August 19, 2024: Since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, they have lost over 15,000 armored and unarmored military vehicles. Replacements have been slow in arriving and priority has gone to replacing supply vehicles. Commanders of combat units had to get creative to equip their troops with substitute vehicles for attacks. Several commanders decided to incorporate Russian or captured dirt bikes and motorcycles into mobile combat units. The bike mounted troops could be used for scouting Several Russian commanders sought to incorporate troops on dirt bikes into their units. This did not work out as expected. The Ukrainian drones, both fixed wing and quad or octocopter models demonstrated once more that the widespread use of drones, especially by the Ukrainians, meant that surprise attacks were nearly impossible to carry out.

Many Russian commanders ignored this development and were caught by the ever vigilant Russian drones. Victims included dirt bike mounted scouts, who were sometimes killed by an armed drone before they could radio back the presence of Ukrainian drones in the area. In some cases the Ukrainian drones spotted a Russian column and quickly organized an ambush using only armed drones. One of these ambushes took place in early 2024 and involved a Russian attack force of over a thousand troops including tanks and light armored vehicles with most troops traveling aboard unarmored trucks. The Russians also had several dozen troops on dirt bikes. The drones struck first and then came missiles and artillery fire. When it was all over the Russians had lost fifty armored vehicles, a third of them tanks and sixteen dirt bikes along with most of the riders.

In other instances the Russians sought to improvise a surprise attack on Ukrainian troops using armed soldiers mounted on dirt bikes. The problem was that the troops on the bikes could not effectively use their weapons while mounted and moving. The Ukrainian defenders could quickly generate a lot of fire power using assault rifles and machine-guns. This meant the armed Russian dirt bike mounted attackers were shot to pieces by the aimed firepower of the stationary Ukrainian. Dozens of the mounted Russian soldiers would be killed or wounded by the return fire. Word quickly spread among Russian troops that dirt bikes were useful as transportation and sometimes for scouting but using them during an attack was suicidal. The bikes were also shot up so badly that they could not be repaired.

The last time Russians were in a situation like this was in 1941, right after the Germans invaded. At that time Russian still had cavalry divisions and brigades. Initially some cavalry commanders believed they could successfully launch surprise cavalry attacks on the Germans. That did not work and the Russian riders were either shot off their horses or the horses were hit and went down, often injuring the rider. After a few incidents like that the Soviets decided to confine cavalry units to scouting and, later in the war, sneaking through impenetrable areas, like swamps or thick forests, to attack the German rear area troops. This approach had some success. Despite that, after the war in 1947, the Soviets disbanded their remaining cavalry units. Many of the horses were sent to collective farms where there was a shortage of animals to pull plows and wagons. During World War II the Russians still used a lot of horses to pull artillery and wagons.

Towards the end of World War II the Germans were more dependent on horse drawn transport than the Soviets. The Russians were receiving enormous quantities of lend-lease aid from the Americans. The Russians had a truce with the Japanese in nearby Manchuria which allowed the Russians to unload American transports, flying the flags of neutral nations, in Russian Pacific coast ports and move the weapons, munitions, fuel, food, armored vehicles and trucks via the Trans-Siberian Railroad to western Russia. By 1944 Russia had received so many trucks and fuel to run them that the Soviet forces were more mechanized than their German counterparts.

The Germans were suffering from the allied strategic bombing campaign against fuel and industrial targets in Germany. The American bombers came by day while the British bombed at night. The aerial bombardment began in late 1942 but by 1944 there were over a thousand American and British heavy bombers pounding German targets around the clock. This made it difficult for the Germans to build enough armored vehicles and trucks to replace those lost in combat. For transportation the German army had to fall back on horses to pull the artillery and move supplies.

The Russians advancing from the east were lavishly equipped with American trucks, which were superior to any Russia had produced, as well as jeeps and American M4 tanks. The American tanks were not as heavily armed and armored as the Russian T-34/85 tanks and their 85mm guns but were faster and more reliable. So the Russians used the American M4 tanks to exploit a breakthrough achieved by Russian artillery and slower T-34s. The M4s could more quickly reach German rear areas and shoot up stockpiles of supplies and any trucks or horse-drawn wagons they found. This was devastating for the Germans, who could not even retreat effectively with so much of their transport lost to the Russian M4s.