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The AH-99 Blackfoot is a reconnaissance attack helicopter used exclusively by NATO forces in ArmA 3.

Overview[]

  • Roles:
    • Observation
    • Reconnaissance
    • Light gunship
    • Laser targeting
« A two-seat attack helicopter armed with 20 mm Minigun, ASRAAM and DAGR missiles. Even though the construction dates back some time and the program faced cancelation in the first years of the 21st century, the project was finished successfully and the Blackfoot became the first attack helicopter with stealth technology applied even to the main rotor. The Blackfoot is extremely fast, agile and hard to detect even by contemporary sensors, but it's slowly becoming outdated.
Field Manual
»

Design[]

The Blackfoot is a five-bladed, rotary-wing stealth helicopter designed for both armed reconnaissance and ground attack duties.

Arma3-Blackfoot-Loadout

AH-99 pylon configuration

Armament
By default, the Blackfoot is armed with a 20 mm minigun mounted onto an external gun turret fitted beneath the cockpit. It is pre-loaded with a single 1,000-round linked belt of high-explosive (HE) shells.

It has up to six pylons (three on each wing) stored within retractable internal bays on either side of the fuselage that support dynamic loadouts.

  • Any of the following munitions can be fitted onto either the innermost or outermost pylons (1-2, 5-6):
    • ASRAAM (1×)
    • Scalpel (1×)
    • DAGR (12×)
    • DAR (12×)
  • The centre pylons (3-4) on both wings can only fit the following two missile types:
    • ASRAAM (1×)
    • Scalpel (1×)

The gunner's turret also has a laser designator that can be used to mark targets for its own DAGR rockets, or for precision guided bombs dropped from fixed-wing jets like the GBU-12.

Arma3-blackfoot-01

The Blackfoot's air-to-ground weapons suite works best against light/medium armour.

Features
The Blackfoot's rotors are modified so that they operate much more silently. It is more difficult to hear a Blackfoot flying in compared to the Mi-48, which can be easily heard from many kilometres away.

Meanwhile, its stealth coating also ensures that fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft vehicles like the ZSU-39 will have difficulty detecting it from afar; provided that the crew do not activate the Blackfoot's own radar whilst within range of their sensors.

Mobility
Unlike its bulkier and cumbersome CSAT counterpart, the Blackfoot is highly agile and very fast for its size, though subsequently it isn't as well protected in comparison. Nonetheless, it can gain lift and generate thrust rapidly at almost any angle and direction.

Its manoeuvrability rivals the MH-9 and is able to achieve this without sacrificing protection or armament to deal with a variety of threats. However, the Blackfoot does have a slight problem with losing a lot of lift while performing high speed/high-G turns, or from pulling out of a dive.

Arma3-blackfoot-02

Lacking proper ATGMs, this Blackfoot gunship was unable to destroy even a single MBT after expending two thirds of its DAGRs.

Drawbacks
The Blackfoot is ill-equipped to tackle heavily armoured ground threats. While its default loadout of DAGRs perform sufficiently against medium-armoured vehicles, they will not be able to inflict much damage on Main Battle Tanks. Its 20 mm cannon is also quite weak in comparison to the Mi-48's 30 mm autocannon, and is only useful against infantry, light vehicles, and other low-flying aircraft.

It should also be noted that unlike the larger (fixed-wing) Blackfish VTOL, the Blackfoot is unable to serve as an airborne radar platform. Even when its active radar is switched on, the Blackfoot is not actually capable of relaying targeting information to data link-capable vehicles.

Overall, it is better utilised either for forward air control purposes (specifically laser targeting ground targets) or intercepting enemy helicopters. Its minimal air-to-ground capabilities, even with Skalpel ATGMs equipped via dynamic loadouts, renders it inferior to its CSAT counterpart for ground-attack roles.

Crew Capacity
The Blackfoot supports a crew of two consisting of both the pilot and gunner. It is not capable of transporting any passengers.

Protection[]

The Blackfoot has a base armour value of 40.

Hull[]

Hull damage is calculated based on the integrity of other components on the Blackfoot. Until all other parts of the helicopter have been critically damaged, the hull itself can never be "destroyed".

Engines[]

Each of the Blackfoot's engines can survive 28 points of damage (there are two in total). They take 300% increased damage from high-explosive (HE) type weapons.

If damaged: Reduced power output and makes it difficult to gain both speed and altitude.
If destroyed: Can potentially blow up the Blackfoot instantly if overall status of helicopter is at critical.

Fuel tank[]

The Blackfoot's fuel tank can resist up to 40 points of damage before failure.

Rupturing the Blackfoot's fuel tank will not result in a total loss unless the helicopter's damage levels are already at critical.

Instruments[]

Consists of the pilot/gunner flight instruments, Multi-Functional Displays (MFD) and Helmet Mounted Displays (HMD). They can incur 80 points of damage before failure.

If damaged: Occasional flickering of MFDs and crew HMDs. Other instruments unaffected.
If destroyed: MFDs and HMDs disabled. Instruments may not display proper readings.

Main rotor[]

The main rotor can survive 160 points of damage before failure. It takes 250% increased damage from HE-type weapons.

A disabled main rotor makes it increasingly difficult to maintain the Blackfoot's lift. Unless the tail rotor has also been disabled however, the Blackfoot can still be (reasonably) controlled at low airspeeds.

Tail rotor[]

The tail rotor can resist up to 120 points of damage before failure. It receives 600% increased damage from HE-type weapons.

A disabled tail rotor will drastically increase torque from the main rotor. At low airspeeds, the Blackfoot will become extremely difficult to control due to constant yaw shifting to one side.

Stealth[]

The Blackfoot provides limited stealth against active radars and infrared sensors. When pitted against fighter radars, it has a higher chance of staying undetected by hovering above ground clutter rather than flying over open terrain:

RCS[]

The Blackfoot has a radar cross-section rating of 0.7, which lowers the maximum detection range of active radars by 30%.

IR[]

The Blackfoot has reduced visibility on the infrared spectrum, and can only be detected at 80% of an infrared-based sensor's maximum range (factor of 0.8; reduction of 20%).

Visual[]

The Blackfoot does not apply any reductions to visual-based sensors and can be tracked at full ranges.

Sensors[]

Capable of both reconnaissance and providing fire support, the Blackfoot utilises several types of sensors optimised for its role as an air-to-ground platform:

Sensor type Max range (Air/Ground) Min range (Air/Ground) Affected by environment? Target max speed (km/h) Azimuth coverage (°) Elevation coverage (°) Friendly identification range (m)
Active A: 5,000 m
G: 4,000 m
A: 5,000 m
G: 4,000 m
None 450 km/h 180° 90° 3,000 m
Infrared A: 3,000 m
G: 2,000 m
A: 500 m
G: 500 m
Fog (0.005%) 252 km/h 46° 34° 2,000 m
Laser A: 6,000 m
G: 6,000 m
A: 6,000 m
G: 6,000 m
Nothing 1e+10 km/h 180° 180° 0 m
NV A: 6,000 m
G: 6,000 m
A: 6,000 m
G: 6,000 m
Nothing 1e+10 km/h 180° 180° 0 m
Passive A: 16,000 m
G: 16,000 m
A: 16,000 m
G: 16,000 m
Nothing 1e+10 km/h 360° 360° 12,000 m
Visual A: 2,000 m
G: 1,500 m
A: 500 m
G: 500 m
Fog/Light (6%) 252 km/h 46° 34° 2,000 m

Active Radar[]

The Blackfoot's Active Radar can only detect targets once they get within bounds of the sensor's range (represented by the teal semi-circle on the SENSORS panel). It has an elevation offset of 30 degrees.

Infrared Sensor[]

The Blackfoot's IR Sensor is located in the gun turret camera (represented by the red cone on the SENSORS panel). Although it is technically affected by heavy fog, the range reduction effect is so miniscule (-0.125 metre reduction) that it will be barely noticeable.

Laser Sensor[]

The Blackfoot's Laser Sensor is forward-facing only. Any designated targets will become visible on the Blackfoot's SENSORS panel only when the helicopter is (mostly) facing in the direction of the laser spot.

NV Sensor[]

The Blackfoot's NV Sensor is forward-facing only. Any IR grenades on the ground will only become visible on the SENSORS panel when the Blackfoot is (mostly) facing in the direction of the grenade.

Passive Radar[]

The Blackfoot's Passive Radar can detect Active Radar threats in any direction (regardless of the helicopter's facing direction).

Visual Sensor[]

The Blackfoot's Visual Sensor is located in the gun turret camera (represented by the orange cone on the SENSORS panel). The Visual Sensor can be affected by heavy fog and can lose up to 6% of its range depending on its thickness. The Visual Sensor becomes completely blind at nighttime and very low-light conditions.

Armament[]

NOTE: Only the weapons used on the default loadout for the Blackfoot are listed here. For full details on ordnance that can be mounted on the Blackfoot's pylons, refer to the dynamic loadouts article.

The gunner position controls all weapon systems on the Blackfoot. Except for the Minigun 20 mm, both the DAGR rocket pods and ASRAAM missiles are stored on racks located inside the Blackfoot's internal weapons bays located on both sides of the fuselage.

For optics, the turret's camera has access to three fields of view and can toggle a day, night or black-/white-hot thermal vision modes. The turret itself has a horizontal rotation limit of 120 degrees in both directions. Vertically however, it is restricted to a depression of 51 degrees and an elevation of only 9 degrees:

Minigun 20 mm[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-ah99blackfoot-minigun20mm
Base damage value Aerodynamic friction Initial velocity (m/s) Penetration depth (mm)
60 -0.00078 1,030 51.63

General-purpose 20 mm Gatling cannon. Fires 20 mm high-explosive (HE) shells that are effective against infantry, unarmoured/lightly armoured ground vehicles and low, slow-flying aircraft.

It can attain a fire rate of up to 1,500 rounds per minute and has a muzzle velocity of 1,030 m/s. Accuracy-wise, the Minigun 20 mm has a dispersion of 0.0055 rad at distances of 1,800 metres. Its HE shells have a blast radius of 1.6 metres.

The Fire Control System features automatic lead/zeroing on targets moving at speeds of up to ~ 110 km/h but requires 0.5 seconds to finish adjustments. The Minigun 20 mm can also be zeroed manually by the gunner, though it is only available in adjustments of 100 m increments/decrements up to 800 m. After 800 m, this jumps to 1000 m, 1200 m, 1500 m, 1800 m, 2100 m and finally 2500 m.

DAGR[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-ah99blackfoot-dagr
Main article: Dynamic loadouts#DAGR

Infrared-guided air-to-ground anti-vehicle rockets. Relies on the Blackfoot's IR Sensor to function.

ASRAAM[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-ah99blackfoot-asraam
Main article: Dynamic loadouts#ASRAAM

Infrared-guided air-to-air missile. Relies on the Blackfoot's IR Sensor to function.

Trivia[]

  • As stated in the Field Manual, the Blackfoot's origins are derived from the real-world "RAH-66 Comanche" prototype helicopter.[1] However, unlike the Armaverse's Blackfoot gunship, the real-world Comanche was cancelled by the U.S. Army in 2004 and it is highly unlikely that its development will ever be revived.[2]
  • The Blackfoot was not originally available in ArmA 3's Alpha and was only later added in the Beta (as part of Game Update 0.70).[3]
  • Before Game Update 1.62, the Blackfoot's 20 mm cannon fired shells in bursts of ten rounds. This was later reduced to five rounds after the patch's release.[4]
    • However, Game Update 1.78 would subsequently remove this altogether, allowing the gunner to fire shells semi-automatically rather than being restricted to a ten-/five-round burst fire mode.[5]
  • Prior to the release of the Tanks DLC, the Blackfoot lacked the ability to use a laser designator unlike its real-world counterpart. The DLC's release finally gave the gunner the ability to use a laser designator (slaved to the turret) to mark targets for laser-guided munitions.[6]

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. Pike, J, Sherman, R 1999, RAH-66 Comanche, Military Analysis Network, viewed 4 February 2024, <https://man.fas.org/dod-101/sys/ac/rah-66.htm>.
  2. Demotes-Mainard, J 2012, RAH-66 Comanche– The Self-Inflicted Termination: Exploring the Dynamics of Change in Weapons Procurement, Defense Technical Information Center, viewed 4 February 2024, <https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA564477.pdf>.
  3. van 't Land, J.J. 2013, SPOTREP #00006, Arma 3, viewed 24 March 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00006>.
  4. Kovařič, V 2016, SPOTREP #00058, Arma 3, viewed 22 September 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00058>.
  5. Kovařič, V 2017, SPOTREP #00076, Arma 3, viewed 22 September 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00076>.
  6. Kovařič, V 2018, SPOTREP #00079, Arma 3, viewed 24 March 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00079>.

External links[]

See also[]

Aircraft of comparable role and configuration[]

Vehicles of ArmA 3
Wheeled AFV-4 GorgonAMV-7 MarshallHatchbackHEMTTHunterIfritKartMB 4WDMSE-3 MaridOffroadProwlerQilinRhino MGS (UP) • StriderSUVTempestTractorTruckQuadbikeUGV StomperVanZamak (MRL)
Tracked 2S9 SochorAWC NyxBTR-K KamyshCRV-6e BobcatED-1D Mini UGV (ED-1E) • IFV-6a CheetahIFV-6c PantherFV-720 MoraM2A1 Slammer (A4 UP) • M4 ScorcherM5 SandstormMBT-52 KumaT-100 Varsuk (X Futura) • T-140 Angara (T-140K) • ZSU-39 Tigris
Rotor-wing AH-9 PawneeAH-99 BlackfootAR-2 DarterCH-49 MohawkCH-67 HuronDemining DroneMH-9 Hummingbird (M900) • Mi-48 KajmanMi-290 TaruMQ-12 FalconPO-30 OrcaUH-80 Ghost HawkUtility DroneWY-55 Hellcat
Fixed-wing A-143 BuzzardA-149 GryphonA-164 WipeoutCaesar BTTF/A-181 Black Wasp IIKH-3A FenghuangMQ-4A GreyhawkTo-199 NeophronTo-201 ShikraUCAV SentinelV-44X BlackfishY-32 Xi'an
Aquatic Assault BoatMotorboatRHIBSpeedboatSDVWater Scooter
(Parenthesis) denote variants.
Karts DLC | Helicopters DLC | Apex DLC | Jets DLC | Laws of War DLC | Tanks DLC | Contact DLC
Arma3-factionicon-nato NATO - Vehicles (ArmA 3)
Wheeled AMV-7 MarshallHEMTTHunterProwlerQuadbikeRhino MGS (UP) • UGV Stomper
Tracked CRV-6e BobcatED-1D Pelter (ED-1E Roller) • IFV-6a CheetahIFV-6c PantherM2A1 Slammer (A4 UP) • M4 ScorcherM5 Sandstorm
Rotor-wing AH-9 PawneeAH-99 BlackfootAL-6 PelicanAR-2 DarterCH-67 HuronMH-9 HummingbirdMQ-12 FalconUH-80 Ghost Hawk
Fixed-wing A-164 WipeoutF/A-181 Black Wasp IIMQ-4A GreyhawkUCAV SentinelV-44X Blackfish
Aquatic Assault Boat (Rescue) • Speedboat MinigunSDV
(Parenthesis) denote variants.
Helicopters DLC | Apex DLC | Jets DLC | Laws of War DLC | Tanks DLC | Contact DLC
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