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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 batttalions of motorized infantry. One of
these was in fact mounted on motorcycle combinations. The 50 mm (2 inch)
platoon mortar was even carried by (not mounted on) such a motorcycle.
In addition two thirds of the reconnaisance battalion also used motorcycles.
That makes a total of 7 truck infantry companies and 5 motorcycle companies!
Furthermore the German throughout the war made extensive use of
kampfgruppen (battle groups) usually named after the officer in command.
The closest equivalent is used in US armoured today, but right now I
cannot recall what they are called.
Kampfgruppen varied greatly in size (platoon to korps) and was used to
to reach a specific objective. A kampfgruppe would could consist of all
arms (armour, infantry, assault engineers, artillery, panzerjägers etc).
The different arms thus worked closely together and this explains the
large columns of motorcycles seen together with tank during the blitzkrieg
era. The kampfgruppen actually gave the Germans greater flexibility than the
Allies.
During operation Barbarossa a panzer division consisted of 3 (or 2)
tank battalions plus 3 lorried infantry battalions and a motorcycle
reconnaisance battalion. Later in the war the makeup was 2 tank
battalions and 4 infantry battalion of which one was in halftracks.
Christian
In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Bruce Schlickbernd writes:
> 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
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