Une Harley "blindé" pour le guerre..........................

[attachment=2]H.D.Armore_Motor(A).jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=3]H.D.Armore_Motor(B).jpg[/attachment]

In 1932 the Danish government decided to try armouring motorcycles rather than cars in order to minimise costs, the Danes contracted the armour fabrication work to the Swedish factory, Landsverk AB who built the steel plating to blueprints created by the Danish Military.

A small number of test-bed armoured motorcycles were built between 1932 and 1935, the Danish Army found the vehicles to be lumbering, top heavy and almost impossible to drive on anything other than a flat, straight road. These drawbacks coupled to the fact that the Harley’s comparatively big V-Twin struggled to get the contraption over 30mph left the Danes looking for alternatives.

In 1935 the Danish Army opted instead to buy the Nimbus Motorcycle and the brief foray into armoured Harleys was relegated to the annals of history.


[attachment=0]Nimbus20mm(A).jpg[/attachment]


[attachment=1]Nimbus20mm(B).jpg[/attachment]

The Nimbus was an aircooled, four cylinder motorbike of 750 ccm with 21 hp.The four cylinders were in a row parallel with the bikes length, and it had shaft drive. It was, alongside with BMW, the first motorbike with telescopic forks. The framework wasn't tube, but flat steel bars, riveted together. Topspeed was around 85 km/t with sidecar. The 20mm Madsen machinegun was a scaled up 8mm Madsen machine gun. The 8mm Madsen was developed in the 1890s, and adopted by the Danish army in 1903. It was one of the very first light machineguns, and at the same time very reliable. No one has ever used the same system as in the Madsen. The Madsen had a unique firing system and was rather expensive to make. Like the Nimbus, there were some national pride connected to it.

The gun was attached to the bike, it was in place of the sidecar. It wasn't possible to shoot while driving, so the Danes adopted a hit and run tactic. It was possible to take of the gun, and use it directly from the ground. On the 9th of April most shooting was from the motorbike while stationary beside the road.

The Danish army fought German armored cars and PzKpfw 1 from motorbikes armed with a 20 mm Madsen machinegun on the morning of the 9th of April 1940. The fighting began at 4 o'clock in the morning that day, and at around 8am it was over. The Danes lost 13 men in the fighting, the Germans lost a total of 13 armored cars and two PzKpfw 1 tanks. German Messerschmitt 110s attacked the Danish airforce, which was concentrated on a single airfield. Only one Fokker CV became airborne, and immediately shot down, the rest of the proud Danish airforce was destroyed on the ground.


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