Militarized E-Bikes Could Be the Next Big Thing in Land Warfare
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The growing popularity of e-bikes has caught the eye of several armies worldwide.
E-bikes and e-motorcycle hybrids have the potential to allow soldiers to quietly scout terrain for miles.
At least six armies are using these vehicles worldwide, including the Ukrainian armed forces.
One of the pandemic’s commercial success stories, the rise of the e-bike, is also making inroads in the world's armies. At least half a dozen armies, including the Ukrainian armed forces, are currently evaluating e-bikes and electric motorbike hybrids for combat duty. These vehicles are set to carve out a niche as a quiet, go-anywhere scout vehicle, able to allow troops to sneak and peek while avoiding detection.
“E-bikes make a lot of sense for reconnaissance and special operations forces,” Leigh Neville, author of The Elite: The A-Z of Modern Special Operations Forces and the Overt Defense website, told Popular Mechanics. “For covert or low profile operations the use of e-bikes makes excellent sense: operators can silently approach an objective and have a ready means of escape."
Neville says that e-bike hybrids are best used as a dismount from an existing scout vehicle. “E-bikes offer a very portable form of reconnaissance platform: bring it in, thrown in the back of a helicopter, or mount it on a larger wheeled platform. The bikes can then conduct route reconnaissance and scouting independently of the patrol vehicle."
Armies have used bicycles for more than a hundred years. Both the Allies and Central Powers used them in World War I, and in World War II the Japanese Army used them with great effect in the conquest of Malaya, outmaneuvering British forces. The last major army to use bicycles was Switzerland, which used them for urban warfare and close terrain combat, and eliminated its bicycle-mounted troops in 2004.
The first official military adoption of e-bike hybrids took place in 2018, when the Norwegian Army began using them to patrol the Norwegian-Russian border. According to Electrek, at least five more armies worldwide are currently deploying or in the process of testing e-bikes: Denmark, the United Arab Emirates, an unidentified NATO country, New Zealand, and Australia. The electrified bicycles are in use with parachute, special forces, and motorized infantry units. Last October Australia’s 2nd/14th Light Horse Regiment (Queensland Mounted Infantry) released a video of e-bikes built by the Australian company Stealth Electric Bikes serving alongside massive, 38-ton Boxer wheeled armored fighting vehicles.
E-bike hyrbrids have also found their way to the battlefields of Ukraine. The commander of the Georgian Legion, a unit of Georgian fighters helping defend Ukraine, requisitioned a number of locally built Eleek Atom e-bikes. The bikes come in Army green, have a top speed of 55 miles an hour, and have a range of 62 to 93 miles on a single charge. The bikes will be issued to the Legion's snipers, who will use them to silently approach the front line, take their shots, and then quickly escape the area to avoid Russian artillery fire.
Could the mighty U.S. military adopt e-bikes?
In the late 1990s, U.S. Marine Corps light armored reconnaissance units equipped foot-mobile scouts with off the shelf mountain bikes. The bikes were carried strapped to the rear of LAV-25 armored cars and offered a “quick and quiet” means of sending scouts forward.
In major exercises, bike scouts allowed the recon units to achieve their objectives hours before schedule. Mountain biking Marines even landed on beaches and were able to quickly pedal inland, providing reconnaissance for the rest of the landing force. Those missions still exist, and it would be a simple matter to plug e-bikes into the Marines' force structure.
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