Dreads do have the advantage that they do not throw themselves to the ground at the first sign of danger, they just stand and shoot.

Aye. Makes 'em more like turrets. They also seem to target weapons first, disarming me in a few seconds while taking heavy damage. It's one of the few actors that I'm not able to take 1 on 1 using the vanilla actors and weapons[excluding the high level coalition weapons]

It's more likely that because the weapon is in front of you, it gets hit more often.