Armored Train

a railroad train made up of an armored locomotive and one or several armored railroad mountings and mine-testing cars designed for combat action around a railroad line. The armored locomotive (a conventional locomotive covered with armor) was placed in the middle of a train with armored railroad mountings—two- and four-axle railroad flatcars on which armored housing was fitted—in front of and behind it. Personnel, artillery and machine gun armament (one or two cannons in turrets and three to six machine guns along the sides and in gun turrets), control equipment, and observation instruments were placed on the armored railroad mountings. Two mine-testing cars were hitched on each end of the armored train to prevent the armored railroad mountings from hitting mines and fougasses set in the railroad bed by the enemy. The first armored trains appeared in the French Army during the siege of Paris by the Germans (1871); they were used more extensively by the British Army in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, by the Russian Army in World War I (1914-18), and by the Soviet Army during the Civil War in the struggles for cities and along railroad lines. They were also used during World War II (1939-45), especially special antiaircraft armored trains designed for the defense of railroad junctions. During World War II the significance of armored trains diminished as a result of the development of aviation and armored troops.