Joseph Stalin orders the first Russian-built Ural M-72 motorcycles sent into battle the oncoming German forces.
The Ural story begins in 1939, during the USSR’s pre-World War II planning. Despite the Molotov—Ribbentrop Pact (aka the Nazi-Soviet Pact), the Soviet Union knew it would soon be going to war against Hitler and his army known as Germany. ... A nervous Stalin ordered the military to prepare all areas of operation, including the ground forces that would defend Russia against the invading Germans. Having seen the effects of the Blitzkrieg against the Polish Army, he knew that mobilization was of paramount importance to his country.
A meeting was held at the USSR Defense Ministry to discuss what motorcycle would be most suitable for the Red Army to ride. After it's unsuccessful conflict with Finland the Red Army needed to modernize the motorcycles, as they were far from satisfactory, to put it nicely. Their technology was outdated and the manufacturing quality-control appeared to be non-existent.
The official version of the Ural story reads that, after a long discussion and debate, the BMW R71 motorcycle was decided to most closely match the Red Army’s requirements for a combat motorcycle. One of these original BMWs survives and is on display at the factory museum. By the way, Harley-Davidson also copied the BMW and delivered about 1,000 Harley-Davidson XA (Experimental Army) flat-twin shaft drive motorcycles to the US Army during World War II.
The BMW factory supplied the construction drawings and casting moulds as a result of the Molotov—Ribbentrop Pact, and these transfers of technology had taken place in support of their Soviet “friends” in a variety of technological and industrial fields. Soviet engineers toured German aircraft factories and brought back complete cannons as samples. In 1941, BMW began series production of R75, and did not resume production of R71. Supplying the Soviets with the obsolete R71 model may have seemed a good idea at the time.
This as nothing to do with the Ural but, the OPEL Kadett was given to the Soviets just prior to the war; however, it commenced series production only toward the end of the war as the Moskvitch 400. I once dated a girl that had a navy-blue Opel Cadet in NY.
A factory in Moscow was soon producing hundreds of Russian M-72 sidecar motorcycles. The Nazi Blitzkrieg was so fast and effective that Soviet strategists worried that the Moscow factory was within easy range of German Luftwaffe and it was only a mater of time. It was decided to move the motorcycle plant further east, out of bombing range, into the middle of the resource rich Ural Mountain region. The chosen site was the small trading town of Irbit, located on the edge of the vast Siberian steppes in the Ural Mountains.
In their quest for a location, the only half-way decent building that Stalin found as a feasible manufacturing plant in town was a brewery. It was soon drank dry and then converted into research and development headquarters, where long hours were spent preparing for the construction of a massive new production complex for the M-72.
On October 25, 1942, the first M-72s were sent into battle. Over the course of World War II, 9,799 M-72 motorcycles were delivered to the front for reconnaissance detachments and mobile troops.
