two-wheeled Mechanised assault Vehicles

Motorcycles evolved from bicycles, first as spindly frames powered by small displacement engines and eventually growing into battle-ready machines. Motorcycles were first introduced into the German military arsenal in 1904. By 1911 motercycles appeared with the addition of sidecars, which could carry additional men, weapons and material. 5,400 machines joined the German army in World War i between 1914-18 and, despite the desperate economic conditions following Germany’s defeat, by the late 1920s some 300 different German motorcycle makes were in production. in 1933, after Adolf hitler had been voted in as chancellor, German citizens were exempted from paying tax on motorcycles, and German sales were further encouraged by a limit on imported machines. Sales were also fuelled in 1935 when the Wehrmacht purchased large numbers of machines for use by their motorcycle rifle troops.

tens of thousands rode to war on motorcycles and were destined to play an important role across a wide variety of terrain and weather conditions. they served as couriers and scouts as well as highly mobile rifle troops. Civilian models were also requisitioned for military use – often along with their owners, who were transported from civilians streets to the battlefield accompanied by their motorcycles. in 1938, 200,000 motorcycles were produced in Germany and the areas that had been annexed by the reich. the principal bikes included BMW, DKW, NSU, triumph (under German licence), Victoria and Zündapp. For heavy-duty sidecar use the German military relied upon the Zündapp KS 750 and the BMW r 75. Motorcycles served in a wide variety of battlefield functions, as well providing chauffeur services for officers, transporting the wounded and delivering hot meals to frontline troops.. they rode exposed, without the armour plating of the panzers or the shielding support of grenadier foot soldiers marching beside them while confronting mine fields, artillery fire and strafing aircraft. in effect they were mobile targets – ‘sniper magnets’. their other enemy was the russian weather. By the first autumn of the invasion the roads had been transformed by the seasonal rains into near-impassable bogs, and the fields over which the motorcycles travelled became “seas of jelly three feet (0.9 metres) or more deep”, where pack horses sank to the belly and boots were sucked off a soldier’s feet. Motorised forces that had once travelled 110 kilometres (70 miles) in a day were now lucky to make ten. in winter, temperatures plummeted to -40 degrees. engine oil and exposed soldiers froze solid, and hundreds of thousands of cases of frostbite were reported. the conditions therefore severely limited the motorcycle’s effectiveness in russia.

“FOR HEAVY-DUTY SIDECAR USE THE GERMAN MILITARY RELIED UPON THE ZÜNDAPP KS 750 AND THE BMW R75”