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The Y-32 Xi'an is a VTOL aircraft used by both Pacific CSAT forces and Viper operatives in ArmA 3. It was added with the release of the Apex DLC.

Overview[]

  • Roles:
    • Heavy gunship
    • Vehicle transport
    • Cargo transport
    • Troop transport
« By far the largest CSAT joint development project to date was long troubled by the conflicting requirements of the participating armies who demanded an aircraft with VTOL capabilities. The planned budget was vastly exceeded several times and development was years behind schedule. The program eventually became one of the most expensive in military procurement history and despite a great deal of information remains classified and is often compared to the older F-35 program. The final solution was based upon the most promising prototype designed in Xi'an which was able to meet most of the requirements with satisfactory results. High running and maintenance costs remains a huge issue that plagues the reputation of the otherwise extremely progressive aircraft with many unique features and top-notch bleeding-edge technologies.
Field Manual
»

Design[]

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The Y-32 is an unconventionally designed VTOL aircraft that combines twin tail-mounted, rotating jet engine nozzles with a ducted fan wing setup.

Arma3-Xian-Loadout

Y-32 pylon configuration

Armament
By default, the Y-32 is armed with a 30 mm autocannon that is pre-loaded with interchangeable belts of either 250 rounds of high-explosive (HE-T) shells, or 250 rounds of armour-piercing discarding sabot (APDS-T) shells. The gunner can instantaneously swap between ammunition types at any time without having to wait for the cannon to reload.

Extended stub wings that run along the majority of the fuselage centreline have two pylons on each wing (totalling up to four) that support dynamic loadouts.

The following weapons and munitions can be fitted onto any of the pylons (1-4):

  • Scalpel (1×)
  • Scalpel (3×)
  • Tratnyr HE (20×)
  • Tratnyr AP (20×)
  • Skyfire (19×)
  • Sahr-3 (1×)
  • Sharur (1×)
  • LOM-250G (1×)
  • RBK-500F (1×)

It also has a turret-mounted laser designator that can be used to mark targets for its own weapons or for friendly aircraft.

Arma3-car95-00

Unloading Pacific CSAT troops into battle. The Y-32's smaller size allows it to land in tighter LZs compared to its cumbersome NATO counterpart.

Features
In contrast to its NATO counterpart, the Y-32 is not only more manoeuvrable and faster due to using jet-powered engines, but is also better equipped to handle both ground and air threats at the same time.

This is because unlike V-44X Blackfish, it is always armed with a 30 mm turret-mounted autocannon regardless of whether it is transporting either vehicles or infantry (only the dedicated gunship variant of the Blackfish retains armament). In addition, the pylons on its stub wings can be customised with a mixture of unguided rockets, anti-tank missiles or even laser-guided cluster bombs; further enhancing its air-to-ground fire support capabilities.

One other advantage of the Y-32 is that it retains a slightly smaller (though not much better) RCS signature compared to the NATO Blackfish. While it will still be easily picked up on radar, the Y-32 stands a better chance of surviving once it has been detected by the enemy.

Arma3-xian-04

Hovering just above their position, a Y-32 feeds targeting data to a nearby battery of S-750s.

Lastly, the Y-32 can serve as an improvised airborne radar for friendly ground and air units even though it is technically not considered to be a data link-capable aircraft. Ground-based air defences like the S-750 can be fed targeting information from the Y-32 if its active radar is enabled, though this will come at the obvious risk of exposing the Y-32's crew to hostiles with access to a passive radar.

Drawbacks
Its smaller airframe allows it to land more easily in confined spaces, whereas the larger Blackfish requires landing zones with considerably more clearance. Unfortunately, this comes at a cost as the Y-32 cannot carry as many passengers or vehicles due to being a smaller-sized aircraft overall. What little room it has by default is reserved for storing weapons and munitions, which further restricts it to using a smaller cargo compartment.

Crew Capacity
The Y-32 always has enough seats for a crew of two that consists of the pilot and a gunner. Passenger capacity is limited to a maximum of sixteen passengers, and only on the Infantry Transport variant.

Variants[]

Arma3-render-xianhex
Infantry-only transport variant.

Its cargo space contains seats fixed on both sides of the compartment. It is optimised to carry up to sixteen passengers but cannot airlift any vehicles.

Arma3-render-xiangreenhex
Ground vehicle-only transport variant.

It is visually identical to the infantry-only variant, but this variant's cargo space lacks seating and is instead optimised to airlift ground vehicles.


(*) Regardless of the variant, the Y-32 always has a seating capacity of at least two that consists of the crew; both the pilot and the gunner.

Camouflage[]

All three variants have access to the same camouflage options:

  • Hex: Light tan/dark tan/dark green cell pattern camouflage.
  • Green Hex: Dark tan/light green/dark green cell pattern camouflage.
  • Grey: Light/dark grey cell pattern camouflage.

Protection[]

Both variants of the Y-32 have base armour values of 100.

Hull[]

The hull can survive 300 points of damage. 50% of damage is always transferred onto the Y-32's main "health" pool.

Depletion of the hull's integrity will not result in a total loss unless the Y-32's "health" is at critical and all other primary components are destroyed.

Engines[]

Each of the Y-32's engines can incur 325 points of damage before failing. They take 50% less damage from high-explosive (HE) type munitions. Only 10% of damage is transferred onto the Y-32's main "health" pool.

Losing one engine will not prevent the Y-32 from flying but will make it increasingly difficult for the aircraft to maintain altitude.

If damaged: Power output is halved. Performing simple manoeuvres will take twice as long to complete.
If destroyed: Y-32 will lose all power and cannot maintain its altitude/vectoring capability.

Fuel tank[]

The Y-32's fuel tank can resist 275 points of damage before rupturing. It takes 50% less damage from HE-type munitions. At least 50% of damage is transferred onto the Y-32's "health" pool (destroying the tank will not result in a total loss unless the Y-32 is critically damaged).

If damaged: 50% of remaining fuel will lost over time.
If destroyed: All remaining fuel will depleted over the course of several seconds.

Instruments[]

The cockpit's electronic systems can resist 200 points of damage before failing. At least 20% of damage will be transferred onto the Y-32's main "health" pool.

If damaged: Periodic flickering of pilot Head Mounted Displays (HMD) and cabin Multi-Functional Displays (MFD). Other instruments remain unaffected.
If destroyed: HMDs disabled. MFDs and all other instruments will malfunction and may not display proper readings.

Control surfaces[]

The Y-32's control surfaces consist of six components:

  • Ailerons (left/right)
  • Elevators (left/right)
  • Rudders (left/right)

All six components can take up to 250 points of damage before failing (individually). They incur a 300% damage penalty from HE-type munitions.

Depending on which control surface has been damaged, the Y-32 will suffer from a gradual loss of in-flight stability. Manoeuvring in regular flight and VTOL modes may become increasingly difficult or even outright impossible to control under some circumstances (i.e. adverse weather conditions).

Sensors[]

The Y-32 utilises several sensors meant to augment its role as an air-to-ground fire support 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: 7,000 m
G: 4,000 m
A: 7,000 m
G: 4,000 m
Nothing 1e+10 km/h 240° 110° 3,000 m
Infrared A: 4,000 m
G: 3,000 m
A: 500 m
G: 500 m
Fog (0.005%) 270 km/h 45° 35° 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 360° 120° 0 m
NV A: 6,000 m
G: 6,000 m
A: 6,000 m
G: 6,000 m
Nothing 1e+10 km/h 360° 120° 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: 4,000 m
G: 3,000 m
A: 500 m
G: 500 m
Fog/Light (6%) 270 km/h 45° 36° 2,000 m

Active Radar[]

The Y-32's Active Radar has an elevation offset of 35 degrees from the nose. Targets will only become lockable once they get within the bounds of the sensor cone (represented by the teal major sector on the SENSORS panel).

It should also be noted that the Y-32's Active Radar is not affected by terrain clutter and will acquire ground targets regardless of their speed.

Infrared Sensor[]

The Y-32's IR Sensor is attached to the gunner's turret camera (represented by the orange cone on the SENSORS panel). Although it is technically affected by heavy fog, the range reduction effect is so miniscule (-0.2 metre reduction) that it will be barely noticeable.

Laser Sensor[]

The Y-32's Laser Sensor has an elevation offset of 30 degrees. Any designated targets can technically be seen on the Y-32's SENSORS panel no matter what direction it is facing toward, but this is dependent on the laser spot's position relative to the Y-32's current altitude and roll angle.

NV Sensor[]

The Y-32's NV Sensor has an elevation offset of 30 degrees. Any IR grenades on the ground can technically be seen on the Y-32's SENSORS panel no matter what direction it is facing toward, but this is dependent on the IR grenade's position relative to the Y-32's current altitude and roll angle.

Passive Radar[]

The Y-32's Passive Radar can detect Active Radar threats in any direction (regardless of the plane's facing direction).

Visual Sensor[]

The Y-32's IR Sensor is attached to the gunner's 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.

It should be noted that the Visual Sensor has an elevation offset of 1 degree.

Armament[]

NOTE: Only the weapons used on the default loadout for the Y-32 are listed here. For full details on ordnance that can be mounted on the Y-32's pylons, refer to the dynamic loadouts article.

On the Infantry Transport variant, the two rearmost passengers are FFV-enabled and can fire their own weapons out of the Y-32 provided that the ramp door is lowered.

For both variants, the gunner position controls all weapon systems. The turret camera's optics provides three fields of view and can toggle either a day, night or black-hot/white-hot thermal vision mode. The turret itself has a horizontal rotation limit of 120 degrees in both directions. Vertically however, it is restricted to an elevation of 20 degrees and a depression of 30 degrees:

Cannon Caseless 30 mm[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-y32xian-cannoncaseless30mm
Shell type Base damage value Aerodynamic friction Initial velocity (m/s) Penetration depth (mm)
HE 30 -0.00036 960 20.16
APDS 80 -0.00042 1,120 70.56

Primary weapon affixed onto the Y-32's nose turret. Can be loaded to fire either regular high-explosive (HE) or armour-piercing discarding sabot (APDS) shells:

  • High-Explosive (HE): Muzzle velocity of 960 m/s, blast radius of 3 metres
  • Armour-Piercing Discarding Sabot (APDS): Muzzle velocity of 1,120 m/s, splash radius of 0.2 metres

It can attain a fire rate of 750 rounds per minute and has a muzzle velocity of 960 m/s. Switching between munition types is instantaneous; there is no delay for "reloading" a different belt. However, accuracy will differ depending on the selected munition type. For APDS shells, dispersion is 0.0044 rad at distances of 1,800 metres but for HE, dispersion is set to be higher at 0.0066 rad instead.

Its Fire Control System features automatic lead/zeroing on targets moving at speeds of up to ~ 110 km/h but takes 0.5 seconds to finish adjusting. Manual zeroing is possible, though it is only available in 100 m increments up to 800 m, which then jumps to 1000 m, 1200 m, 1500 m, 1800 m, 2100 m and finally 2400 m.

Skalpel[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-y32xian-skalpel
Main article: Dynamic loadouts#Skalpel

Infrared-guided air-to-ground anti-tank missiles.

Relies on the Y-32's IR Sensor to function.

Skyfire[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-y32xian-skyfire
Main article: Dynamic loadouts#Skyfire

Unguided air-to-ground rockets.

Strong against groups of infantry and unarmoured/lightly armoured ground vehicles.

FFV[]

Main article: Firing from vehicles (mechanic)#Y-32 Xi'an

Vehicle-in-Vehicle Transport[]

Arma3-xian-vivt

Qilin LSV inside the Y-32's cargo bay.

The Vehicle Transport variant is capable of loading any of the following ground vehicles, boats and drones:

The Y-32 has a smaller range of vehicles it can transport than the Vehicle Transport variant of the Blackfish. For instance, it cannot lift any of the MRAPs (not even CSAT's own Ifrit) and is unable to carry any of the logistics trucks. Additionally, the Infantry Transport variant can only load up to 16 infantry passengers at a time instead of 32 like the Blackfish.

Lastly, it should be noted that that Utility Drones airdropped from a Y-32 are lowered down via parachutes as opposed to being dropped with their rotors spinning.


Supply crates[]

NOTE: Objects that are not strictly classified as supply crates, as well as those featured in non-official third party-developed Creator DLCs are deliberately excluded from this section.

Arma3-xian-vivt-crates

Paradropping ammo crates for friendly troops.

The Y-32 can load a selection of small ammo crates, boxes and containers:

  • Ten Basic Ammo/Explosives/Grenades/Support crates
  • Nine Basic Weapons crates
  • Ten Launchers/Special Weapons crates
  • Six Supply Box pallets
  • Four Cargo Net pallets (all variants)
  • Four Ammo Cache/Equipment Cache piles (does not include the Weapons Cache)
  • Fifteen Equipment/Uniform crates
  • Three Vehicle Ammo containers

Unloading stored cargo whilst the Y-32 is still flying will have them dropped from parachutes. If there is more than one object stored inside the hold, subsequent paradrops will be made with a delay of ~ 3 seconds.

Trivia[]

  • The Xi'an is not based on any existing real-world aircraft design. However, both the layout of the cockpit along with its dual gunship and troop transport roles make it similar to the real-life "Mi-24" gunship designed by the Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant.
  • The Xi'an is the first REDFOR-exclusive VTOL jet in the entire series. Prior to the Apex expansion's release, only BLUFOR factions had access to VTOL-capable aircraft.
  • After the release of Game Update 2.06, the Vehicle Transport variant was given the ability the load supply crates and other portable objects into its cargo hold.[1]

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. van 't Land, J.J. 2021, SPOTREP #00100, Arma 3, viewed 6 October 2021, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00100>.

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-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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