Kradschützen High Water Mark

Today marks the 85th anniversary of Barbarossa, a massive land invasion that was led in many places by small groups of guys hanging on to motorcycle sidecars. The 1920s German Reichswehr, officially restricted from the possession and use of armored vehicles and tanks but still well-aware of the successful factor of speed in military operations, became enamored with motorcycle troops (Kradschützen) to augment other Schnelle Truppen (fast troops) such as horse cavalry and bicycle troops, the latter retained from the Great War. Equipped with assorted BMW R75 and Zundapp KS750 bikes, augmented by a wide variety of DKW, NSU, Triumph, and Victoria models, the Wehrmacht had a reported 200,000 motorcycles to draw from by 1938, with later captured French, Czech, and British models added soon after. Besides platoons of dispatch riders assigned at divisional levels, Kradschützen Battalions, made up of two (later three) full rifle companies all mounted on bikes, backed by a weapons company with…