Military motorcycles

[kenvil1]

Silodrome has an interesting article on the history of military motorcycles. Although Moto Guzzi isn't mentioned, there is a request at the end of the article to send them a message on Facebook or Twitter with information on anything important they may have missed, so if someone here is familiar with the story of how Guzzi won the Italian government competition for a military motorcycle, they should enlighten them.

http://www.ebay.com/gds/a-brief-history-of-military-motorcycles/588ef01e4ff19d03af97fd67/g.html
https://www.facebook.com/Silodrome/?fref=ts

[Kiwi_Roy]

I really thought this thread would take off

I'll add to it, my Dad near El Alamein on a Harley he "borrowed" from the South Africans, he looks like he's coloured here but it's just his tan.

He was with the Kiwis of course but he figured he needed it more than they did.
I was told the NZ army mainly had british bikes as the Indians were not delivered in time.
I know when I was growing up you could buy an Army Indian brand new in a crate.


I found this that talks about the South African use of Harleys
http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol101em.html

[pehayes]

Guzzi made lots of military motorcycles.


The three-wheeled Mechanical Mule was one of their first non-race V-twins.
The Cicogna or stork was used in snowy mountains.
The Alce had clamping apparatus to carry a tripod on one side and a 50cal machine gun on the other.


There is a really fine war movie about the battle of El Alamein in North Africa.  Tragic for the Italians.  The movie is terrific in that a Guzzi SuperAlce like mine is used at the very beginning and very end of the movie playing a critical role.  Pedantically, the SuperAlce wasn't built until after the war.  In reality, the earlier Alce would have been the proper vehicle.  Reference to the movie is here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0329042/?ref_=nv_sr_1
The entire film is available on YouTube but alas it is in Italian without subtitles here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfSv87ZuJf4&t=3s

I encourage you to watch the first 5+ minutes.  Language is not important.  The very first 'voice' you hear is that of the Guzzi!  The protagonist, a young volunteer, is being delivered to the front lines on the back seat of a SuperAlce driven by a Bersaglieri (elite marksmen).  Watch at least until he gets delivered into camp.  I have the DVD with English subtitles.
https://www.amazon.com/El-Alamein-Paolo-Briguglia/dp/B0009Y2618/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487644369&sr=8-1&keywords=dvd+el+alamein

Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA

[Kiwi_Roy]

Thanks for posting the film, I watched it all the way through. El Alamein was a horrific infantry battle with the largest concentration of heavy guns since the first world war. The infantry had to clear the way through the minefields under fire before the tanks could even move.
One has to feel sorry for the combatants whatever side they were on.

[kenvil1]

The most interesting part of the article, for me, was how Max Fritz reverse engineered a surplus WWI Douglas boxer-twin engine in order to create the BMW R32. The 2-wheel drive R75 military model eventually evolved from this model, and it was considered so superior that many other nations sought to replicate it. These models included the Ural Dnepr M-72, the Chang Jiang CJ750, the Harley-Davidson XA, and even the Indian 841, which as we know had a longitudinal V-twin engine like the Guzzi.

[O]

Some recent photos of the Alce at a motorcycle/airplane show I was at a few years ago:



upload photo







picture upload

[Tom]

The Swiss had the Condor.

[Sasquatch Jim]

  I have had a Dnepr and a Ural but I always wanted a Condor.