Arma 3, most of it in jets though.
If you wanna rock singleplayer, coop or multiplayer missions, this intel is gold worth.


I hope you enjoyed it!

I will work on an Air-to-Air Guide soon maybe.


PS: Some information may be changed in the near future, but I will mention them in the changelog. Happy hunting!


Changelog:


-08.06.2018 Fixed mistake in the Introduction section (Thank you Soup!)
-08.04.2018 Guide created



USEFUL LINKS & PICTURES


Sensor Chart:

CCIP Bombing Mode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantly_computed_impact_point

Types of warheads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhead

[Defi]

ive oneshot every tank using gbu-12's, i think the rating should be a bit better then decent. mk82 i understand as its not as versatile as the gbu-12. but the gbu-12 is extremely powerfull

[saber720]

Nice guide. I would add one tip for the anti-radiation missiles,
Sometimes the enemy AA will be in two separate radar and weapon units, which (if placed smartly) will be some distance apart. Since the AR missiles only lock to radar, if the missile hits its target it does not necessarily mean the area is safe to fly over

[Grossaaa]

AP on the rockets stands actually for armor piercing. It's heat. Why it isnt named that is beyond me, but whatever.

[Lights]

@The Great Soup TV Oh I screwed up! I am going to change it ASAP. Green = Good Yellow = Decent Red = Bad

[The Great Soup TV]

What a nice and easy Guide, this is just what i was looking for.

[The Great Soup TV]

Is the Bad, Decent, Good colors right? because i see Good in the red color, decent on the yellow and bad on the green.