BMW R75 & sidecar

Started by Heedless Horseman, 28 October 2016, 01:14:16 AM

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Heedless Horseman

As a result of a nostalgia trip to some of the first large scale, (Tamiya 1/35), kits built long ago...I was pondering the BMW R75 and sidecar. Just what WAS the point in having a mounted MG on a motorcycle sidecar? Fine for herding prisoners or intimidating potential partisans as an escort...and , presumably, dismountable for fire support...but, aimed fire from a sitting position squashed in a sidecar? On the MOVE? Recce should not mix it anyway...just report. So, apart from giving future teens a lovely looking model to build, why have the MG...(with all the weight of gun and sufficient ammo to be useful)...reducing cross country mobility?
Curious.
Also: Does the PD model have an mg?
And why do I somehow associate this type of vehicle with 1939/40, when, I believe, it was introduced in '41?
Did 'solo' m/c's ever do point recce...or just TOO suicidal?
Might buy some anyway!
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toxicpixie

28 October 2016, 08:33:28 AM #1 Last Edit: 28 October 2016, 08:36:54 AM by toxicpixie
http://etloh.8m.com/strategy/recon.html might answer some questions, but in brief - the German opinion of "recce" was very that it needed to be highly aggressive and absolutely ready and able to mix it up. All of it is very mobile (for the Germans, even if that means horses and whatever motorcycles, trucks and pogo sticks they could scrape together!), so gets to where it needs to be very quickly. The big, well armed heavy weapons company would provide massive cover fire for the infantry to roar in and seize the vital ground with speed and massive local firepower superiority, then the armoured cars could move through them safe from counter attack and go on a chevauchee around the enemy rear and support areas safe in the knowledge there was nothing much that could touch them.

Festooning everything possible with MMGs was just a component of that (more guns, more lead, and it's all got to go somewhere and bullets in your general direction are often enough to keep people down even if they don't hit), much like the LRDG and their ludicrously over gunned gun trucks with guns.

Of course as their situation shifts the recce (and engineers and ATG units) get used as the actual attack force due to being one of the few motorised elements in the army* (hard to conduct Blitzkrieg deep into Russia when your guys are marching doggedly forwards on foot or horse), which shifts their role even more towards being fighting troops, and that just gets worse and worse in a self supporting spiral as the bigger Armoured Cars and armoured half tracks get introduced and the situation changes from attack to using them as a desperate fire brigade...


*one of the few motorised elements in the army* - that should probably be mobile, as there's exceptionally large numbers of horses still in use right through from '39 to '45, but at least something else is doing your walking for you!
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fsn

Interesting comments.

I was amazed at how tooled-up the British Recce Corps was by 1944.

BTW - I now want German recce troops on Pogo-Sticks. 
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toxicpixie

28 October 2016, 09:22:55 AM #3 Last Edit: 28 October 2016, 09:29:34 AM by toxicpixie
It's an awkward balance - you want your recce to be sufficiently aggressive they get stuck in hard enough to actual find some info and don't get screened off, but not so aggressive they're just a fighting unit. The Germans kind of lost sight of that... not always by choice, as with the recce guys being the most tooled up, mobile and motivated anyway they just got used that way by necessity.

British recce mostly seems to have that mentality knocked out them, and stop trying to recreate the Charge of the Light Brigade in favour of doing their bloody job, with the kit to make sure they do it RIGHT and no one interferes :D Barring the Armoured Recce Regts. with Cromwells, who the Divisional commanders generally treated as a fighting unit in the same way German commanders did. And as I understand it the armoured divisions had basically shifted (rather unofficially) to a set up where they had four "combined arms" teams, each of an armoured regt. (the three in the armoured brigade proper plus the recce regt.) and an infantry battalion (either the "armoured" one from the Armoured Brigade in half tracks, or the motorised ones in trucks from the Infantry Brigade). Then the actual "light recce" (not so light once all those armoured cars are weighed :D) can get on with the recce and the shooty chaps can go all shooty ;)

QuotePaul - And why do I somehow associate this type of vehicle with 1939/40, when, I believe, it was introduced in '41?
Did 'solo' m/c's ever do point recce...or just TOO suicidal?

Hollywood and Battle comics :D It's the iconic German bike, and plastered everywhere in the popular brain :D Like all Germans have Schmiessers and shout "Actung Tommy, for you zee var is over! Aieeee!" ;)

On point recce, I think they were - them, horses, trucks, armoured cars, on foot - whatever was most suitable for the job and got you there :D Were they always ideal for the role? Not so much...

And on a third edit, because despite only just starting my first coffee I'm somehow very over excited and keep hitting "post" before finishing, I've some of those M/C combos for my AVBCW Fascists, and from memory they don't have an MG on. I may be wrong, they're in a box in the loft so I'd have to check to be sure! I may have just got fed up and not put them on, used them elsewhere or just be remembering wrongly...
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Duke Speedy of Leighton

Early war Flames of War motorcycle recon platoon, command motorcycle, 4 bases of two mg armed sidecar combinations...
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toxicpixie

Well, '41 is quite early war ;)

And whilst the R75 might not be in service until then they did use others, so... but I bet BF only do the R75, not Zundapps and NSU's, or Germans on French/British/Czech/Polish/Russian bikes :D
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fred.

Good stuff chaps.

The Pendraken model doesn't have the MG modelled. Probably would be a bit fragile

Recently watched a film about the German invasion of Denmark in 1940. And in this a Danish recce unit features heavily. They had side cars with 20mm canon on. Which seemed to be one of the very few anti-armour weapons the Danes had available. In the film they would zoom up to a point. Stop fire a few shots then drive off again. The whole thing was very low to the ground so probably a very small target.
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toxicpixie

28 October 2016, 12:40:26 PM #7 Last Edit: 28 October 2016, 12:51:15 PM by toxicpixie
You mean these - ?

That looks a cracking piece of kit!
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Rob

There are some very good comments in this thread.  :)

Cannot confirm this but I think the combo for the MG34 would be mainly because of the larger amount of ammunition carriage ability. The MG34 and 42 used masses of ammo and if they were using motorcycles only the ammunition would be more limited.

The use of motorcycles is an early war thing, they were replaced in Russia with Kublewagon/cars probably for range and the greater cargo carrying ability for items such as 81mm mortars and radios. As soon as they were available they would switch to the armoured Sdkfz250, and when these were discontinued the Sdkfz251.

This of course applies to Panzer-grenadier and Armoured divisions, the infantry having to make do with bicycles.

Cheers, Rob  :) :)

toxicpixie

Yes, sorry - think I missed the push bike off the list of gear above :D

Deadly thing, the push bike. Got my Desantnikoy royally b*gg*r*d by Hungarians on push bikes once.
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fsn

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fred.

Quote from: toxicpixie on 28 October 2016, 12:40:26 PM
You mean these -

That looks a cracking piece of kit!

That looks like the one. The crew in the film had overalls / jumpsuits rather than greatcoats.
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toxicpixie

I suspect they might have specific motorcycle troop uniforms mechanic/driver style, assuming the films accurate, as opposed to the museums generic Danish greatcoat?
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nikharwood

Cracking thread, chaps - top-notch interesting 8)

Heedless Horseman

MPs had bikes too. Envisage the start of a ' Bulge' scenario...with a Snowdrop burbling up to an ersatz M10 sitting on a crossroad with US unit nearby. "Move that goddam' thing, a*****e"!
Throw dice. D1= No answer...raise tension for another dice roll. D2=Blam!. D3=He twigs...falls off bike. D4=He twigs and does a Steve McQeen raising the alarm with .45. D5=Being German, they politely do so. D6=Being German, they politely do so...over the Snowdrop with Panther support entering table.

Disclaimer: No Snowdrops, Germans or cats should be intentionally hurt by this 'fun', gaming scenario.  ;)
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