Bike Squad (Space Marine)

A Space Marine Bike Squad carries out fast-moving assault missions using one-man Assault Bikes and sometimes with the addition of a two-man Attack Bike, often operating on intelligence gathered by infiltrating Scout Squads or Land Speeder reconnaissance flights. Bike Squads attack at incredible speeds, using surprise and unstoppable momentum to punch holes in the enemy formation, accelerating away as the enemy recovers his wits only to circle back and attack once again from an unexpected direction. For a Space Marine biker to operate at full potency, the superhuman rider and his mechanical steed must function flawlessly as one. To this end, the Codex Astartes dictates that all of a Chapter's Assault Marines, Scouts and the entire 6th Company should master the art of mounted warfare as part of their training regimen. A few Chapters take this further, with every Space Marine required to maintain his mounted training, even though he may have long passed into the 1st Company, or perhaps even into the exalted ranks of the Chapter Council. Few Chapters exemplify this better than the White Scars, who proudly employ Bike Squads as the main body of any strike force. Other Chapters are less enamoured of a Bike Squad's tactical value, preferring to send assault forces into battle in Rhinos or Razorbacks. The Space Marine Assault Bike itself is a robust construction. It needs to be, for it must be powerful enough to propel a fully armoured Space Marine at dizzying speeds, and yet responsive enough to perform a full range of death-defying combat manoeuvres. Even at low speeds the combined impact mass of bike and rider is no small thing to encounter. Indeed, many experienced Space Marine bikers can boast of riding through rockcrete walls at full speed, suffering neither harm nor impediment. For the heaviest assault missions it is common for a Bike Squad's Assault Bike firepower to be further augmented through the attachment of an Attack Bike. Each Attack Bike is a highly formidable mobile firebase, with the twin Bolters of the bike itself augmented by a Multi-melta or Heavy Bolter mounted on a sturdy sidecar. So potent is the striking power of the Attack Bike that many Chapters field them in entire squads, employing them as fast-moving fire-support units to complement Scouts, Assault Marines or other Bike Squads. On those rare occasions when Attack Bikes are deployed en masse, as they were by the fabled White Scars Chapter during the Third War for Armageddon, they prove to be a nigh-unstoppable foe.

During the final stages of a Space Marine Scout's training, he is attached to a Scout Bike Squadron. Scout Bikers are employed as fast-moving reconnaissance and disruption units. They operate on a far longer leash than other Scouts, often operating as a separate and distinct adjunct to the main Space Marine strike force, answerable to none save the commanding Sergeants of their Squadron. While Scout Bikers continue to perform the hit-and-run tactics they perfected in their earlier years of service, their repertoire of combat skills is broadened by hard-won experience and further augmented by supplies of special issue equipment. While the enemy concentrates on the main Space Marine attack, the Scout Bikers ride rampant behind his lines, calling down orbital bombardments and reserve deployments with pinpoint accuracy.

Some Chapters do not abide by the Codex Astartes, and operate their Bike Squads in a different manner. The Dark Angels' 2nd Company, the Ravenwing, is completely mounted on Assault Bikes, Attack Bikes and Land Speeders. The Salamanders are organised into less than the standard 10 companies but put more Astartes in each and so they only make use of bikes in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Companies. While the Space Wolves do make use of Bike Squads, the only members of the Chapter known to ride bikes are the Blood Claws. Even then only a few Blood Claws make use of this option, as the Space Wolves consider the use of bikes to be an overly headstrong approach to warfare. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the White Scars make extensive use of bikes in every company due to the open plains on which they train on Mundus Planus and their historical and cultural connection to the nomadic warriors of that world.