Pictures from the military museum in Koblenz

       
       
       
       
   


Camera:
Olympus pocket camera. The scans were made by the photo-shop.


My visit to the army museum in Koblenz


Hi friends,

today I vistied the army museum in Koblenz, because my friend Jean Moxhet has told me that they expose one of the rare army R65G/S. My plan was just to have a quick look at the army R65G/S and to take some pics of it.

So I went to the museum payed the 2 Marks entrance money and I asked the guy at the reception if it is allowed to take photos in the museum and where the motorbikes are. He said that it is allowed to take pictures and he told me that the bikes are in the big hall. Everything worked as planned and I thought that I am out of the museum within the next half hour. But then I entered the big hall ;-)

You have to know that I play a lot of strategic simulations like the Panzergeneral series or Panzercommander. And this hall is full of tanks, trucks, helicopters, jets, cannons and even a small submarine was there! The first thing you see in the hall is a tank which is cut in two parts ( from the front to the end ). The two parts are about one meter apart so that you can walk through the tank.

On the left top side of the hall they show the bikes. There were a BMW R75 sidecar, a Harley Davidson WLA 750, some Hercules a Maico MB 250, some MZ and finally one R65G/S.
Nota bene: The Harley was the only bike with a pan under the engine in order to catch up the dripping oil ;-))

The sad thing is that this hall is so full with vehicles and other stuff that they don't have enough room to present the bikes in a good way. But I tried my best in order to take some nice pictures of the G/S.

Here is a short summary about the bikes of the Bundeswehr:

At the beginning the Bundeswehr used normal road bikes like the DKW RT 175-1 and DKW RT 175-2 with knobbie tyres because at that time there were no real dualsport machines available. But this bikes were constructed for road use so they had a poor suspension.

The next bike was the Maico MB 250/B. It was introduced to the Bundeswehr in 1960. From todays point of view this isn't a real off-road bike either. But I guess that this bike was one of the first scramblers. It already has a wide handlebar, an high exhaust and a better suspension. With its 16 liters fuel tank it had an range of 400km!! ( road use and 250km off-road) At the same time the Bundeswehr used also the BMW R27. But it was only used by the military police and for representation purpose.

In 1968 this bike was replaced by the Hercules K125. In comparison to the previous bikes this bike is really ugly, but it is a small and light DS-bike. But the army wasn't happy with the poor lifetime of the drivechain. It lasted only 1000km!! So the army decided to install a chainbox ( Kettenkasten ) on the bikes, this should prolong the lifetime of the chain to 5000km. But 50% of the bikes were in so bad condition that the upgrade would have been a waste of money. As a consequence the Bundeswehr wanted to replace the old Hercules K125 with a new bike.

In order to find a replacement for the Hercules K125 the Bundeswehr tested three bikes: the BMW R65G/S, the MZ 500 RA and the Hercules K180.

The test took place from 1990 to 1992.
During the tests the bikes had to absolve:

The winter tests took place in Mittenwald (Germany), the sommer tests in Sardinia(Italy) and the endurance test in the area of Trier(Germany). During the winter testing the army decided that it is a good idea to install heated grips;-). On the MZ they installed the hot grips from Daytona which are available at Hein Gericke ;-)
Because of the hard test all bikes had some massive quality problems. Some lost their headlight or even worse had a broken frame. ( Unfortunely there wasn't a more detailed list about the problems )
Finally the Bundeswehr decided to buy 1800 Hercules K180 because it was the cheapest bike!!

Anybody still reading?

This are the modifications I noticed on the R65G/S:

It is painted in army green with a black windshield.
The most obvious modifications is the frontwheel.
It is a 18" rim with a 4,6" Enduro 1 !!!
They used the same tiresize on the front- and rearwheel.
There was no clamp between the forklegs.
They put an app. 20cm long tube into the venting of the bevel box in order to prevent it from getting wet inside. The tube gets straight up and as a result the venting hole is nearly as high as the rim. We should suggest HPN or Touratech to produce it, because this is a gadget which makes really sense ;-)
The rack was also different from the normal version.

Finally I spent more than three hours in the museum. It is really worth to visit it! Next time when I go there then I will take a reflex camera with me, because there are so many interesting things to see.

Address:
Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung
every day 9.30 - 16.30 hours
closed between Christmas and New Year
Phone: +49-261-4001423
Fax: +49-261-4001424
Mayener Straße 87
56070 Koblenz

admission fee 2,-DM