Wheels at WAR with Jim Dowdall

[@louisavondart9178]

The Red Army captured a lot of of these bikes and liked them so much that they produced their own version. It's called the Ural and are still being made today, but with fuel injection. Most of the bikes you see in WW2 movies are actually Urals.

[@BillySBC]

Love these old sidecar bikes, very versatile and useful in the field.

[@BanjoLuke1]

My father, at the time a very young field gunner subaltern, landed in Normandy in late June '44 with 53rd (Welsh) Division. In the chaos of Falaise, following the capture of Caen, he found and took for his own use a Wehrmacht motorcycle and sidecar. He didn't say whether it was a BMW or a Zundapp, but he was very impressed by its technical specification: 2wd, a reverse gear and branches from the exhaust across the handlebar to keep the hands warm. He had it painted khaki and kept it (and a German side arm, which he preferred to his issued weapon) right up to the Rhine crossing, when a new CO ordered that no further enemy equipment be used. He spent a lot of that campaign going ahead of the battery to find locations for the guns and the CP. He said the motorcycle was ideal for that, particularly in the extremely cold winter of 1944/45 through Belgium and the Netherlands. He is now long dead, but I still recall his boyish enthusiasm when he described the machine. He was quite cross to be ordered to abandon it. He was still cross fifty years later.

[@joaobarbosadossantosneto1285]

Ordens idiotas! Veículos muito práticos e versáteis.

[@theq-1]

Having ridden them all ; the 2wd is only needed in really thick wet mud; the KS600 was more powerful than all of them and was as good off road 90% of the time and much faster. The ground clearance is not much different but reverse gear on the 750 and 75 is so handy. By the time the 40000 units were delivered the R12 and KS600 had already been the workhorses until the mud in russia came about. At 18:50 the bike flying through the sandy desert is actually a KS600 and at 19:20 thats an R12; point made. All 4 are great machines with pros and cons.

[@paulmanson253]

Terrific episode.

[@clee6746]

When I saw this motorcycle with a side car in the war movies as a kid over 50 years ago, I was fascinated by the design and the practicality of it. After watching your video, I have learned a lot more about this masterpiece of machinery. Great video !

[@TheArendt1]

Let me guess... : "Where eagles dare" Clint Eastwood and Burt Lancaster. 👍🏻. One of my favorites... 😃

[@clee6746]

@@TheArendt1 Almost right on, that's one of my favorites too ! How about "The good, the bad and the ugly" and "The battle of the Bulge" Robert Shaw & Henry Fonda. 👍👍👍

[@theq-1]

​@@TheArendt1 I think you'll find the guy in this video (Jim) was the stunt man who rode that bike in the movies.

[@robertsmart4628]

Really interesting this .

[@timforster3727]

What a great doc this is! I'm not even a m/c fan, but I loved it. Was there more in Jim's Wheels At War series? I hope so...

[@Multheman02]

You should do a comparison with the Ural sidecar motorcycles presently being produced in Kazakstan.

[@howardcook5416]

I wonder if Jim still has the XR Harley

[@rwdyeriii]

An awesome video

[@wealdfoundation]

Thank you.

[@howardcook5416]

I remember riding Jim's bike around the mews in Kensington where he lived at the time 1970s I also rode the bike to one of the large military events for Jim, Happy days

[@ZekiYanız]

The uniforms of the Nazis are the most impressive, their clothes are very modern even today.

[@marianniculae]

I m not agree with you that the Wehrmacht has 80 percent horse as carry force in the second half at the '30. In fact, they initiated a policy of over motorised armies.

[@alexandredevalembreuse8856]

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