Diesel Power Military Motorcycles |
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File under New Products Uniformed
Author: Mike Werner
Location: Normandy, France
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Almost always, the armies around the world try to keep their logistics simple. For their vehicles, this means that they standardize on one fuel only;- and that's diesel since all trucks and tanks require diesel. This means they'll only need to carry one fuel in to the battlefield.
However, motorcycles have proven themselves over the last 100 years in battles, and they don't run diesel. They're used for special forces (Iraq war was a typical occasion), couriers, liaisons, etc. Therefore, NATO is experimenting with converting motorcycles to run diesel fuel.
The British have converted a Royal Enfield to run diesel see photo on the left). The 250 cc Bullet runs an impressive 140 mpg at speeds of around 40 miles per hour (and even better mpg at lower speeds). The bike can not be kick-started due to the high compression, but needs to be push started....
The USA Marines Corp (USMC) have taken the popular Kawasaki KLR650 Miliary Edition and together with Hayes Diversified Technologies (HDT) of California converted it to run either diesel or aviation kerosene fuel. It runs a very impressive 120 miles per gallon at 80 miles per hour !!
It is even rumored that Kawasaki might market this machine since with its relative high speed, but very high torque, the bike could really be used for off-road adventure riding.
Click here to read more about it and to see more photos.
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