Hey mate I was thinking the same thing when I started to play on CF - "What the hell, how I am supposed to shot down anything?!". But the truth is there's a very simple and quick way to get sufficient "hardware" (ships, guns etc.). First read this topic and I'll point you to Drakons post.
Don't even bother with 6lvl guns and a Valkyrie, instead use them only to fight your way to systems with bases selling vanilla VHF - Eagle, Titan and Sabre. Pick one (just not the Titan) and fly to another system where you'll find a nice choice of guns (up to 9lvl). Acquire a good shield, search for vanilla wrecks to get 10 lvl codename guns and you're money!
This site helped me a lot Crossfire Wiki - by Knights of Mercy (PX). It contains all the necessary info and you'll find many useful data there.