Technicals, i.e. improvised machines of war, have a long and storied history. In every theater of war, folks will always make do with what they have and make their machines either safer to traverse battlefields on, or more lethal. You could conceivably say that the elephants used by Hannibal were pre-machine technicals.
But in the early 1900s, as motorcycles became more and more popular, the explosion (pun intended) of bike technicals grew at such a pace, we could do a weekly series exploring all the different makes, models, and methods used to create these machines. Seriously, since last year, we’ve covered a lot and that hasn’t even scratched the surface.
However, while the one I bring you today featured here today resembles others in the space, it has a very unique windscreen that I haven’t seen in my trolling of technical internet archives. In fact, I’m not sure you could even call it a windscreen at all. It’s more a shield. A solid block of steel shield with an itty bitty, teeny weeny sight slat.
Can you imagine taking enemy fire whilst riding through some European town not being able to see anything other than this thin little representation of what’s in front of you? Yikes.
Photo by: Getty Images
The motorcycle in question is a French René Gillet Type G, according to my research, and the sidecar came from the company Vannod. It’s armed with a 7.5mm Fusil-mitrailleur Modèle 1924 M29 machine gun, which was used by the French military from the 1920s to some light use up until the early 2000s, which is impressive to say the least.
As for the bike, the René Gillet Type G came in two flavors, 750cc and 1000cc, though it’s not noted which model this is. But if I were a guessing man, due to the sidecar, the armor around the sidecar, the armored leg plates, and the armored windscreen, I’d guess the 1000cc was used just because of the extra weight.
There’s an excellent article on the bikes, the pre-WWII preparations by René Gillet, and the French military on its motorcycle technical acquisitions and armaments that was published in 1926 in the magazine Automobile-Motorcycle and translated here. It’s a fascinating look at the history of motorcycle technicals. But again, that slat.
I’ve ridden motorcycles through pouring rain, where the sheets of water caused all but a single eye to only slightly be open. And even then, blinking a lot, and it was miserable and dangerous. Yes, bullets are likely worse than rain and water, but imagine just not being able to see anything and both taking fire and sending rounds downrange at the same time.
The riders had to be hard AF.
