Brake caliper placement ?

[Monkey boy 1]

It may have been asked before, but for the life of me I couldn't find an answer for it.
The question is why are some brake calipers situated foreward of the axle line (ie at the front of a brake disc) and other behind the axle line on vehicles( at the rear of the brake disc). It's almost like the forward calipers and their mounts are in tension under braking and the rear mounted ones are in compression under braking.

I hope I am making sence here

[DMN]

Is it not to do with temperatures?

Where brakes in front of the axel are more like to pass on heat to to the bearings etc?

[Whitean3]

This has been discussed before. IIRC, caliper placement varies from car to car, from front to back etc., and is more down to packaging- wherever the calipers fit best without fouling anything.

[Monkey boy 1]

You also see it on Bikes, most modern bikes have the calipers tucked away behind the front forks, but some, like the mid 80's Ducati's had the caliper in front of the forks. NVT confused the Hell out of some people by having one caliper behind the forks and on the other side of the bike the caliper was forward.
This though was down parts availibility, using the same Left hand fork slider for both sides.