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The Qilin is a Light Strike Vehicle used by both CSAT recon forces and Viper operatives in ArmA 3. It was added with the release of the Apex DLC.

Overview[]

  • Roles:
    • Troop transport
    • Reconnaissance
    • Fire support
« An agile (maximum speed 160 km/h) light protected vehicle for up to 7 soldiers – depending on the configuration. The Qilin provides safe and fast operating speeds with superior levels of mobility and maneuverability. It is highly adaptable to severe, rugged and restrictive terrains while providing off-road, cross-country mobility under all types of weather conditions. The vehicle was produced in China with Russian cooperation, so some minor influence from Ifrit MRAP can be seen in the Qilin design. The Qilin is a highly customizable platform which can be fitted according to the mission. CSAT Pacific forces primarily use the unarmed variant and the armed variants fitted with either a 6.5 mm minigun or a Vorona missile launcher.
Field Manual
»

Design[]

Premium content logo
This is a premium asset that requires ownership of the Apex expansion pack.

The Qilin is a 4x4 all-terrain, high-mobility vehicle designed to be light, fast and transportable by air.

Features
It is available in three variants: a baseline unarmed version that lacks any weapons, and two armed variants fitted with either a 6.5 mm Gatling gun or an anti-tank missile launcher.

Utilised by CSAT's recon and special operations units, the Qilin is tailored towards hit-and-run attacks thanks to its combination of decent off-road handling and speed.

Depending on its loadout, the Qilin can suppress large groups of infantry/unarmoured ground vehicles or be used to ambush tanks with its wire-guided missiles. Qilins can be airlifted by Y-32 vehicle transports, as well via slingloading with Mi-290 cargo helicopters.

Notable Traits
Unlike its NATO counterpart, the armed versions do not have to compromise on transportation capacity and can provide seating for up to six passengers (including the gunner and excluding the driver), regardless of the variant.

Arma3-qilin-03

Laying down suppressive fire with the Qilin's 6.5 mm minigun.

In stark contrast to NATO Prowlers, minigun-armed Qilins are better at providing suppression when the vehicle is on the move. Even though the Qilin's minigun is not fitted with magnified optics as opposed to the Prowler's 12.7 mm heavy machine gun, it compensates by having more than three times the rate of fire.

Its high dispersion is also one of the few cases where its poorer accuracy actually increases the chances that the gunner will land a hit. Though this might appear to be counterintuitive, a Qilin's gunner need only keep their weapon aimed in the target's direction and eventually, one or more rounds will strike the target or any other targets next to them. HMG-armed Prowlers on the other hand, need to remain stationary or drive at slow speeds, as the 12.7 mm HMG's combination of a low ROF and high accuracy means that the gunner is more likely to miss their shots on the move.

Drawbacks
9M135 Vorona-armed Qilins suffer from not possessing autonomous guidance. Attempting to direct the missile towards its target while the Qilin is mobile can be difficult to achieve, particularly if the Qilin is driving off-road or on uneven surfaces. Unlike the Prowler's ATGM launcher, not having the ability to toggle an alternate top-attack flight profile effectively forces the Qilin's crew to flank their targets for optimal results.

Crew Capacity
All variants have enough seats for the driver and up to six (or five in the case of the armed variants) passengers. For the armed variants, the gunner is considered as the sixth passenger.

Variants[]

Arma3-render-qilinhex
Baseline variant.

It has enough seats to transport up to six passengers, one of whom sits in the (weaponless) turret ring located in the centre of the vehicle. The ring in the centre allows for its passenger to stand up, giving them more clearance while firing on the move.

All other passengers are also capable of firing out of the vehicle, but the vehicle itself is otherwise completely unarmed.

This variant has a gross weight of 3924.35 kg.

Arma3-render-qilinminigunhex
Armed variant of the Qilin.

It can also transport the same amount of passengers (including the gunner) but has a 6.5 mm minigun mounted on a turret ring located in the centre of the vehicle. The minigun comes pre-loaded with a single 500-round belt box of 6.5 mm ammunition, and has an additional 2 belt boxes stored in reserve for a combined total of 1,500 rounds.

This variant has a gross weight of 3924.35 kg.

Arma3-render-qilinathex
Alternate armed variant that is fitted with an anti-tank missile launcher.

It is identical to the Minigun variant but is armed with a forward-facing 9M135 Vorona wire-guided AT missile launcher instead. The 9M135 is pre-loaded with a single missile by default and has a further 5 missiles to reload from (for a total of six missiles). It transports the same number of passengers as the Minigun variant.

This variant has a gross weight of 3907.92 kg.

Camouflage[]

  • Black: Pattern-less chrome black paint scheme. Has very limited uses outside of operations set during the night or in areas with very low visibility.
  • Hex: Arid Hexacam camouflage pattern. Useful for forested, grass plains, and desert environments.
  • Green Hex: Tropical Hexacam pattern camouflage. This is used in heavily forested and tropic environments.

Protection[]

All variants of the Qilin have base armour values of 75. They cannot be fitted with Explosive Reactive Armour blocks/panels, nor any slat cages.

The following highlighted positions serve as weak points on Qilin LSVs:

Arma3-qilin-hitpoints

LEGEND
Green = Body
Orange = Engine
Violet = Fuel tank

Hit zones are identical across all models regardless of configuration.


Body[]

The Qilin's body can incur up to 37.5 points of damage. The body's destruction will not cause a catastrophic kill by itself if destroyed, but can potentially result in one if the vehicle's "health" pool is near critical.

It takes 150% increased damage from high-explosive (HE) based weapons.

Hull[]

The Qilin's hull can resist 112.5 points of damage.

No amount of damage against the hull is transferred onto the Qilin's main "health" pool. It has 50% resistance to HE-type munitions.

Engine[]

The engine can take up to 60 points of damage before failure. It will not cause a catastrophic kill by itself unless the Qilin is critically damaged.

50% of incoming damage on the engine is always transferred onto the Qilin's "health" pool. It has 50% resistance against HE-type munitions.

If damaged: Reduces power output, acceleration is decreased and it may become impossible to climb uphill.
If destroyed: Instantly immobilises the Qilin.

Fuel tank[]

The fuel tank can only take a meagre 18.75 points of damage before rupturing.

50% of incoming damage onto the fuel tank is always inflicted onto the Qilin's "health" pool. It has 50% resistance to HE-type munitions. A destroyed fuel tank will not cause a catastrophic kill unless the Qilin is critically damaged.

If damaged: Gradually leak up to 50% of fuel over time.
If destroyed: Causes it to rapidly lose its entire fuel capacity in just a few seconds.

Wheels[]

All four wheels are able to resist 150 points of damage.

They are susceptible to small arms fire and take 400% damage from explosive-type damage, meaning any HE-type munitions or landmines can instantly pop them. No amount of damage inflicted is transferred onto the Qilin's "health" pool.

Destroying all the wheels will be needed to immobilise the entire vehicle. Depending on which and how many are remaining, it is entirely possible for the Qilin to continue driving even with three out of four tyres missing (though making simple manoeuvres will be almost impossible).

Armament[]

The Qilin's gunner always controls the weapon systems mounted above the turret ring (Minigun 6.5 mm/9M135 Vorona). In the case of the unarmed variants, passengers can fire out of the vehicle with their own weapons.

The Minigun 6.5 mm does not have optics and lacks an ironsight. Only the 9M135 launcher features an optical scope that can switch between two fields of view and toggle either a day or orange-/black-hot thermal vision mode:

Minigun 6.5 mm[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-qilin-minigun65mm

NOTE: Only available on the Qilin (Minigun) variant.

Base damage value Aerodynamic friction Initial velocity (m/s) Penetration depth (mm)
10 -0.0009 825 39.6

General-purpose 6.5 mm minigun.

The Minigun 6.5 mm has a muzzle velocity of 825 m/s and can attain a fire rate of up to ~ 1,800 rounds per minute[note 1]. Accuracy-wise, it has a dispersion of 0.0115 rad. It will take at least 15 seconds to reload the Minigun 6.5 mm with a fresh belt box.

The turret can be fully swivelled in all directions horizontally but is vertically restricted to a maximum depression of 10 degrees and an elevation of 40 degrees.

It should be noted even though the Minigun 6.5 mm's bullets are not explosive tipped, they still inflict splash damage to any unarmoured/light armour targets that are within a 2 metre radius of wherever the bullets impact.[note 2]

9M135 Vorona[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-qilin-9m135vorona

NOTE: Only available on the Qilin (AT) variant.

Warhead Damage type Base damage value Penetration depth (mm)
Primary Tandem High-Explosive Anti-Tank 150 2.4
Secondary Tandem High-Explosive Anti-Tank 720 900

Anti-tank guided missile launcher. Fires wire-guided missiles with tandem high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warheads that can controlled up to a maximum distance of 2,000 metres. The launcher's sight features an integrated laser rangefinder.

The launcher requires 8 seconds to reload a fresh missile. There isn't a limit to the turret's horizontal rotation, but it is vertically limited to a maximum depression of 15 degrees and an elevation of 30 degrees.

Missiles have an initial launch velocity of 150 m/s and can reach speeds of up to 200 m/s in mid-flight. The warhead's primary explosive charge has a blast radius of 3.5 metres and is partially capable of penetrating up to ~ 2 millimetres of armour plating, while the secondary kinetic submunition is launched with a velocity of 1,000 m/s and can pierce up to 900 millimetres of armour plating.

FFV[]

Main article: Firing from vehicles (mechanic)#Qilin

Trivia[]

  • The Qilin is a slightly altered version of the real-world "Light Strike Vehicle Mark II", a fast attack vehicle developed by ST Kinetics Ltd of Singapore.[1]
  • The name "qilin" (Simplified Chinese: 麒麟) is derived from a Chinese mythological chimera-like creature, typically depicted as a combination of a Chinese dragon with a horse or a deer.
  • Prior to the release of the Tanks DLC, the armed variant of the Qilin was only available with a 6.5 mm minigun. Along with the 9M135 Vorona itself, the AT Qilin was eventually included as part of the platform update[2], though restrictions still apply to non-Apex owners.[3]
  • Following an overhaul to ArmA 3's thermal imaging systems in Game Update 2.10, the Vorona launcher's optical sight was changed so that its thermal vision modes now use orange-hot and black-hot colour spectrums instead of the original red-/yellow-hot mix.[4]

Gallery[]

Notes[]

  1. The Qilin's Minigun 6.5 mm has a "fake" ROF of 1,800 RPM. In actual gameplay, it only fires one projectile for every three rounds of the belt. Therefore, its true ROF is actually limited to just 600 RPM.
  2. Spill damage from this ammunition type (B_65x39_Minigun_Caseless_Green_splash) remains kinetic.

References[]

  1. Ministry of Defence Singapore 2013, The LSV MK II, 3 February, viewed 6 February 2024, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXsBZ_heSCo>.
  2. Kovařič, V 2018, SPOTREP #00079, Arma 3, viewed 24 March 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00079>.
  3. van 't Land, J.J. et al. 2019, Arma 3: DLC Restrictions, Bohemia Interactive Community Wiki, viewed 24 January 2024, <https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3:_DLC_Restrictions>.
  4. van 't Land, J.J. 2022, SPOTREP #00105, Arma 3, viewed 1 January 2024, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00105>.

External links[]

See also[]

Vehicles 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-csat CSAT - Vehicles (ArmA 3)
Wheeled IfritMSE-3 MaridQilinQuadbikeTempestUGV SaifZamak
Tracked 2S9 SochorAkinaka ED-1D (Sayyah ED-1E) • BTR-K KamyshT-100 Varsuk (X Futura) • T-140 Angara (T-140K) • ZSU-39 Tigris
Rotor-wing Jinaah AL-6Mi-48 KajmanMi-290 TaruPO-30 OrcaTayran AR-2
Fixed-wing K40 Abalil-3KH-3A FenghuangTo-199 NeophronTo-201 ShikraY-32 Xi'an
Aquatic Assault Boat (Rescue) • Speedboat HMGSDV
Parenthesis denote variants.
Helicopters DLC | Apex DLC | Jets DLC | Laws of War DLC | Tanks DLC | Contact DLC
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