Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf sword
Now forgive me if this was covered before, I did not find a thread on it.
Bicycle Infantry, why don't we see more of it in T2000? One would think that this would be an no brainer, your mechanized infantry regiment is all out of mechanized items, change them over to bikes. Yes they don't move as fast as they did, when they had the fuel but they will move faster then on foot.
It was used in Europe between WW1 and into early ww2 so why don't we see it? Is their something that I'm missing?
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I don't think that the original writers thought of it. It's easy to overlook, if one's not heavily read on WWII military history. Another possibility is that thought that bicycle-mounted infantry would be too vulnerable on the modern battlefield, and ruled it out as not believable to the layman (basically, what Silent Hunter said) I don't really know.
Regarding the military use of bicycles in WWII, bicycle infantry was used right up to the end of the war. The Volksturm had tank hunter-killer units- consisting mostly of children- equipped with bicycles and Panzerfausten. As the Germans ran out of trucks and petrol, several formerly motorized units were issued bicycles. The British even had a folding bicycle for some of their Parachute reconnaissance units.
I'd have to take a look, but I don't think Free City of Krakow featured any bicycle-mounted infantry. As described in the module, Krakow would definitely be able to manufacture basic bicycles. In my
Pirates of the Vistula PbP campaign, I had Krakow doing so and, although they never featured in the story, my version of the Krakow ORMO OOB included a battalion mounted on bicycles.
In the latest edition of my
Rook's Gambit Module (available on DrivethruRPG for $2.99), one of the Polish 19th Cavalry Division's infantry companies is bicycle-mounted (see page 25).
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...--Rooks-Gambit