ARMAMENTS

Australian Army’s 2nd/14th Light Horse Regiment (Queensland Mounted Infantry) is trialling Stealth Reconnaissance E-Bikes in conjunction with the Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle. 

The bikes are quiet and allow reconnaissance soldiers to move quickly through the battlefield, while its range of up to 100km allows soldiers to travel long distances to gather the information they need. The subtle buzz of a battery-powered motor is all you will hear from the 2nd/14th Light Horse Regiment’s (Queensland Mounted Infantry) (2/14LHR [QMI]) trial stealth reconnaissance e-bikes.

With a top speed of 90km/h and a range of 100km, the stealth reconnaissance e-bikes have improved the Regiment’s capability of scouting for information while remaining under the detection threshold, usually deploying as a detachable element of the Boxer combat reconnaissance vehicle. 

Corporal Thomas Ovey was one of the first soldiers to pioneer the new capability as part of 2/14LHR’s (QMI) A Squadron trial and explained the advantages the e-bikes provided when gathering information on the battlefield. 

According to him, it allows safe information handling, whether that’s information people have found on the battlefield, or even if one of the troops takes photos on their phone and wants to send it back to the headquarters. Then, they’ll call up the Regiment at issue, and they will get the stealth bikes out, head down there, and collect the information faster than before. In this way, the soldiers cover more ground much faster, and it saves time instead of waiting for troops to come to them when they’ve found something.

Corporal Ovey outlined the types of tasks he had been using the e-bikes for during training exercises this year. 

To begin with, he said that it helps them achieve a lot with their reconnaissance work, sighting routes for the Boxer combat reconnaissance vehicle, including reconnaissance of creek lines so they can determine whether they can get the vehicle through, while he also explained that the e-bikes are superior to a motorbike, due to the fact that the footprint is minimized due to less power, less noise, and it is not kicking up much dust that could be seen by enemy forces. 

A trial report on the potential deployment of the stealth reconnaissance e-bikes capability in combat brigades will be provided by the end of the year.

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