BF3 Attachments

Based off the latest patchnotes, I've gone ahead and written up the effects of the attachments seeing that most of them have been modified somehow. This is something I hope people find easy to read and informative, as from what I can tell, most people don't know what the attachments actually do.

## Current as of March 2012 patch.

Yes, I will be adding to this, and detailing it more as I discover the specific values related to each effect.

Heavy Barrel

Pros:
Increases aimed accuracy.
Increases the bullet speed (reduces bullet-drop?) in low bullet speed weapons*.
Increases range.

Cons:
Increases aimed recoil.
Reduces hip fire accuracy (similar to flash suppressor, better than silencer).

My opinion: The kind of attachment you use on guns you fire on single fire or burst only, targeting medium range targets (50meters).

*A91, G3A3, AKS-74u, G36C, M4A1, SCAR-H, SG553, G53, and QBZ-95B.


Flash Suppressor

Pros:
Reduces aimed vertical recoil by an unknown amount >10% (better than silencer).
(TBC) Reduces muzzle flash (worse than silencer?).

Cons:

Reduces hipfire accuracy (similar to heavy barrel, better than silencer).

My opinion: Contrary to the heavy barrel, you want to be using this on guns you use full auto on. It could also likely be used to increase the speed one can fire single shots off, accurately, but because I've not tested this I'm not going to give you false information to quote.

Silencer (Suppressor)

Pros:
Reduces aimed vertical recoil by 10% (worse than flash suppressor).
Increases aimed accuracy by 25% (unknown compared to heavy barrel).
Reduces muzzle flash.
Reduces weapon sound.
(TBC) Don't show up on minimap.

Cons:
Reduces hipfire accuracy (worse than all?).
Reduces minimum and maximum range (this needs to be clarified).

My opinion: I'm pretty sure that this attachment is a close range variant of the heavy barrel, also somewhat catering for full auto weapons. The stealth factor should probably be the largest factor when deciding whether or not to use this. I personally do not like using it, as I feel it reduces my damages at medium distances. I believe this is due to the range reduction, but again this needs to be clarified to be confirmed.

I will be coming back to this post once Symthic and DenKirson have released their changes, assuming they provide enough details for me to provide detailed reasons for why attachments behave in certain ways, as opposed to speculating based on patch notes.

Foregrip

Pros:

Reduces aimed horizontal recoil (effects high RPM weapons more).

Cons:

Reduces aimed accuracy.

My opinion: Better used in CQC situations, as it states in the patch notes that the accuracy reduction is "largely uneffected" at close ranges. It also says that the entire inaccuracy can be offset by using a silencer or heavy barrel.

Laser

My opinion: I'm sick to death of seeing this on people engaging targets at medium ranges. If you are aiming down sights to shoot at someone, you are not benefiting from using a laser (it only effects hipfire accuracy). This is a great attachment for weapons like the p90, on maps where you can make a living firing from the hip; running in and out of shipping containers, for example. Never to be used on a sniper rifle, especially if you're using a 4x scope to remove scope glint; pistol is 10x better than a sniper with a laser sight for CQC.