The Doom Buggy

Introduction
A well run FAV squad on large armor maps can be a painful thorn in the enemy's side. A poorly run FAV squad results in many lost tickets. So, what makes a good Doom Buggy squad?

Squad Setup

3-man squad, locked.

SL=F1 (driver). The driver must be good at evading obstacles, armor, and tons of gunfire, because god knows you'll be running into a lot of all of those. The driver should come in as Engineer with the Pilum, PDS, and motion mines. Mines for placing on heavily used roads when there is no enemy armor in the area. PDS should be placed on the buggy, and when enemy armor is close, the SL should drive up behind it, allowing the other two occupants to bail out. The SL should only bail out to attack enemy armor with their pilum if a secondary shot is needed immediately against enemy APCs, and occasionally walkers.

SM2=F2 (gunner). This person should come in as Support, with the Ganz, EMP grenades, and IDS. The IDS should be placed on the buggy, and the Ganz is for use against other buggies, and infantry if needed, as it does much more damage against buggies than the Bianchi and Shuko, and it is more accurate at range against infantry targets, although sniping infantry should be done only if no armor is harassing your team. When enemy armor is spotted, and the driver begins heading towards it, get your EMP nades ready. Your job is to bail out behind the armor, and EMP lock it. Throw one EMP, then place your AmmoHub, and continue. This will not only stop the armor from evading the pilum shots coming towards it, but also stops it from turning its weapons on your squad.

SM3=F3 (passenger). This person should come in with mine bait, motion mines, and the Pilum. This person is in the greatest amount of danger out of the 3 occupants, as they are exposed to gunfire, explosions near the buggy may kill them, and they are generally the first person the enemy armor targets. This person needs to be very accurate with their Pilum, as they are usually relied on to take out the enemy armor singlehandedly. Whenever there are no enemies in the area, the passengers should repair any damage the FAV takes. Even minor bumps in the road can cause damage.

Objectives

1. Focus on the destruction of enemy armor-tanks, walkers, and APCs. Killing infantry is best left to the rest of your team, as it requires the FAV to be still, and most infantry are equipped with rockets, which can destroy a FAV in a matter of seconds.

2. The highest priority targets usually are tanks, followed by walkers, and then APCs. This is because generally walkers are used for close-range armor fights and killing infantry, and are useless when it comes to long range fights. APCs are also primarily for EMPing targets and infantry destruction. Tanks are the only real danger to long range armor targets. However, if you come across a situation where friendly armor is being attacked in CQC, definitely take out the enemy walkers first.

3. A somewhat side-objective of the Doom Buggy is to provide behind-enemy-lines spotting and information. This helps your CO target groups of armor with his/her EMP+Orbital combo.

Little Things that Matter

1. Just because you are in the gunner seat, and you have a machinegun, does not mean you have to use it. If you are gunning, please resist the urge to shoot at the armor nearby, it only alerts them of the presence of the FAV. Also, FAV guns do no damage to gunships, so don't bother trying to make them wave off the attack.

2. Everyone should spot lots and lots. Drivers can look around about 190 degrees, the gunner can rotate fully, and the passenger can see everything behind the FAV. Between the 3 occupants, you should be able to spot everything nearby. And believe me, this really does help, especially the gunship squad, if there is one. The effeciency of the gunship is doubled if they don't have to go searching for targets to attack.

3. When the gunner and passenger bail out to attack a piece of armor, the driver should not stop. Just drive by and keep going. Most of the time only one pilum is needed to kill the armor, and the SL needs to stay alive to be a spawn point, in case both SMs die. After a successful armor kill, the SMs should ask for extraction. The fastest way to do this is just stand beside each other, and hold E. The driver can then just drive straight into you without any danger of TKing you. If the engineer happens to end up in the gunner seat, just tell the driver to slow down or stop so you can change seats, or tell him you are going to bail and he should come back for you when the support has switched to gunning.

4. Since FAVs can outrun motion mines fairly easily, if the driver sees enemy mines, he should tell the passenger to drop mine bait as they race by so that friendly armor can travel through safely.

5. One trick for getting some inexperienced armor pilots to shields prematurely is to drive by the armor (nearly beside them) at high speed, and have the passenger drop a motion mine beside it. If you "strafe" the armor a few times, you can even destroy them this way. Drivers should be careful not to drive by going from front to back, as most likely the weapon turrets of the armor are pointing forward, and the "nitro" of the FAV should be used when doing this to get out of the area ASAP.

6. Watch out for the EMPs of APCs. If you get caught in an EMP, do not hit the speed burst when you are completely, you will just be wasting it. Instead, try to use it when the EMP first hits you, and also when the EMP wears off.

7. If there is an accessible, open enemy backflag flag that is undefended, take it, as you are probably the only ones who can. The driver should drop the gunner and passenger and get out of there. It should only take a minute to flip the flag, so come back after then. Its a good idea to stay within 200m of the flag, just in case your squad needs a hot extraction. Also, try not to let any enemies see you drop your squad at the flag, or traveing away from the area after you drop them, or they will go investigate. Mostly Doom Buggy squads should be only 3 people though, as 6 people is quite a lot to be taking away from capping flags, piloting armor, etc.

8. If the armor destruction team succeeds in destroy the armor piece, be ready to have to deal with people who bail out of the armor. Right after a killing-blow to the armor, the engy in the squad should be ready with his SMG, and the support with the Ganz.

If done correctly, a single 3-man squad can severely hinder enemy armor operations across the entire map. If you have a 6-man squad, you can run two Doom Buggies, although my recomendation is the two FAVs work on different areas of the map, and only work in the same area if there is a large incursion of enemy armor in one area, or one buggy is wounded badly and has to repair. Mostly Doom Buggy squads should be only 3 people though, as 6 people is quite a lot to be taking away from capping flags, piloting armor, etc.