Military Indian - Sidehack in the German Wehrmacht

[23JDCA 808]

Does this have wheel brakes, or did they just slow down using engine compression? ...bill

[bikejunk]

if you look at the rear wheel their is a little shoe that pushes into the belt shiv front has a wire wraped around a pulley on the front hub

[darrylri]

Originally posted by exeric
Darryl, I'm currious about the brake and clutch levers on the BMW example you posted. They look a bit awkward to use in practical riding. But, it does looks good.

They work well enough in practice. One nice thing about them is that you don't get poked in the head while working on the bike when you lift your head up. (The early postwar bikes have regular levers that don't have a ball on the end. Ouch!)

BMW used these "inverted" levers from the 20s up through 1941, but they were hardly exclusive. A friend has a 1933 Rudge Ulster with similar levers.

[HarleyCreation]

I would think that when trail or woods riding those reversed/inverted levers would catch on brush and everything else and could pose an actual hazard. I wonder if maybe that's why they were done away with?

Speaking of woods riding, my old 1966 BMW R50/2 could go ANYWHERE and made a wonderful trail bike!

[Pete Gagan]

A decade or so ago, when I was on the Irish Rally, one of the German competitors showed up with a military chief and s/c in original condition painted desert sand with Afrika Korps markings. Apparently one of those loads of Indians arrived in France after it fell, so obviously they were used by German forces. Why not? Presumably spare parts went with them.
Rommel's favorite staff car was a captured American Jeep.
Pete Gagan

[AFJ]

Originally posted by Pete Gagan
A decade or so ago, when I was on the Irish Rally, one of the German competitors showed up with a military chief and s/c in original condition painted desert sand with Afrika Korps markings. Apparently one of those loads of Indians arrived in France after it fell, so obviously they were used by German forces. Why not? Presumably spare parts went with them.
Rommel's favorite staff car was a captured American Jeep.
Pete Gagan

The French Army had ordered a substantial number of model 340B "Military" Chiefs with sidecars in 1939. As far as I know, all those which formed part of the contract were 340 frame and CDO motor coded with the non-valenced fenders.

Prior to June 6, 1940 , these were gradually being shipped over to France. On that date, the British government accepted responsibility for payment to American companies for all French-ordered war materials - said materials therefore becoming the property of the British government, rather than the French. This avoided further American-produced military equipment falling into German hands.
The 340B Indians which reached France and would have been captured and used by the German military would have had a pillion saddle and passenger hand rail or grip in front of the pillion saddle, a civilian type of air cleaner and a civilian tail-light.

Later 340B supplied to Canada and Britain in 1940 had a military oil bath air cleaner and no pilion saddle. Exception to these were some French pattern Chiefs which were on a French luxury liner, Pasteur in Halifax, Nova Scotia harbour on the day that France capitulated to Germany (June 22, 1940). They were seized by the Canadian Navy and distributed to various military units.

Most 340B Indians which served in Britain were soon obsolete and replaced by other makes. Some were surpluse-sold as early as 1943 while others were turned over to British civil authorities for local transport.

AFJ

[HarleyCreation]

Originally posted by AFJ


The French Army had ordered a substantial number of model 340B "Military" Chiefs with sidecars in 1939. As far as I know, all those which formed part of the contract were 340 frame and CDO motor coded with the non-valenced fenders.

Prior to June 6, 1940 , these were gradually being shipped over to France. On that date, the British government accepted responsibility for payment to American companies for all French-ordered war materials - said materials therefore becoming the property of the British government, rather than the French. This avoided further American-produced military equipment falling into German hands.
The 340B Indians which reached France and would have been captured and used by the German military would have had a pillion saddle and passenger hand rail or grip in front of the pillion saddle, a civilian type of air cleaner and a civilian tail-light.

Later 340B supplied to Canada and Britain in 1940 had a military oil bath air cleaner and no pilion saddle. Exception to these were some French pattern Chiefs which were on a French luxury liner, Pasteur in Halifax, Nova Scotia harbour on the day that France capitulated to Germany (June 22, 1940). They were seized by the Canadian Navy and distributed to various military units.

Most 340B Indians which served in Britain were soon obsolete and replaced by other makes. Some were surpluse-sold as early as 1943 while others were turned over to British civil authorities for local transport.

AFJ

AFJ,

If you ever write a motorcycle book, I'll buy a copy. You have a lot of good info.

[AFJ]

Originally posted by HarleyCreation


AFJ,

If you ever write a motorcycle book, I'll buy a copy. You have a lot of good info.

Thanks.

A couple of passing thoughts.

Would the Indian 340B have been the only sidecar outfit to be used by both Allied and Axis sides in WWII.

Perhaps the most important piece of war material ordered by France but acquired and used by the British and Canadian military after the fall of France in 1940 was the infamous Thompson sub-machine gun. It was used widely by the US military after they entered the war near the end of 1941.

AFJ

[HarleyCreation]

Originally posted by AFJ


Would the Indian 340B have been the only sidecar outfit to be used by both Allied and Axis sides in WWII.

AFJ

How about the French 804cc Ghome-Rhone and Belgium 992cc FN sidecar jobs?

The Ghome-Rhone has an opposed sidevalve twin like a BMW. Can't see what type motor the FN has. Both might be considered "Allied" machines and the photos show Feldgendarmerie & Wehrmacht troops riding them.

These appear on a "Captured Motorcycle" page in an old book on German WWII motorcycles that I have, but NO mention of any Indians there.

[AFJ]

Originally posted by HarleyCreation


How about the French 804cc Ghome-Rhone and Belgium 992cc FN sidecar jobs?

The Ghome-Rhone has an opposed sidevalve twin like a BMW. Can't see what type motor the FN has. Both might be considered "Allied" machines and the photos show Feldgendarmerie & Wehrmacht troops riding them.

These appear on a "Captured Motorcycle" page in an old book on German WWII motorcycles that I have, but NO mention of any Indians there.

Of course!

The FN M12 was a 180 degree opposed twin with sidecar wheel drive which, according to some writers, inspired the German army to issue specifications for the design which became the BMW R75 180 degree transverse and the Zundapp KS750, a 170 degree transverse v-twin, both with sidecar drive. Actually the German Army specification was issued in Nov., 1939, 6 months before the Germans invaded Belgium.

At one time the Canadian Vintage Motorcycle Museum at Brantford, Ontario had on display loaned examples of the FN M12 and the French Gnome et Rhone Armee' shaft drive, sidecar wheel drive models. They are both immense bulky designs, bigger than the one BMW R75 military sidecar drive bike I have seen. All three seem to me, in retrospect, to be evolutionary "dead ends" compared to the Willys "Jeep" - as far as light military vehicles go.

AFJ

[HarleyCreation]

Originally posted by AFJ


Of course!

The FN M12 was a 180 degree opposed twin with sidecar wheel drive which, according to some writers, inspired the German army to issue specifications for the design which became the BMW R75 180 degree transverse and the Zundapp KS750, a 170 degree transverse v-twin, both with sidecar drive. Actually the German Army specification was issued in Nov., 1939, 6 months before the Germans invaded Belgium.

At one time the Canadian Vintage Motorcycle Museum at Brantford, Ontario had on display loaned examples of the FN M12 and the French Gnome et Rhone Armee' shaft drive, sidecar wheel drive models. They are both immense bulky designs, bigger than the one BMW R75 military sidecar drive bike I have seen. All three seem to me, in retrospect, to be evolutionary "dead ends" compared to the Willys "Jeep" - as far as light military vehicles go.

AFJ

I didn't know that the French G. et R. & Belgium F.N. were sidecar wheel driven. I wonder who was the first EVER in mc history to come up with that idea? Probably in some patent moldering in a European or American archive....

Harley-D got in on the very end of that "dead end" military motorcycle thinking with the XA project. In the early stages of the Blitzkrieg American observers saw Wehrmacht reconnaissance troops out front on bikes and sidecars and said: "We gotta have that!" But after wires stretched across roads cut a few German soldier heads off the bloom went off the rose. Then the Jeep came along.

That's how one old guy from Harley explained it.

Can you imagine the U.S. trying to use motorcycles in Iraq?

[AFJ]

Originally posted by HarleyCreation


I didn't know that the French G. et R. & Belgium F.N. were sidecar wheel driven. I wonder who was the first EVER in mc history to come up with that idea? Probably in some patent moldering in a European or American archive....

Harley-D got in on the very end of that "dead end" military motorcycle thinking with the XA project. In the early stages of the Blitzkrieg American observers saw Wehrmacht reconnaissance troops out front on bikes and sidecars and said: "We gotta have that!" But after wires stretched across roads cut a few German soldier heads off the bloom went off the rose. Then the Jeep came along.

That's how one old guy from Harley explained it.

Can you imagine the U.S. trying to use motorcycles in Iraq?

The British Baughan motorcycle made in Stroud, Glostershire was a very small production make starting motorcycle production around 1928. Nearly all their bikes were for observed trials competitions and the sidecar versions they offered had the sidecar wheel driven from a live rear wheel spindle, a dog clutch and a cross shaft with two universal joints. The sidecar drive was disengaged for normal road travel. The sidecar-drive outfits were sometimes banned from events due to their natural advantage. Production - which apparently was only a dozen or so bikes per year - ceased in 1936.

The Norton sidecar drive outfits used the 633 cc "Big 4" sv engine and had been developed from an experimental 490 cc 16H Norton sidecar outfit in 1937-38. About 5,000 of the Norton Big Four sidecar drive outfits were produced from 1938 to 1942. Thus the British use of sidecar drive motorcycles predates the German BMW and Zundapp designs.

I think that the American Army issued a design specification for a motorcycle with shaft drive - I don't know the particular date of this - but that it was sufficiently early in WWII - so that H-D got the Dutch H-D importer to buy and ship a BMW sv flat twin to the US for design development of what became the H-D XA. Indian went the more original route and turned their 750 cc engine sideways in the manner of the 1938 Brough Superior Transverse Twin and the earlier AJS and Panther Transverse V-twins.

In a lot of pictures of Canadian Army jeeps in the European theatre of 1944-45, they are fitted with steel angle iron "wire cutters" welded upright to the front bumper - since jeeps were often driven with the windshield dropped forward to avoid reflecting light towards the enemy and "drawing fire".

In the military exercises conducted prior to the outbreak of the latest Iraq war, by American forces against Saudi troops playing the "Iraqi role" in the Saudi desert, (the latter commanded by a retired US Marine Corps general), the "American" side suffered greatly by the failure of their ability to locate the "enemy" by the usual means of direction-finding on radio signals and satellite-sensing of mobile vehicle traffic. The Marine General did his communications work with various units by the "old-fashioned" system of dispatch riders on motorcycles whose heat signature was not very susceptible to IR location. Along with strict wireless silence rules which rendered wireless surveillance and tracking useless, the use of DRs on motorcycles resulted in the "defeat" of the "American side" in those exercises. The military judges of the exercise, considered that the ex-Marine General had "not played the way he was supposed to" and awarded "victory" to the "American" side. I heard that the Ex-Marine General resigned in protest.

I suspect that there are still a number of roles for the motorcycle in to-day's military operations.

AFJ