It’s easy to laugh at the motorcycle tactic at first glance, but when backed by proper support, they become a serious challenge. You’re no longer dealing with one or two targets, now it’s 10 or 20, fast-moving and dispersed, which makes them much harder for drones to track and neutralize
Without enablers, all it takes is a few mines, a well placed machine gun position, or armored vehicle to put a stop to it but if u can suppress defenses for just long enough u can get pretty far
Agreed. I think people severely overestimate how densely manned the front is. If you've got an under-strength platoon trying to hold a kilometer of frontage it's going to lead to all sorts of weird shit.
I am reminded of French armoured units attaching much softer armoured jeeps and motorcycles to their tank units in WWII and in the Post-War era. To surprisingly decent effect.
Mind, they used the motorcycles and jeeps as scouts, not necessarily assaulting alongside the tanks (although it did happen by circumstance, as a consequence of scouting is getting found out and having to shoot your way out).
Also, it seems like the odds of two small inline tires hitting an AT mine are are far less than wheeled/tracked vehicles, plus being able to avoid typical choke points all together by covering terrain that could only be covered by dirt bikes seems significant.
allows for faster mobility and exploitation of the loss of battle transparency as well. easier to ford rivers with than trucks. Shoot n scoot has gotta be the MO for tactical fires like manpads and mortars too, right?
This is one of those things where I've seen the Russians trying it and go "hmmm?". But then, if the Ukrainians are also trying it, there must at least be some tactical benefit to doing it.
Makes me wonder "is the tactical jet ski, deployed en-masse, the equivalent solution to the amphibious warfare problem of getting the first wave ashore against defended beaches."
Losses will be high, obvs.
Or are helicopters and ACVs coming in from over the horizon a viable approach?
Been discussing this with some people and the argument I've heard is that this is an adaptation to the fact that the transparent battlefield isn't. Light vehicles and dismounts allow assault forces to exploit gaps in ISR coverage, both in space and time. The lower signature of both, in comparison -
to armor reduces the effective range of ISR coverage and the speed of the mounted assaults allows troops to exploit assets going on/off station. There's also the issue where the motorcycles can beat defending FPVs to their targets depending on when they're detected. Finally they can more easily -
It’s a return to WW1 and the search for some kind of survivable mobility. Like you said, armor was the solution then. But now speed and deception seem the better options.
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You can't put fortifications everywhere.
In the Middle East and Eastern fronts, they stayed around the entire war.
More importantly, Rambo looked cool.
Losses will be high, obvs.
Or are helicopters and ACVs coming in from over the horizon a viable approach?