"Incredible Armoured Trains of WW I and W W II" Topic

"TRAINS MAY SEEM pretty mundane in the 21st century when compared with jet aircraft.

Trains have fallen out of favour as the dominant form of transport. This contrasts vividly with the previous century, when not just trains but armored trains were a vital piece of machinery in the two largest military conflicts of the era.

The armored train was first seen in the American Civil War, according to The Jamestown Foundation, but the battle-ready form of transportation came to prominence in World War I, when Russia used it as a means of defense during cross-country travel…."
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Have a German, Russian and Polish Armored train in 6mm.

Do you wargame with them?

Amicalement
Armand

Armored trains are cool.

Agree!

Amicalement
Armand

When I'm taking subway in the morning to get to work, from time to time I'm getting into a train, dedicated to "Moscow Metropoliten" armoured train, built on the money Moscow subway workers collected during WWII, and manned by the crews mainly from Moscow metro, too.
Most important fight of this train was at Kursk Salient in July of 1943.
While it didn't have alot of guns, it played an important role in preventing a breakthrough, destroying several tanks and bombers, suppressing mortar batteries and drawing on itself a large amount of German attention.
If you're interested, you may try to google translate the page: urban3p.ru/blogs/20980
and more pics:
link

There's a very interesting article on Soviet Army armoured trains, including some interesting potential scenarios, even a duel between German "Adolf Hitler" and Soviet "Ilya Muromets" in 1944.
link

There were certainly some interesting things done with trains. I was particularly fascinated by a Soviet 'land torpedo'. An unmanned gas powered rail car with an explosive warhead designed to 'torpedo' enemy armored trains :)

Thanks for the links Barin. And it is terrific you understand the significance of the dedication, it must make a routine commute a little extra special. I hope many of your fellow commuters also understand. Great piece of history and thanks for sharing.

There's another train on my line, where each carriage is dedicated to great generals and admirals, I'm normally driving with Suvorov, Rokossovskiy or Skobelev, but there's also Zhukov, Kutuzov, Ushakov, Nakhimov and others…to me it is more interesting to look at the stuff on the walls, than on a smartphone screen, but as we have free Wi-Fi, history has a serious competition ;)

Many thanks Barin!

Amicalement
Armand

I have rules for armor trains but they are difficult to use because of the scale.
panzer-war.com/page8.html
1:2000 scale distorts the length so cars are 50m apart. I suppose you could play in 1/285 scale but who does that?

Many thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

I still p;lay 1/285 micro armor with 1" = 25m. It works for larger battles and avoids tank parks.

Wolfhag

I have trains and tracks in 285th scale and use CDIII rules with suggested train stats. Works fine.

This looks good…!

Tutorial here
wargame.hu/pancelvonat

Armand

I still p;lay 1/285 micro armor with 1" = 25m. It works for larger battles and avoids tank parks.

I too usually adapt rules to a 1" = 25m ground scale, when I have enough room on the table.

But that's still about a 1/1000 ground scale, on which you are using 1/300 models. So all of your terrain pieces and models are outsized by more than 3x.

That's not too much of a problem when your combat vehicles are individual pieces moving around in the terrain. My tank is 600m away from your gun, regardless of how large or small my tank is. But when you have a combat vehicle that is larger than many terrain features, the distortion can become a game issue. Sure you reduce the distortion by half compared to a 1/2000 ground scale (1" = 50m). But going down from 6 2/3 times too large to 3 1/3 times too large doesn't eliminate the distortions.

You will still wind up with the odd situation where, if you play a typical wartime armored train (in terms of the number of cars) you will find that troops who disembark from the caboose will not be within effective small-arms range of the engine, because your 8-10 car train is approaching a kilometer in length when you measure your firing distances.

I know some folks do game at almost true ground scales -- 1/500 (2" = 50m) or even actual 1/300 or 1/285. But the games usually have smaller forces, and I don't think you want to attack an armored train with "smaller forces". And half the reason for an armored train, in my mind, would be for the long-range fire-support it should be able to provide.

I'm with Mobius on this. I can't see playing an armored train on the table … unless it's almost a skirmish-scale game, or the train itself is a relatively passive / autonomous terrain feature or victory condition.

Still, they're interesting. Not sure how they could survive on a 20th century battlefield, but they were clearly there so someone must have found them useful.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Many years ago, in a moment of madness, I bought Armageddon's 1/72 scale kit of a German BP44 armoured train (both sets). I subsequently read some reviews of this monster kit and they were not favourable. Consequently it languishes in its original packaging to this day.

I believe that the completed train is over 6 feet in length. Using my favoured WWII rules, it would take 12+ turns for an infantryman to move from one end of the train to the other. 12+ turns is longer than most published scenarios for these rules. In addition, no direct fire weapon has a range even approaching 6 feet.

What was I thinking? Well I'm fascinated by armoured trains, and I have several books about them. Probably explains it. Just possessing that kit is reward enough!

Here is the story of one man's struggle with this kit.

link

Churchill's "My Early Life" contains a detailed account of his capture after the Boer ambush of an armored train. It explains the strengths and weaknesses of the concept pretty vividly.

Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars not only had armoured vans on the trains, with turret guns, similar to the War Cars on Galaxy Express 999, but also featured fanciful art of trains meeting where the rights-of-way of two different railroads came too close, and exchanging broadsides. This includes everyone on the train who was carryin' iron.

Also, don't forget the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch…

Thanks!.

Armand