"Mountie Motorcycle" Topic

I mentioned this picture on my last news item thread so I thought I should post the picture. Its in the 'Whats New' section of the Pulp Figures site. I can only imagine what purpose these RCMP lads required this piece of equipment for; prairie bootleggers, buffalo stampeding through the streets of Medicine Hat?

It is at the bottom of the page.

link

Keep us posted on whether you decide to sculpt this. I would be so looking forward to that set!

What a pity, you are concidering not to sculpt these motorcycles.
A couple of them (with interchangeable crew) would be nice addition to any police force (Canadian, US even Istanbul constabulary) and interwar army (US for example)you are producing!

Please please please …..

Back in the '70s, Radio Canada International had a series of radio plays called The Rumrunners dealing with running liquor from Canada to the United States during the Prohibition Era and the Mounties' efforts to block this trade. Prohibition spawned organized crime in the USA, and no doubt encouraged criminals to carry serious weaponry in Canada. Looks like just the thing for that period.
Grelber

Don't know the DMV's take on a that the driver has the pintel mtd MG. Shouldn't he be focusing on the road???? Lol…Good luck on that ride.

Great picture, Murch!

We absolutely do need more pulp motorcyclists. One of my favorite movie serial scenes is from Daredevils of the Red Circle, where Gene is racing his motorcycle hell for leather through the harbor tunnel trying to stay ahead of the deluge as the tunnel ceiling collapses.

If I had to guess, I suspect this photo was taken during the first Red Scare period, when everybody was concerned about Bolshevik revolutionaries and the Mounties were being ripped by the Canadian left for heavy-handed tactics involved in strikebreaking.

Carter "Release the Hounds" Mulligan

Do different crew in the Montana/BP hats or peaked caps and it'll sell like nuts Bob. Paint the Mounties kahki or grey and they could be state trooper in Montana hats after all.

"Back in the '70s, Radio Canada International had a series of radio plays called The Rumrunners dealing with running liquor from Canada to the United States during the Prohibition Era and the Mounties' efforts to block this trade."

Curious. In The Rest Of Us, Stephen Birmingham wrote about Sam Bronfman's production of Seagram's whiskey for the US during Prohibition:

"…what Bronfman was doing was all perfectly legal – in Canada, that is. Bronfman had no trouble with customs or police on the Canadian side of the border. In fact, the Ottawa government actually encouraged the export of liquor to the United States by refunding the nine-dollar-a-gallon tax that it imposed on all liquor sold for consumption within Canada. (For the Bronfmans, an 'incentive' bonus of $180,000 a month. Not bad.) What was good for Canadian distillers, Ottawa argued, was good for Canada, and in the first year after the passage of the Volstead Act, export sales shot up to a record twenty-three million dollars – a considerable boost to the Canadian economy. As the Canadian Financial Post editorialized, 'Rum running has provided a tidy bit towards Canada's favorable balance of trade.'"

The US govenrment did ultimately retaliate, not very effectively:

"Soon after Repeal, the United States secretary of the Trasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr…claimed that Canadian distillers such as Bronfman owed the United States some sixty-nine million dollars in duties and excise taxes on the liquor they had illegally shipped into the country during the dry years. An angry argument between the two countries resulted, and at one point, Morgenthau threatened to impose an embargo on all goods imported from Canada until the alleged debt – which many thought a modest estimate of the taxes that had been evaded – was paid. At length, Ottawa agreed to pay a twentieth of the figure, or three million dollars, and Sam Bronfman agreed to pay half of that, and wrote out a check for $1.5 USD million. With that, he announced, he had paid his debt, even though his Seagram profits during the Prohibition years had amounted to close to eight hundred million dollars."

Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just sayin'.

Here's a Gangbusters scenario for you: Over-enthusiastic G-men intercept a liquor convoy and pursue the rum-runners back over the Canadian border. Motorized Mounties wheel into action to repel the Yankee invasion.

I would most certainly be interested in this (28mm) for inter-war purposes, if possible with a pair of extra heads without hats!

Rudi

We need more Mounties, many more Mounties!

I wonder if that bike was seized from border smugglers, rather than being standard RCMP kit? The MG mounting seems pretty silly, I have to agree. Still, I am a weak man and will no doubt be ordering one from Bob once he's finished it.

Maybe they don't want anyone to make fun of their hats

Lewis gun for the driver, SMG for the passenger – a lot of firepower on that little bike – albeit probably poorly aimed (at least for the driver)

Bob, please go ahead and do it!

You can never have too many Mounties, but I could also imagine using them for US State troopers.

And while you are at it, please make some 20s-30s civilian riders as well. As far as I know, this hasn't been done yet.

Bob, those deck guns look lovely, can't wait.

I'd buy the motorcycle too – please consider producing it – with alternate riders' heads as mentioned before.

Really excited by the deck guns, do like the m/c combo but not suitable for Brit use unless you want to double your work and make a version with the s/c on the other side.

What's the eta on the deck guns?

I hadn't thought about the British side-car reversal aspect.

The deck guns will be released Friday as long as my mould making is good tomorrow.

Bob
pulpfigures.com

Fellas, after seeing the pic Bob posted, I had to forward it to my father, who's ex-RCMP (early 50s till late-70s). He was stationed in Manitoba in the 50s. Here's part of his response with names omitted to protect the innocent.

The picture depicts representatives of the highway patrol. We had an armoured car in town. Can you just see those two individuals going down a prairie gravel road? Even at 30 mph those Stetson hats would be blown off their heads, and if you had the chin strap down your head would be blown backward. What about the guy driving? There would be no way he could steer and fire that gun at the same time. Bullets would fly everywhere. Obviously a photo op to depict something, but not a practical application of firepower. We never saw machine guns; the only arms available to us at the time was a 38 Smith and Wesson revolver. We didn't have a rifle or shotgun on the detachment. On some roadblocks involving armed suspects and a possible gunfight, members attending brought their own hunting rifles and ammunition. I know on one road block I was involved in on No. 1 Highway, we were told escapees from prison may be coming our way (which they weren't), I took my own single-shot Cooey shotgun. Looked impressive when checking cars, but really would only sting your ass with the lead shot. Thank Heaven I never had to fire my 38 in self-defense. In most cases I couldn't hit what I was aiming at. While on one boring night patrol we decided to shoot at rabbits. Even firing at one about eight feet away, I didn't hit it, but it fell over dead. There wasn't a mark on its body. I scared it to death!

Photo op seems, of course, most likely.

Again, I suspect because the photo looks like it's from the 1920s or 1930s (is that a Bergmann MP the one chap has?), that the motorcycle-Lewis gun combo was associated with potential strikebreaking or riot suppression duties during the sometimes violent labor disputes of the 1920s and 1930s. Even if it didn't have any realistic, practical mobile fire value, it would still look extremely intimidating in situations in which deterrence is more than half the battle. To the extent that there had been any tactical training with the device at all (and there may not actually have been), it would probably have been intended that the troopers wheel up, stop, and then fire if necessary: analogous to the use of mounted riflemen who dismount to fire. Of course, firing while coasting might be possible too. In any case, if you're riding directly at a mob and blazing away, even if you're only hitting sky and pavement, the mob is going to scatter.

Mulligan

I am unsure as to why everyone seems to think they would fire it while moving. That would be crazy.

But to stop, hop off the bike, swing that gun around and blast away makes perfect sense to me.

(Edit: ooops, Mulligan beat me to that idea by quite a stretch)

I will buy such a set in multiples when godlike, two-fisted Murch decides to sculpt it.

I may be misremembering something I read a long time ago, but I believe that motorcycles with machine gun mounts were tested and perhaps even successfully deployed a time or two during WWI. I know there was certainly interest in motorcycles as a theoretical supplement to regular horse cavalry and armored cars for the pursuit phase after the trench warfare stalemate had finally been broken (in addition, of course, to the use of motorcycles by couriers).

Mulligan

I saw a picture of a US Army unit with motor cycles like the mountie, and single ones. I made up the unit.
link

I would buy the mountie set in a heart beat as I gave my converted set to my son! To make the full set, there needs to be a side car set, a single cycle set, maybe 2 per pack, and then a regular set of foot troops, a couple prone with the lewis.

What I find most remarkable is the side car mountie with a Bergman MP18 or 28. Or is this post-1941 and it is a British Lancheser SMG. I have read much about the Bergman but never a reference to them in Canada.

I am sure that the Lewis would not be attached when the vehicle is being driven, probably stowed between the cycle and car. Mounted when they go into action, or carried to fighting area.

Bob put us out of our misery and sculpt the bike and crew please.