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Who knew the humble drone would transform the battlefield?<\/p>\n
We knew they were unmatched for surveys, photos, etc. but recent conflicts, especially the ongoing kerfluffle between Russia and Ukraine, have transformed their battlefield role from cute reconnaissance vehicle to – what? Seems like damn near anything they want to be.<\/p>\n
Just as a for-instance –\u00a0 Ukraine’s use of drones in an anti-tank role has forced the armored heavy-weight, tanks, back behind the front lines to act as fire support. One would think a few inches of heavy-duty armor would do the trick – but literally thousands of tanks are getting killed, forcing the Russians to use one of the older forms of battlefield transport – motorcycles.<\/p>\n
In 1916, US troops on motorcycles chased Mexican bandit Pancho Villa (who also used motorized bikes in his raids). In World War II, couriers zoomed all over the front carrying messages, while German reconnaissance units even used sidecar motorcycles armed with machine guns. Today, US special forces use motorbikes, including some commercial models.<\/p>\n
“Russia’s increased use of motorcycles is an adaptation in response to pervasive Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian armored vehicles and the unsustainable armored vehicle losses that Russian forces suffered in late 2023 and 2024,” according to a new report by researchers at the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank.<\/p>\n
Yet Russian troops believe that motorcycles are fast enough to storm Ukrainian positions, light enough to infiltrate through terrain inaccessible to tanks, and agile enough to evade the drones that have helped destroy 10,000 Russian armored vehicles. “These assaults are quite large-scale: from a dozen to a hundred motorcycles,” the Ukrainian spokesman said. “They believe that in this way they can quickly overcome the terrain and reach Ukrainian positions \u2014 faster than a drone can reach them. And if not \u2014 then one motorcycle is spent on one drone.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Not just your typical bikes, either.<\/p>\n
A Ukrainian soldier fighting near the town of Pokrovsk said, “Russian motorcyclists are currently attacking in columns of eight motorcycles with electronic warfare (EW) support and that Russian servicemembers carry EW systems at the front, center, and end of the columns to protect the motorcycles from Ukrainian drone strikes.” Electronic warfare systems can fool nearby drones or scramble their control frequencies with noise.<\/p>\n
“Russian motorcycle usage appears to have begun as a grassroots tactical response to Ukrainian drone operations, comparable to how Russia’s own informal frontline drone units began,” said ISW. Some observers have even spotted videos of Russian soldiers riding electric scooters.\u00a0\u00a0 Business Insider<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I do know some bike riders salivating at that EW prospect…neutralizing police radar…hmmm….<\/p>\n
Russia’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) is reputedly trying to do things like centralize procurement, standardize operations, etc. Given that their rigidity in operation hurt them badly at the beginning of the war, that actually could be partially good news – but on the other hand, Russia has always been good about “if attacking with one is good let’s use 1000”\u00a0 and this could actually improve their odds a bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"