The Kremlin's Dirt Bike Troops Are Dying By the Dozens Due To Ukraine Drones

The Russian theory that a target faster and smaller than an armored vehicle is less vulnerable to artillery and drone attack has been officially disproven with the lives of Russian soldiers. QED. JL

David Axe reports in Forbes:

The more Russian soldiers ride into battle on dirt bikes, the more Russian soldiers die or get wounded while riding into battle on dirt bikes. With stocks of armored vehicles running low after 28 months of grinding combat, the Russian army is leaning harder into its latest bad idea: equipping front-line troops with inexpensive dirt bikes. Analysts confirmed the destruction—mostly by Ukrainian drones—of five Russian war bikes 13 in April, 56 in May and nine in just the first week of June. In practice, the bike troops are hopelessly vulnerable to artillery and drones—and are dying in ever greater numbers. But with too few armored vehicles to go around, the Russians don’t have many alternatives. 

With stocks of armored vehicles running low after 28 months of grinding combat, the Russian army is leaning harder into its latest bad idea: equipping front-line troops with inexpensive dirt bikes.

 

The more Russian soldiers ride into battle on dirt bikes, the more Russian soldiers die or get wounded while riding into battle on dirt bikes.

Analyst Andrew Perpetua confirmed the destruction—mostly by Ukrainian drones—of five Russian war bikes in February, one in March, 13 in April, 56 in May and nine in just the first week or so of June. Dozens more bikes were damaged.

“It’s genuinely funny the number of casualties Russians have taken from their motorcycle attacks,” Perpetua wrote.

Despite heavy losses, the Russian army is doubling down on the assault bike concept, which armies have repeatedly attempted and abandoned since World War I. The Russian army’s 5th Motor Rifle Brigade, fighting around Krasnohorivka in eastern Ukraine, has formed a special motorcycle platoon, according to the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies.

The bike platoon is additive, Russian correspondent Alexander Sladkov stressed. “This is in addition to the combat motorcyclists in the battalions,” he wrote in a missive translated by Estonian analyst War Translated. According to Sladkov, more brigades might form their own bike platoons and assign them to “delivering the necessary cargo and evacuating the wounded.”

But they’re likely to have a direct combat role, as well. More and more, vehicle-starved Russian commanders are sending their bike troops in direct assaults on Ukrainian positions.\

 

During one recent Russian operation apparently somewhere in southern Ukraine, the first wave of attackers rode in tanks and armored fighting vehicles. When that wave crashed against a wall of Ukrainian artillery and drones, the Russians sent in a second wave—on foot and on bikes.

The results were disastrous for the Russians. “Sometimes even six artillery pieces at once were firing at their positions,” recalled a Ukrainian drone operator who uses the call sign “Kriegsforscher.”

In recent weeks, no fewer than four Ukrainian brigades—the 28th, 30th and 54th Mechanized Brigades and the 79th Air Assault Brigade—have struck Russian bike troops with explosive first-person-view drones and bomber drones dropping grenades. The improvised armor some Russian units are welding onto their bikes doesn’t seem to be helping very much.

There was some speculation this spring that Russia’s new bike tactics might actually help the Kremlin’s war effort—by making individual soldiers faster and harder to spot from the air.

In practice, the bike troops are hopelessly vulnerable to artillery and drones—and are dying in ever greater numbers. But with too few armored vehicles to go around, the Russians don’t have many alternatives.

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If it isn’t lucky enough to have access to reasonably modern BMP fighting vehicles, a Russian unit might have to make do with 50-year-old MT-LB armored tractors, Chinese-made golf carts or—increasingly—dirt bikes.

The only other option is to walk into a battle. But that’s even more dangerous than riding on a motorcycle.