While it’s common for militaries of the world to use motorcycles, they are normally used in small numbers and either for courier work behind the lines, or by small teams conducting special operations. I recently came across an article about the war in Ukraine though, where Russia is using dirt bikes and quads in blitzkrieg-style assaults. This was something you didn’t even see in World War 2, where motorcycles saw peak-usage.
If they were made for war, motorcycles would serve a more prominent place today. However, it’s wrong to think motorcycles were completely abandoned by modern militaries.
It sounds like the idea is that using small teams on motorcycles can combine the speed of a mounted attack (using vehicles) with the stealth of attacking in small teams on foot. The idea of small teams is to make it harder for drones to conduct swarm attacks on a wave of troops attacking, whether mounted or dismounted. You ride up, knock out an enemy position, and ride out before drones or artillery can pinpoint you.
Makes sense, except when you add a dose of reality. Motorcycles are already dangerous without a decent amount of training. Moving through the woods is easier than on a two-track vehicle, but open terrain leaves you vulnerable and requires you to focus a lot of attention on the terrain right in front of you instead of the treeline or the skies.
You’ll have a harder time hearing enemy fire or an approaching drone, your hands aren’t free to return fire, and you have zero protection other than what body armor you would have while maneuvering on foot. In all, it sounds more like a banzai charge than a blitzkrieg: just one more way to feed young men into the meat grinder of war.
The stock photos I found of these new motorcycles makes them look like Chinese machines with a small displacement, probably 150-250cc. These particular bikes are clearly modern though, with disc brakes and modern lighting. Although the bodywork looks to have radiator shrouds, the engines are probably air-cooled for simplicity.
They aren’t the only motorcycles being used. Although Russia officially retired their Ural motorcycle and sidecar combinations, they are beginning to reappear on the Ukrainian front. The Ural is actually a copy of Germany’s BMW and Zundapp sidecars which were used in World War 2 to move equipment and officers around, or even as mobile machine gun nests.
Dubbed the Motor Shed, these old designs with boxy cargo sidecars are more likely used in the more traditional roles they were used for 80-years ago, such as moving ammo and food up to front line positions, bringing wounded back to the rear, and the occasional reconnaissance mission. The Motor-Shed, when set up with a box-shaped camouflage covering, also looks like an oddly-shaped box, and is likely to confuse A.I. targeting systems, as well as being more difficult to spot when stopped and not on a roadway.
Without the camouflage kit they are simple utility machines to move people and gear around.
Other second-hand purchases of old Chinese motorcycles are also floating around the internet. Looking lie 1950’s British Twin-cylinder bikes, I’ve never seen them in photos or videos relating to the Chinese military. In fact, the Chinese are usually seen with a copy-of-a-copy: the Chang Jiang sidecar being an even lower-budget version of the Russian Ural.
You can view the entire concept any way you want. You can say Russia is desperate and employing anything they can find. You can say they are adapting to a unique battlefield where massive waves of tanks and troops rushing the enemy is simply not feasible. Without either side having uncontested control of the air, the war has been “old school,” with artillery duels, troops dug into trenches, and human wave attacks.
As casualties mounted and equipment was destroyed, things changed to drone attacks, feint attacks, and attempts to outmaneuver instead of out-muscle the enemy. If your concern is maneuverability, motorcycles and small buggies are a far better choice than a battalion of tanks. Regardless of the equipment involved, the war is unlikely to find a military solution. Ukrainians seem ready to keep fighting with shovels and rocks if that’s all they have left, and Russia is unlikely to settle for the borders they had three years ago before the invasion.
Johnny Killmore 