So, this originally spiraled out from a debate on the merits of one-handed weapons, and got me into thinking about how accurate the labels for some of the weapons really were. I decided to measure each weapon's attack strength for myself, but in order to do that, I needed some concrete numbers. So, naturally, my first inclination was to go punch someone in the face. FOR SCIENCE!

I decided that my value of damage should be something very basic, so I decided on the standard melee attack for my base value. All numbers of damage for the rest of this guide are expressed in units of melee damage, or, how many times it would take to punch an enemy to achieve the same amount of damage. If a shot from a gun would do the same amount of damage to them as punching them twice, it deals 2 melee damage, expressed as "2 MD" for short.

Good? Next is the technical section of how I went about my experiment, and what I tested it on. Skip to the gun section if you don't want to be bored with the details.

I needed targets to shoot at.

Looking through the Science log, I saw that the Illuminate Hunters (guys who snipe you with long-range beams) had "no armor" and "Low resilience", while Bug Stalkers (sneaky bugs which cloak & jump) have "light armor" and "medium resilience". Easy to find them both, and test them without getting too many tanks sent after me while testing. While I eventually included other enemies against stronger weapons, I used these two for most of the testing.

The Hunters were the best candidate, as they stayed still (while charging), and did not regenerate health. Every Hunter would die in 8 punches. Therefore, Hunters have 8 MD of health. This was the only enemy I was able to punch to death without having to worry about regeneration. Finding out Stalker health required testing several weapons on them to find a pattern. I eventually realized that nearly all weapon tests showed them as needing 50% more shots to kill than Hunters, so I worked out that Stalkers have 12 MD of health.

I would first test weapons on the Hunters, and then on Stalkers. I would shoot single-fire shots with the Laser Sight perk at the center-most point, so I could to get the best damage with each shot. After killing each target, I would record the number of shots it took to kill it. The lowest number of shots I was able to reliably kill with, and replicate, (while accounting for any other factors such as spray, did it get set on fire, hit by another enemy, health regen, etc.) I would deem as the MD value of each weapon (per shot).

With some of the stronger weapons, I eventually included tests against the Illuminate Obelisk; or rather tests against how much their energy shields could take before dropping. I go more into this in my section on Shotguns, but I worked out that they had at about 32 MD of durability before the shields dropped.

Now, onto some final ground rules before I begin:

• Bayonet stabs deal more damage, so any rifle outfitted with a bayonet I had to switch to a pistol or heavy weapon to punch with (for single MD counts).
  
• All weapons were fully upgraded when they were tested, with the exception of the Ninja and Paragon. Those two weapons I only bought the DLC for during the experiment, so I managed to test them with no upgrades, and then again with all upgrades. Results are in their sections.
  
• Each mission was a solo-dive I took on my own, I had no outside assistance.
  
• I am not part of any development team, or have access to any programming tools or code. I did not take or use any data/research from any other sources (including websites or reviews) other than my own findings, and the in-game descriptions on the ship’s computers. All data was taken from actual game play, then counted and calculated.
  
• I am not trying to change anyone's opinion or tell you what gun is "better". My aim is simply to determine and share how much damage each gun deals in a single shot.
  
• This is the first guide or FAQ I've ever written, I will need some feedback to get better. If you spot an error, or something I missed, please leave a comment and I will try to amend it.

As requested, I've condensed all the original information into a table at the top of the guide for quick reference. I must stress once again, that this information is not 100% accurate, and some weapons work differently against shields than health types. For further explanation into these numbers, please review their sections down further.

Liberator
Vs. Stalker: 6 shots to kill.
Vs. Hunter: 4 shots to kill.
Conclusion: Liberator’s maximum damage per bullet is about 2 MD.

Justice
Vs. Stalker: 4 shots to kill.
Vs. Hunter: 3 shots to kill.
Conclusion: Justice’s maximum damage per bullet is about 3 MD.

Patriot
Vs. Stalker: 4 shots to kill.
Vs. Hunter: 3 shots to kill.
Conclusion: Patriot’s maximum damage per bullet is about 3 MD.
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Notes: This weapon's high-firing speed made it difficult to get reliable counts. Some bullets during full-auto spray will not achieve a full 3 MD per bullet.

Paragon
Vs. Stalker: 4 shots to kill, regardless of upgrades.
Vs. Hunter: 3 shots to kill, regardless of upgrades.
Vs. Bug Elite: Before upgrades, 5 shots to kill, or 4 shots + 4 melee. With upgrades, 5 shots to kill, or 4 shots + 3 melee.
Conclusion: Paragon’s maximum damage per bullet is between 3 MD and 3.25 MD.
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Notes: This weapon was labeled in the armory as having AP ammo, before I unlocked the AP ammo upgrade for it. Due to my tests with the Elites, requiring 1 less punch after receiving the upgrade, it seems to only account for, at best, an increase of 0.25 MD. The poison from the Paragon rounds doesn't seem to add any additional Damage Over Time. If it does, it was too small for me to observe.

Sickle
Vs. Stalker: 4 pulses to kill.
Vs. Hunter: 3 pulses, or 2 pulses & 2 melee to kill.
Conclusion: Sickle’s maximum damage per pulse is about 3 MD.

Stalwart
Vs Stalker: 7 shots to kill.
Vs Hunter: 5 shots to kill.
Conclusion: Uncertain. I estimate the Stalwart’s maximum damage per bullet to be less than 2 MD, but I cannot verify.
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Notes: The initial shots always fly 15 degrees to either side, only becoming accurate during stream fire. This made getting accurate shots that hit the target's center for maximum damage a complete nightmare. My best hope was to dig the muzzle into the target's face and try to count shots at point blank range. Even then the number still went back and forth by 1 or 2 shots on every other target.

MG-94 Machine Gun
Vs Stalker: 6 shots to kill
Vs Hunter: 4 shots to kill
Conclusion: MG-94’s maximum damage per bullet is about 2 MD.
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Notes: Much like with the Stalwart, I was forced to put the muzzle right up against the target before firing. Unlike the Stalwart however, this gun's shots did not waiver as far off course, and gave me much more consistent numbers at close range. I am much more confident in this gun's rating than the Stalwart's.

Defender
Vs Stalker: 9 shots to kill
Vs Hunter: 6 shots to kill, or 5 shots & 1 punch, or 4 shots & 3 punches, or 3 shots & 4 punches.
Conclusion: Defender’s maximum damage per bullet is about 1.333` MD.

Knight
Vs Stalker: 5 shots to kill
Vs Hunter: 4 shots to kill
Vs Obelisk: 13 to 14 shots to drop shields
Conclusion: Uncertain. Knight’s maximum damage per bullet seems somewhere around 2.4 MD.
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Notes: Similar to the Patriot, this weapon’s fire-rate gave me serious difficulty in determining accurate shot counts. The game was also incredibly fickle about shots hitting the center actually getting full damage. After seeing the "5 shots" result from the Stalker, I tried it against an Obelisk as well, which continued to give me alternating results off by 1 each time. 2.4 MD is my best guess.

Ninja
Vs Stalker: 8 shots to kill, regardless of upgrades
Vs Hunter: 5 shots to kill, regardless of upgrades
Conclusion: Ninja's maximum damage per bullets is about 1.6 MD.
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Note: While testing against the bugs, the short range got me caught several times, and had me fighting Elites. While I didn’t keep official shot-counts against Elites unfortunately, the amount of bullets to take down a single Elite seemed to take almost 2 full magazines. After the upgrades, I could kill 2 Elites with 1 magazine. While this also increased the magazine size a bit, the AP ammo made a visible difference in terms of attack strength (unlike with the Paragon).

Each rifle could kill a Stalker in 2 shots, and kill a Hunter in 1 shot (if centered). The difference came with the Stalker. I had to take the Static field out just to get these bastards to hold still.

Camper:
Vs. Stalker: 1 shot + 2 punches
Conclusion: Camper has a maximum damage per bullet of 10 MD

Rail Gun:
Vs. Stalker: 1 shot + 1 punch
Conclusion: Rail Gun has a maximum damage per bullet of 11 MD

Constitution:
Vs. Stalker: 1 shot + 4 punches
Conclusion: Constitution has a maximum damage per bullet of 8 MD

AC-22 Dum-Dum:
Vs. Stalker: 1 shot + 3 punches
Conclusion: AC-22 Dum-Dum has a maximum damage per bullet of 9 MD.

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Note:
If you are slightly off with your aim using the Camper, Constitution, or Rail Gun, it will only deal 6 MD to a Hunter.

Okay, for shotguns, I had to do something a little different to get these numbers. Since each shotgun can kill a Stalker in close range, this is what mostly prompted me to use the Obelisk. I'd measure the power of each blast, and then divide it by the number of projectiles per blast. I also had to take a couple hundred screen shots to try and count the number of projectiles from each shotgun blast. Best photos for each are displayed below. As a reminder, I calculated the Obelisk's shield strength at about 32 MD.



Breaker: fires 10 projectiles per blast
Vs. Obelisk: 1 shot + 1 AC-20 Dum-Dum shot (previously established at around 9MD) + 6 punches
Conclusion: Breaker's maximum damage per blast is about 17 MD, or 1.7 MD per projectile


Punisher: fires 10 projectiles per blast
Vs. Obelisk: 1 shot + 1 AC-20 Dum-Dum shot + 6 punches, or 1 shot + 16 punches (yes, 16 in a row)
Conclusion: Punisher's maximum damage per blast is around 17 MD, or 1.7 MD per projectile
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Notes: Due to the length of time it took to punch 16 times, I'm assuming at least some shield regeneration, requiring the last punch.


Double Freedom: fires 15 projectiles per blast
Vs. Obelisk: 1 shot + 3 punches.
Conclusion: Double Freedom's maximum damage per blast is about 29 MD, or 1.93 MD per projectile.
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Notes: My first attempt fired twice by accident (because this two-round magazine weapon is fully-automatic for some reason), and killed the Obelisk near instantly. Even though it still had energy shields up after the first blast, the second blast killed the Obelisk before I even realized the shields were down.


Trident: Fires 6 beams?
Vs. Stalker: 1 shot kill at close range.
Vs. Hunter: 1 shot kill at close range.
Vs. Obelisk: 5 shots to drop shields, or 4 shots + 7 melee, or 4 shots + 1 AC-20 Dum-Dum shot, or 4 shots + 4 Peacemaker shots
Conclusion: These results were bit more varied than I was hoping for, but in order, the Obelisk scenarios above give me these numbers to solve for:
32 / 5 = 6.4 MD
(32 - 7 = 25) / 4 = 6.25 MD
(32 - 9 = 23) / 4 = 5.75 MD
(32 - 8 = 24) / 4 = 6 MD
I estimate the Trident at about 6.25 MD per blast, divided by 6 beams, is about 1.04 MD per beam.
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Notes: The upgrade “Laser Splitter” in the Trident’s upgrade list states that it “doubles the number of lasers” which makes the number even. The beams like to clump together, but 6 was my best beam count.

I had to measure these not in shots, but in how long it took to kill the target/deplete shields. I used the stopwatch feature on my digital wristwatch. I can really only measure these weapons against each others’ times.

Scythe vs. Hunter:
Biggest range: 0.86 to 1.20 seconds
Most average: 0.88 seconds

Tanto vs. Hunter:
Biggest range: 0.64 to 0.89 seconds
Most average: 0.74 seconds

LAS-98 Laser Cannon vs. Hunter:
Biggest range: 0.41 to 0.70 seconds.
Most average: 0.58 seconds (Could be lower, I had trouble clicking the stopwatch fast enough)

Scythe vs. Obelisk:
Biggest range: 4.45 to 4.95 seconds
Most average: 4.5 seconds
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Notes: this weapon kept overheating, and I had to keep stopping the watch, then restarting it with the laser. Most times the Obelisk would close without the shield dropping.

Tanto vs Obelisk Shields:
Biggest range: 2.40 to 2.96 seconds
Most average: 2.77 seconds

LAS-98 Laser Cannon vs. Obelisk Shields:
Biggest range: 3.33 to 3.44 seconds
It tears through Hunters faster than the Tanto, but takes longer against Obelisks? Obelisk why do you do this to me?!

Misc weapons.

Bayonet
This upgrade is more complex than it first appeared.
Vs. Stalker: 3 stabs to kill, or 2 stabs + 1 Justice shot
Vs. Hunter: 2 stabs to kill.
Vs. Obelisk: 7 stabs to drop shields
Conclusion: The bayonet strike's MINIMUM damage power is at least 4.57 MD. This attack does not seem to require as precise aim as with firearms.

Arc Thrower
Vs. Stalker: 2 full-strength charges to kill.
Vs. Hunter: 1 full-strength charge to kill. (Must be full. Even slightly under a full charge will not kill the Hunter.)
Conclusion: Arc Thrower’s maximum damage per full-charge is about 8 MD.

Arc Shotgun
Vs. Stalker: About 1.5 charges to kill? I was able to kill Stalkers left and right by meeting them with a full charge, then charging a little & releasing before they were able to retreat out of range.
Vs. Hunter: 1 full charge, + 1 melee attack to kill.
Conclusion: Arc Shotgun’s maximum damage per full-charge is just under 8 MD.
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Notes: This weapon trades the distance & chain effect for wider area, and charges in about half the time of the Arc Thrower.

Obliterator
Vs. Stalker: 1 shot to kill.
Vs. Hunter: 1 direct shot to kill, or 1 indirect shot to kill, or 1 (even more) indirect shot + resulting fire damage over time will still kill.
Vs. Obelisk: 6 shots + 1 melee to drop shields
Conclusion: Uncertain. Obliterator’s maximum damage per grenade is at least 12 MD against smaller units, but decisively changes against Obelisk shields. I am unsure as to why...

Suppressor
Vs. Stalker: 3 shots to kill.
Vs. Hunter: 2 shots to kill, or 1 shot and 3 melee to kill.
Vs. Obelisk: 6 shots to drop shields, or 3 shots + 4 bayonet stabs, or 5 shots + 6 punches
Conclusion: Uncertain. Suppressor’s maximum damage per bullet is above 5 MD, but not quite 6 MD. My best estimate is about 5.4 MD.

Scorcher
Vs. Stalker: 2 shots to kill, or 1 shot + 1 punch.
Vs. Hunter: 1 shot to kill.
Vs. Obelisk: 5 shots to drop shields, or 4 shots + 6 punches.
Conclusion: Uncertain. Scorcher's maximum damage per bolt is between 8 MD & 11 MD. I do not know how much fire damage the Stalker suffers before I can punch it, and if left alone, it can die of residual fire damage from one shot.
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Notes: Another weapon that does worse against Obelisk shields than against other targets. Interesting side-note, if you shoot an Obelisk enough while it is closed with the Scorcher, it will be on fire when it opens, and die after a few seconds, even though its shields are up.

PLAS-3 Singe
Vs. Stalker: 2 shots to kill, or 1 shot + 3 punches
Vs. Hunter: 1 shot.
Vs. Obelisk: 5 shots to drop shields, or 4 shots + 1 punch
Conclusion: Singe's maximum damage per bolt is about 9 MD, but deals less damage against Obelisk shields.
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Notes: Singe has a longer range than the rifle version, but seems to lack the "setting stuff on fire" aspect. I don't know why the Singe is stronger than the Scorcher vs. Obelisks.

P-2 Peacemaker Pistol
Vs. Stalker: 6 shots to kill
Vs. Hunter: 4 shots to kill, or 3 shots + 2 punches.
Conclusion: Peacemaker’s maximum damage per bullet is about 2 MD. However, due to the burst fire, it is very difficult to get full potential out of each bullet.

P-6 Gunslinger
Vs. Stalker: 1 shot + 1 punch to kill.
Vs. Hunter: 1 shot to kill.
Vs. Obelisk: 4 shots to drop shields, or 3 shots and 1 punch.
Conclusion: Gunslinger's maximum damage per bullet is about 11 MD per bullet, but again, does less against Obelisk shields.

I am at a loss to explain why some weapons do the same damage to Obelisks as they do to other enemies, while others weapons are penalized against Obelisks. I don't know if this is a quirk about Illuminate shields in general, or if heavier Illuminate enemies apply their "armor" grade to their shields instead of their health. Running experiments on armor class is beyond the scope of this guide (and I'm already at my sanity limit). I may try in the future, but for now, I need to stop running experiments and actually publish something already.

Thank you for reading, and I hope this guide has given you an edge on the battlefield, and a better idea of what weapon to pick the next time you go into battle. Remember: if unsure, experiment!

This section will contain updates and a list of corrections as they come.

Edit #1 - 15 October 2017
I have tested and discovered that all bayonets have the same damage. This covers the Assault Rifle group, the Constitution, and the Supressor.

Edit #2 - 20 October 2017
I have again tested with Patriot, Justice, and Rail gun against Illuminate Obelisk shields. Shots aimed at the core of the Obelisk do not seem to do any more damage than shots aimed away from the core, but still hitting the shields. It still takes the same amount of shots & punches to drop the shield regardless of the firing angle.

Edit #3 - 21 February 2018
I've just become aware of the following Wiki that exists for this game, specificaly a page that lists enemy armor.
https://helldivers.gamepedia.com/Enemies/Detailed_Statistics
I'm not entirely sure how accurate the information is, but it seems to mostly check out with the enemies I've tested weapons against.
Also, I slightly changed the date format in this section for easier reading.

Edit #4 - 27 February 2023
Added a table near the beginning with a very abridged rundown of the weapon stats, so people don't have to go digging. No new information has been added, I am still using the data I collected in 2018.