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Subject: 
Re: Military Question: Tanks and Motorcycles
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.fun, lugnet.build.military
Date: 
Tue, 11 Dec 2001 17:35:05 GMT
Viewed: 
22 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Richard Marchetti writes:
{cross-posting to get more info.]

In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
  What's usually the context of the appearance?  Usually, IIRC,
  motorcycles were used by couriers--so they should only appear
  with armor when the army is on the move, and the entire mechanized
  force is in transit.  Motorcycles would also be used when no other
  vehicles were available for infantry, or transfer, or so forth.
  Do you have specific cases in mind?

Please forgive me if my memory is faulty in this area, I am by NO MEANS one
of these people that can tell you the make and model of armaments, aircraft,
battleships, etc. -- but I seem to recall the tank and motorcycle pairing in
the last bloody sequence of the movie "Saving Private Ryan" and as someone
else has pointed out, endless sequences of Nazi tanks and motorcycles from a
variety of fictional film sources.  Is this movie magic, or might it have
been a more German specific thing? Am I totally wrong about this pairing? It
actually never occurs?

I admit that the question comes up because of something I am building.  It's
no problem if it ends up being my own little fantasy, but I did think there
was a real world analogue to the idea. Perhaps not...

-- Hop-Frog

The Germans did use motorcycles in combat - kind of a mobile light cavalry
strike force.  I'm not sure that they used them in conjunction with tanks.
Hit and run missions or advanced strike teams to get to key locations.  Not
really stand-up fighters, of course.  At the beginning of the war, the
Germans had developed much of their army under various international
restrictions and it was surprisingly lightweight in nature (the tanks were
light, armored cars for scouting, cheap motorcycles, etc.).  Don't know if
they were maintained throughout the war, but they were reasonably effective
during the blitzkrieg days.

Bruce



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Military Question: Tanks and Motorcycles
 
I don't know anything about how German motorcycles actually were used in WWII, but from my own limited military experience doing my national service in the Norwegian army, I can imagine how they might have been used. Often see them with a sidecar (...) (23 years ago, 12-Dec-01, to lugnet.off-topic.fun, lugnet.build.military)
  Re: Military Question: Tanks and Motorcycles
 
In World War II the German army used a lot of motorcycles. The other armies mainly used motorcycles for liason, couriers and traffic control. At the outbreak of the war a typical German panzer division consisted of 4 tank battalions and 3 (...) (23 years ago, 16-Jan-02, to lugnet.off-topic.fun, lugnet.build.military)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Military Question: Tanks and Motorcycles
 
{cross-posting to get more info.] (...) Please forgive me if my memory is faulty in this area, I am by NO MEANS one of these people that can tell you the make and model of armaments, aircraft, battleships, etc. -- but I seem to recall the tank and (...) (23 years ago, 11-Dec-01, to lugnet.off-topic.fun, lugnet.build.military)

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