[GUIDE] COH2: M3A1 Light Scout Car with Flamers, aka "The Clown Car"

The M3A1 Light Scout Car is built out of the Special Rifle Command and is a powerful early game vehicle.

In addition to a decently damaging mounted machine gun, it can carry a single infantry squad in the back that can fire out of the vehicle.

Stick any old Conscript squad in there and it'll be useful for flanking and moving infantry quickly, but stick an engineer with a ROKS-3 Flamethrower in the car and you'll discover the true power.

In the early game, nothing beats the anti-infantry power of the flamethrower.  It has a good area of effect, great damage, and ignores or gets bonuses against infantry in cover or in buildings.  There's literally no way to hide or negate flamethrower damage.

The common way of dealing with engineers and pioneers with flamethrowers is to either focus them down quick due to their low health, or to suppress them using machine gun fire.

Coincidentally, the M3A1 prevents both!  Engineers will take no damage while inside the car, and cannot be suppressed.  This allows them to keep firing the flamethrower to their heart's content, quickly roasting enemy troops.

This is especially effective against HMG teams, who have no defense against the scout car.

You should generally keep the car away from grenadiers who can kill it in two panzerfausts (which cost 25 munitions each) but with good kiting you can still see the car be effective.


An alternate strategy is to put a sniper team in the car, which keeps them safe from harm while allowing them to snipe with impunity.  Their long range means you can easily keep the car away from grenadiers' panzerfausts while still allowing the snipers to fire.

A third strategy is to put Guards into the car, as they will fire their anti-tank PTRS rifles even while moving.  This can be useful for killing flammenwerfer half-tracks or unupgraded scout cars.

Note that as the game progresses, the abundance of anti-tank weaponry severely weakens this strategy.  However, don't discount how much territory you can swallow up by intelligent use of the "Clown Car" early on.


In summary:

• The M3A1 Scout Car gives your infantry extra speed, mobility, and the ability to ignore suppression.
• You can capture while in the car.
• Put in:
• flamethrower engineers in to kill infantry, especially weapon teams
• Snipers to chip away at your opponent's squad at long range, draining manpower
• Guards to kill light vehicles.