British OOB June 1944 - additional formations?

[Cross]

Originally Posted by JohnHale

There do not appear to be any motorcycles in the British OOB.

I hope these comments may be of some interest.

Hi John,

The British are the only major power that does not have motorcycles in their SP OOB. This is ironic because I think the WW2 British Army was the most 'motorcyclized' army in the world.

The German motorbikes get all the attention, but the British built about 400,000 MCs during WW2.

In 1940 there were six British MC battalions. They used sidecars with Lewis guns attached. I would love to see these in the OOB. Two of these battalions were part of the BEF and were lost in France/Dunkirk.

There were also some MCs fitted with mortars, Thompsons and Boys rifles, but these were quite rare I'd imagine.

After Dunkirk the MC battalions became Home Guard units. Though some of these MC/sidecar platoons were used to raid across the Channel (about 50 sidecars) on at least nine occasions.

Outside of the UK, the average British infantry battalion had about 30 motorcycles, and a light artillery battery (8 guns) had about 12 motorcycles

The British seemed to be slowly replacing some motorcycles with jeeps. For example, a 25 Pounder light artillery battery had about 12 MCs in the early war, but by 1944 had about 7 MCs and 5 jeeps.

I think the most common use for MCs was as dispatch riders. All the photos I've seen show them carring a Sten, and occasionally a MP40.

I have seen a reference to British sidecars being used in the later war as part of an assault platoon or something; but this has been hard to verify.

Personally, I would love to be able to use British sidecars for an FOO, scouting, and as a very light utility vehicle to carry say a sniper, AT team or pick up the remains of a crew.

I doubt there'll be any work done on the WW2 OOB for some months, but it would be cool if it got on the list to look at.

cheers,
Cross

[Imp]

The question here is what were they used for.
Obviosly available to BEF & from what you say use like this could be extended in date to represent raid use, they should however be under the misc tab as more a type of special forces acting independently I would assume.
Later war are they all dispatch riders? If so not combat units so should not be included as will get abused as scouts.
On that a neighbour of mine started having serious neck trouble several years back & one of the first questions the doctor asked him was "Were you a dispatch rider during the war" which he was. Turns out asking the question speeds diagnosise as a worn out neck due to the constant looking around its a job related injury.

Edit just remembered John said used as scouts

[redcoat2]

Originally Posted by Cross

In 1940 there were six British MC battalions. They used sidecars with Lewis guns attached. I would love to see these in the OOB. Two of these battalions were part of the BEF and were lost in France/Dunkirk.

AFAIK only one of the BEF's MC battalions went into action with its bikes: the 4th Northumberland Fusiliers. Amongst other things it provided recon for the British counter-attack at the Battle of Arras. I’ve found a couple of photos of them in the Imperial War Museum photographs collection. One of them shows that their sidecars were armed with Brens rather than Lewis guns.

Originally Posted by Cross

These are Home Guard MCs photographed during an exercise near Exeter in August 1941. I’m not sure about the LMG. I don’t think it is a Lewis. It may be a Bren with one of its relatively rare drum magazines.

There are a couple more photos of British MCs with Bren guns in this forum thread.