“This vehicle is a beast,” the soldier insisted, pointing out the sidecar with its spare gas can and attached box of smoke grenades for obscuring the bike and its riders from Ukrainian drones. But as armies repeatedly learned in the roughly 100-year history of armored motorcycles, “the high mass of the vehicle made steering difficult,” according to Tanks Encyclopedia. The ongoing de-mechanization of the Russian military—from one of the world’s leading users of heavy armored vehicles to a force that routinely sends troops into battle in compact cars—is one of the major factors in the slowing pace of Russian advances on the most important battlefields in eastern Ukraine.
Author: David Axe, Forbes Staff, David Axe, Forbes Staff https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/
Published at: 2025-04-01 22:25:53
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