Found on the internet:
There's a lot of bicycles still in the Finnish army and they are
really taken into a good use during service. In wartime situation
the former Jaeger units now act as mobile elite or better class
units - as they used to be - but nowadays use APC's. However, in a
country like Finland bicycle is sometimes much better means of
transportation than truck or even APC, as in many places (not to
mention remote areas) good roads are rare. Heavy modern
organizations can't be moved via small village-roads, or even if
they somehow manage make their way forward, in local terrain it's
extremely easy to make blockages, set up ambushes etc. It's
extremely risky to deploy large valuable troops in restricted open
areas with no room to maneuvre - even more today than in the past (russians
demonstrated some disastrous examples of this kind of deployment
during WWII).
In this kind of environment any
infantry troops, not considering whether they are elite or conscript
status, can make a great use of bicycles if only the distances are
short enough (well less than 200 km maybe). The most obvious
disadvantage of the bicycle is that heavy equipment can't be carried.
But in the circumstances Finnish army uses them, heavy equipment is
not necessarily needed. When everything the organization needs (whether
it's squad of battalion) is carried by bicycles, it's not dependent
on terrain or obstacles in anywhere near the same scale that partly
motorized/mechanised units.
During my national service we had a
couple of big exercices where our company bicycled some 100km during
day with all gear and participated battles at night - and everything
worked very well indeed. The regular infantryman in bicycles can
easily carry his personal equipment and food supplies, with assault
rifle and maybe one additional weapon or squad equipment (single-shot
at-rocket, at-mine, radio etc.). The only means of accommodation
generally needed is a piece of fabric which can be used to put up a
tent. Unit equipped in this manner is extremely flexible and
maneouverable (though not very fast over long distances).
Against infantry and maybe light
APC's this kind of bicycle infantry (in Finnish use) trusts in it's
knowledge and good use of local terrain and basic combat skills -
not in heavy fire support. And against MBT's - well, if you're enemy
is dumb enough to haul a few in the area where bicycle troops are
deployed, and successfull in doing that, the bicycle troop will be
long gone.
How about the threat of enemy
undirect fire? Always there, but it's not at all easy to locate
small units without large equipment from the sea of woods, and
generally not at all wise nor effective to deploy barrages or air
raids against them (a single one of them is not such a valuable
organization).
The conclusion - in certain
circumstances or in right kind of environment bicycle units can
still be prevailing troops.
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