Armoured train

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Polish armoured train Danuta from 1939. From the left: artillery wagon, infantry assault wagon, armoured locomotive, artillery wagon.

TKS tankette used as an armoured reconnaissance draisine

An armoured train is a train protected with armour. Usually they are equipped with artillery and machine gun railroad cars. Their use was the most common during late 19th and early 20th century.

[edit] Design and equipment

Armored train Hurban located in Zvolen, Slovakia.

The railroad cars on an armoured train are designed for many roles. The typical roles include:

• Artillery - fielding mixture of guns and machine guns
• Infantry - designed to carry infantry units, may also mount machine guns.
• Machine gun - dedicated to machine guns
• Anti-air - equipped with anti-air guns
• Command - similar to infantry wagons, but designed to be a train command center
• Anti-tank - equipped with anti-tank guns, usually in a tank gun turret
• Platform - unarmoured, with purposes ranging from transport of ammunition or vehicles, through track repair or derailing protection to railroad ploughs for railroad destruction.
• Troop sleepers
• The Wehrmacht would sometimes put a 'Fremdgerät' captured French Somua or Czech Pzkw 38-t light tank or Pzkw II on a flatbed car which could be quickly offloaded by means of a ramp and used away from the range of the main railway line to chase down enemy partisans.
• Missile transport - the USSR had railway-based ICBMs by the late 1980s; no such systems remain in operation today^{[citation needed]}. The US at one time planned to have a railway-based system but this never got past the planning stages.

Different types of armour were used to protect from attack by tanks. In addition to various metal plates, cement and sandbags were used in some cases.

Armoured trains were sometimes escorted by a kind of rail-tank called a draisine. One such example was the panzertrolley 'Littorina' which had a cab in the front and rear two sets of controls so it could be driven down the tracks in either direction. It mounted two Pzkw I dual 7.62mm machinegewehr turrets.

[edit] History

Armoured train at Bloemfontein, South Africa, circa 1914. It was worked by the South African Engineer Corps, and used against rebels during World War I

Austro-Hungarian armoured train from 1915

A typical Polish artillery car from 1939. Such cars were used in the trains Śmiały and Piłsudczyk.

RT-23 in the Saint Petersburg railway museum.

Armoured trains saw use during the 19th century in the American Civil War (1861-1865), the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the First and Second Boer Wars (1880-81 and 1899-1902), the First (1914-1918) and Second World Wars (1939-1945) and the First Indochina War (1946-1954). The most intensive use of armoured trains was during the Russian Civil War (1918-1920).

During the Boer War on 15 November 1899, Winston Churchill, then a war-correspondent, was travelling onboard an armoured train when it was ambushed by Boer commandos. Churchill and many of the train's garrison were captured, though many others escaped, including wounded placed on the train's engine.

After the First World War the usage of armoured trains declined. They were used in China in the twenties, most notably by the warlord Zhang Zongchang, who employed refugee Russians to man them.

Poland used armoured trains extensively and successfully during the Invasion of Poland, which in turn prompted Nazi Germany to reintroduce them into its own armies.

Germany used armoured trains to a small degree during World War Two, however, they introduced significant designs of versatile and well equipped nature, including railcars which housed anti-aircraft gun turrets, railcars designed to load and unload tanks, and railcars which had complete armour protection with a large concealed howitzer gun. Germany also had impressive locomotives which were used on such trains and were fully armoured.

During the Slovak National Uprising the Slovak resistance used armoured trains. Two of its armoured trains, which were made in the Zvolen railway manufactory, Hurban and Štefánik are preserved and can be seen near the Zvolen castle.

In the First Indochina War, the French Union used the armoured and armed train La Rafale as both a cargo and a mobile surveillance unit.^[1][2] In February 1951 the first Rafale was in service in the Saigon-Nha Trang line, Vietnam^[3][4] while from 1947 to May 1952 the second one which was escorted by onboard Cambodian troops of the BSPP (Brigade de Surveillance de Phnom Penh) was used in the Phnom Penh-Battambang line, Cambodia.^[5] In 1953 both trains were attacked by the Viet-Minh guerrillas who mined and destroyed stone bridges when passing by.^[6].

Fulgencio Batista’s army operated an armoured train during the Cuban revolution though it was derailed and destroyed during the Battle of Santa Clara.

Towards the end of the Cold War, both superpowers began to develop railway-based ICBMs mounted on armoured trains; the Soviets deployed the SS-24 missile in 1987, and the US started to follow suit with the Peacekeeper missile, but budget costs and the changing international situation led to the cancellation of both programs, with all remaining railway-based missiles on both sides finally being deactivated in 2005.

One armored train that remains in regular use is the private train of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, which the former received as a gift from the Soviet Union.

An improvised armoured train named "Krajina ekspres" (Krajina express) was used during the war in Croatia (part of the Yugoslav succession wars) of the early 90's by the army of Republika Srpska Krajina (self-proclaimed republic of Serbs living within Croatia that sought to remain in Yugoslavia). The train mounted a M18 Hellcat and was used successfully as a mobile artillery battery (some AA guns were also mounted) due to lack of danger from the air (Croatia then possessed only a few aircraft - mostly converted ex-crop dusters used as bombers). It was reportedly hit on a few occasions with some antitank self-propelled grenades, but the damage was minor, as most of the train was covered with thick sheets of rubber which caused the grenades to explode somewhat too early to do real damage. The train was finally destroyed by its own crew lest it fall into enemy hands during the Croatian offensive Operation Storm which overran the Srpska Krajina. The remains are now on display in Gradačac.

[edit] Tactics

The advantage of armoured trains is that they can be quickly moved across great distances (which was especially important in the extremely mobile Russian Civil War). They can also carry a large quantity of supplies (including ammunition and materials for track repairs).

The obvious disadvantage is that they are tied to rail tracks, and destroying tracks immobilizes them.  They are also easy to spot and destroy from the air.  Because of this, armoured trains have virtually disappeared since World War II.

[edit] Modern armoured trains

Facing the threat of Chinese cross-border raids during the Sino-Soviet split, the USSR developed armoured trains in the early 1970s to protect the Trans-Siberian Railway. According to different accounts, four or five trains were built. Every train included ten Main Battle Tanks, two light amphibious tanks, several AA guns, as well as several Armoured Personnel Carriers, supply vehicles, and equipment for railway repairs, all mounted on open platforms or in special railcars. Different parts of the train were protected with 5-20 mm thick armour. These trains were used by the Soviet Army to intimidate nationalist paramilitary units in 1990 during early stages of the Nagorno-Karabakh War.^[7][8]

[edit] Notes

[edit] See also

• List of armoured trains
• Battle of Mokra
• Troop sleeper

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Armoured trains

• Soviet armoured trains
• Railway Gun Museum
• Russian armoured trains
• photos of the krajina express
• photos of La Rafale I / Rafale II

[edit] Quotes

• "Poland had only few armoured trains, but their officers and soldiers were fighting well. Again and again they were emerging from a cover in thick forests, disturbing German lines"

from the history of Wehrmacht: "Wie das Gesetz es befehl"