I’m a long-time Assault main. For the longest time, I avoided using the underslung grenade launcher in BF6. As does everybody else is the community apparently.
For those not in the know, some carbines & assault rifles have an underbarrel attachment that allows you to mount Assault’s grenade launcher (or Support’s smoke launcher) to your weapon. It allows for an incredibly fast switch between the launcher and shooting your primary.The consensus was – and still is – that reducing recoil would give you more advantage than being able to quickly swap to a grenade launcher. But after recent changes, I’ve started experimenting with mounting grenade launchers. And holy shit it has completely changed how I played the game. Underslung launchers are now not only viable, but are a goddamn menace. Switching to your pistol may be faster than reloading, but switching to an underbarrel mounted 40mm wide tube of death is even faster. My K/D has improved by +0.3 this season just by switching to an underslung launcher. And now I’m here to convince you to give the underslung launcher a second look. So... What Changed? Attachments. When the game launched, grips were pretty much the only viable way to reduce recoil. Sure muzzle breaks exist, but the 3D spotting is still too big of a downside for many people. So, grips are in, underslung launchers are out. Another issue was that the Heavy Barrel options reduced your ADS time, and grips were used to negate that downside. However after four seasons of new attachments, both of these issues can now be directly addressed without a grip. First was the Flash Compensator. A 20pnt flash hider that (from my experience) has similar recoil reducing effects as the 10pnt muzzle break without the downside of 3D spotting. And the new Hybrid Suppressors are another added attachment that allows you to reduce recoil without 3D spotting. The recoil buffer can also help with perceived recoil by reducing the visual aspect. While one of these by itself won’t tame extreme recoil, these will do a lot of legwork for moderate-recoiling weapons. The new Cryo Barrel allows you to reap the benefits of a Heavy Barrel without a penalty to ADS speed. Additionally, some weapons that didn’t have any Heavy Barrel options did get the Cryo Barrel. It’s just a great attachment overall. Now, these new attachments (barring the buffer) are expensive to equip. But keep in mind the Underslung Mount is a cheap 10pnt attachment. You can easily afford those points when your underbarrel attachment is so cheap. You can really go wild with attachments here. 40 round mags? Crazy lasers? Fancy ammo? That ridiculous 50pnt Hybrid Suppressor? You got the budget, go for it! Weapons To Consider for Underslung Mounting Not all carbines & assault rifles have an underslung mount, and out of those that do, not all of them are worth losing the grip for. Weapons like the M277 and the M433 have recoil severe enough that they still really need grips to help with recoil. So here’s a few recommendations. I. M16
The M16 is already a good all-rounder gun. But more importantly, you are already likely sinking 25 attachment points into the full auto receiver. You don’t have much wiggle room for an expensive grip anyways. Flash comp + cryo barrel will give you recoil control, decent ADS, and increased accuracy at range. But if you really really need your emotional support cylinder (suppressor), you can downgrade to the regular Heavy Barrel to afford a Hybrid Suppressor.II. SOR-556
Normally, this is the kind of gun where you would double-down on it’s strength and still spec into recoil control for a dedicated long-range assault rifle. Thankfully the new hybrid suppressor does an amazing job doing that by itself – no grip needed. But the real secret sauce here is that the underslung launcher directly addresses this gun’s biggest weaknesses – poor performance in CQB. Quickly swapping to an underslung grenade launcher is a one-click goodnight for any unlucky sunnovabitch dumb enough to get between you and the objective.III. M417
Quite frankly this is already a very effective weapon naked. It drops people shockingly quick in CQB and it can still hold its own at range. The recoil is already quite manageable, though you will need a recoil buffer for the intense visual recoil. Slap on the flash comp or suppressor and do whatever else you want to it.IV. B36
It’s basically an M16 with a slightly lower rate of fire, and thus slightly better recoil and ranged performance. Use the points you saved to slap some Synthetic Tips on that bad boy and blow some minds.V. L85... I guess?
To be honest, I don’t vibe with this gun very much so I haven’t personally tested it. But if you like the base gun, it is probably a good match up for the underslung launcher. Decent recoil with slower RoF, so use one of the new muzzles. Should do alright.Try it for a couple games, see what happens!