Page 166 - How It Works - Book Of Amazing Answers To Curious Questions, Volume 05-15

What were armoured

trains? Discover how railways went to war

in the 19th and 20th century

he explosion of rail travel in the 19th
century changed warfare. Now armies Soviet railwaymen work on
Tdepended upon railways to mobilise an armoured train in the
depot during WWII
and to supply, from dispatching troops and
vehicles to the front line to keeping them
well-stocked with munitions, medicine and
other sundries. Railways became pivotal to
the war effort, so they had to be protected.
The first improvised armoured trains

appeared in 1848 for use by the Austro-
Hungarian army in quelling the revolutions
that gripped the empire that year. Nearly two
decades later they proved their strategic
worth in the American Civil War of 1861 to
1865 when armoured trains protected the
Union-held rail lines of Baltimore from
Confederate saboteurs.
In June 1862, Confederate General Lee
ordered that a cannon be mounted on a
railway carriage, kick-starting the evolution
of the armoured train as a means to not just
protect the railway, but as an offensive
weapon in itself, able to advance rapidly
toward the lines and unleash a powerful Ammunition
Most of the interior was
artillery barrage. filled with ammunition

It was over wide-open spaces where stores, making things
armoured trains really came into their own, extremely cramped for
and the British Empire used them to protect the crew of 30.

its far-flung interests, such as in Egypt (1882),
Sudan (1885) and India (1886), as well as South
Africa during the Boer War (1899-1902). By
World War I (1914-1918), Britain and its
continental neighbours saw armoured trains
as best deployed against irregular forces like
those they had faced in their colonial
campaigns, and too vulnerable for use Cannon
against professional armies. A 76.2mm (3in) fi eld
gun was mounted
Although a few models saw service on the on each turret.
Western Front, it was on the Eastern Front Capable of fi ring ten
where armoured trains remained vital to 12 shells per
thanks to the poor infrastructure and vast minute, they had a
maximum range of
distances of the Russian Empire. The Soviet 13.29km (8.25mi).
Union inherited the previous regime’s
enthusiasm for rail-mounted combat and
they were a feature of the Russian Civil War
(1917-1920), the Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921)
and the Eastern Front of World War II
(1939-1945), where they saw service as both
frontline artillery and anti-aircraft guns.

Railways
Ra i l wa ys
became pivotal to

the war effort

166 How It Works