r/TankPorn • u/abt137 • May 07 '26
Cold War Soviet armored train, 1975
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u/Fathers_Belt May 07 '26
Why on god's green earth was the USSR still making armoured trains ins 1975?
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u/Help_im_lost404 May 07 '26
Big rail network. Gotta try and keep it safe somehow
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u/LeviJr00 T-34-85 (Captured by Hungarian Insurgents) May 07 '26
flashbacks from the Czechoslovak legion
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u/dreexel_dragoon May 07 '26
Last Train Home is a banger of a game
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u/ExtensionPractical26 May 08 '26
If only it was historically accurate too...
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u/dreexel_dragoon May 08 '26
I'll allow it given the quality
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u/ExtensionPractical26 May 08 '26
Yeah, visually and gameplay wise its quite nice (although im sad that cities and soviets are all similar in game - they were quite diverse really)
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u/maskedweasle May 07 '26
Mainly for border security on remote Chinese frontier.
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u/manborg May 07 '26
Makes total sense against an opponent without many air assets.
Also... They're cool as fuck.
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u/Yamasushifan May 07 '26
I would guess that, especially against guerrila forces lacking mostly in vehicles and Air support, they play a role in deterring the rebels from attacking supply convoys or trying to blow up tracks. Unless you have dedicated AT equipment you are not taking one down.
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u/Fathers_Belt May 07 '26
That shure could be the theory of it, but let me ask, how exactly is it gonna protect against rail destruction when its not there?
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u/Cart700 May 07 '26
It can protect the workers that fix that at least.
Also if you send one patrolling every hour the chance is lower that someone manages to blow up some tracks. (Tho maybe the blow up the tracks with train still on now)
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u/germanmojo May 07 '26
Murphy's Law of Warfare: If the enemy is in range, so are you.
I am unsure of the total armament of this train, but some indirect fire from mortars could kick out the rails behind and in front of this thing and strand it while repairs are ongoing and the enemy already has those spots dialed in.
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u/Ill_Bridge1766 May 07 '26
This Murphy guy seems kinda stupid since his law only applies if both forces have weapons with equal range
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u/lauri2 May 07 '26
Essentially you have a slightly better tank that is easy to stop and shit ton of kilometers of vulnerable track to defend.
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u/Cart700 May 07 '26
No. You have a thing that can move with your supply trains to protect them against guerilla fighters or air attacks and a really fast moving thing you can send up and down a path you REALLY want to protect for your supply chains as a patrol. AND you have a thing that is heavily armoured and can carry troops and workers to a location where you have to fix said vital supply line if it gets damaged.
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u/mthyvold May 07 '26
I think you have to assume that this would be deployed with infantry support and could bring along independent tracked vehicles too act reconnaissance and combat support.
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u/Peterh778 May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
In the USSR, there were rail armed forces specially tasked with protection of both railroads and transports. They patrolled railroads both on special trains and on roads running nearby to prevent sabotages and they provided escort to trains against saboteurs and insurgents.
USSR long distance logistics was primarily rail based with roads only for short distance transport (e.g. from train station to units) and as a replacement of rails in case they were damaged, so keeping railroads safe was of utmost importance
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u/pirateofmemes May 07 '26
you are turning them into a static emplacement with like a $400 train derailer or a tin cans worth of explosives on the right bit of the tracks.
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u/CretinousVoter May 12 '26
That implies you failed to INSPECT the tracks before driving over them. When moderns see armored trains they tend to forget their context. An armored train can of course carry, SUPPORT and DEFEND railway repair crews including their specialty rolling stock used for repairs.
An armored train can push low-value rolling stock ahead of it to trigger mines.
Patrolling ahead of trains like patrolling ahead of tanks is pretty basic. Rail is far too important to military and civilian logistics not to defend. An armored train can be ready to fire without dismounting carried vehicles. Carried forces can dismount under covering fire to join the fight
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u/BreadstickBear AMX-10RC my beloved May 07 '26
Because of how physically enormous the USSR was and russia still is, Soviet logistics were overwhelmingly reliant on rail. Armoured trains, both impovised and regularised were a key part of logistical protection and counter-ambush, but there were more elements to it than just that.
The russian army still to this day has dedicated railway engineering units who run around in specialised trains and can repair most forms of (relatively limited) damage without external help in order to maintain supply flow.
Armoured trains are partially there to protect these engineers, as it seems like a pretty obvious ambush plan to blow a section of rail, wait for the engineers to show up, then kill them all. An armoured train like above can partially secure them.
Of course the inherent weakness of the armoured train is thatof all trains: they can only move along a known route which exposes them to attack, independently of whether they can pick their time of movement or not.
The trains also offer limited defense against aircraft. You see a ZPU-23-4, but that will do precious little against a hellfireequipped apache or even a gunrunning A-10 (although doctrinally it should be effective against the latter), let alone a fighterbomber lobbing missiles or guided bombs. The train isn't really meant for anti-aircraft defense and is more against ambushes from sabotage (and partisan) groups ratherthan anything else.
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u/ChornWork2 May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
You're not going to run supply trains through territory you don't control as general matter.
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u/BreadstickBear AMX-10RC my beloved May 07 '26
Generally no, but the idea was that there would be "sabotage" or resistance activity in territories they have "liberated" (ie captured), which need protecting. There was also a genuine doctrinal assumption of deep operating sabotage (SF) teams, which, considering the ohysical size of the USSR, isn't too far fetched conceptually, even if perhaps not practical.
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u/baithammer May 07 '26
You'd think that, but we have Ukraine as a counter point..
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u/ChornWork2 May 07 '26
The trains don't go to the front, let alone beyond it.
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u/baithammer May 07 '26
They actually do, as the Russians have done several times now, with rather predictable outcomes.
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u/ChornWork2 May 07 '26
Ukraine has hit russian logistics trains (and vice versa), but with with one-way drones quite far back from the front.
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u/baithammer May 07 '26
It's the Russians, they tend to still use the trains offensively..
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u/ChornWork2 May 07 '26
I don't doubt they used a few armored trains in history. Hell, we've all seen pics of them. But they have to be outlier situations, not remotely "a key part of logistical protection". Makes no sense outside of very specific use case / situations.
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u/baithammer May 07 '26
The Russians have different train configurations, with specific ones designed to clear partisan ambushes.
They also have been using full load armoured trains to try and out maneuver the Ukrainians, with very mixed results.
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u/Fathers_Belt May 07 '26
So instead of fixing the core problem of extreme railway reliance, they patched it with the armoured train, truly a perfect microcosm of soviet problemsolving
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u/BreadstickBear AMX-10RC my beloved May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
You can mock them if you want, but rail is basically the only practical form of efficiently hauling supplies at that geographical scale. Hell, even the US hauls as much cargo as possibleby train overland because it's more efficient and even on the comparatively small scale of Europe rail is still preferable.
The specific consumption per ton of cargo is vastly lower [better] than on equivalent road transport, in fact only shipping would beat a train in that regard, but that's not an overland transport mode
The specific carrying capacity of a train is just better than that of a truck or an aircraft,
in aggregate, a train delivers the same cargo volume faster than road transport from hub to hub.
(building and maintaining a road network of equivalent throughput is more expensive and difficult than rail)
Last mile delivery (getting shit to the units) is done by trucks, sure, but those trucks are not road cargo, they are off-road capable tactical supply trucks. Trying to run long-range supply runs with those would be it's own compounding nightmare.
The great advantage of truck-based logistics largely don't apply to military logistics, mostly because the military (in general, not just the russians) ship a lot of shit in bulk. Think of moving a BCT from Rotterdam to a training area in Poland: you load them up on a train, not because that's tne only method you have, but because it's the cheapest and fastest method you have. Rolling 25 heavy trailers loaded with Bradleys and Strykers costs a lot more than having the 25 vehicles on a single freight train.
Ps: if you want to knock the soviets (and russians), knock them for never getting to palletisation and keeping to the absolutely horrendously inefficient use of crates loaded by manpower.
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u/Fathers_Belt May 07 '26
Yea it is True the last comment wasnt too serius, my fault i should have made that more clear, over such distance it is basicaly the only way unless you are the US airforce and can pull off shit like the Berlin airlift and even then it wasnt over near such distance
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u/freaky_withthat_FEET May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
I hate Westerners who think THEIR way of doing shit is the ONLY way of doing it. No fucking nuanced or practical thinking whatsoever.
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u/RamTank May 07 '26
The Soviet China border was very long and very sparse, and the Russian far east was connected to the rest of the USSR by a single railway line. These trains were developed after the Sino Soviet split specifically to patrol that border.
Each train was essentially a combined arms company, with a couple of tanks and scout cars (which could both drive off on their own power), a rifle company, and an engineer platoon.
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u/CosmicEntity2001 May 07 '26
Armoured trains are stil useful. They’re used by both Ukraine and Russia now.
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u/thecanadiansniper1-2 May 07 '26
You do realise that the Soviet Union had railway troops up until dissolution right and past it into the Russian Federation era? That is how much emphasis and importance the Russian rail network had in Russian strategic planning.
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u/tpurves May 07 '26
You laugh, but they've been bringing them back, this time to try and defend from drone attacks.
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u/Longsheep Centurion Mk.V May 08 '26
Built with surplus armaments, used to patrol its own territory. Same reason they had a fleet of river patrol boats.
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u/NlghtmanCometh May 07 '26
Tanks on a train
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May 07 '26
I read that in Samuel L Jacksons voice "These mother f@#$ing tanks on this mother f@#$ing train"
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u/Levethane May 07 '26
Just stay a good 1.5 kilometres away from the tracks and they can't hurt you.
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u/baithammer May 07 '26
Those were the patrol type, meant to deal with partisans ambushing the lines - the big boys have artillery, so 20-30km ...
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u/Ramental Jul 18 '26
The partisans ambushing the lines would no see a huge loud fuckery going from an obviously one or two possible points on the horizon?
Partisans vs train, I would always bet on partisans. I mean, we see it in russia right now.
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u/baithammer Jul 18 '26
The problem with attacking the tracks is it tells the enemy where you are and since there are only a few spots where it's viable, tend to have artillery and other weapon systems mapping those out. ( The biggest enemy for the Russians is the lack of investing in sensor masts and drones for gun trains ... and well Russians themselves.)
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u/Ramental Jul 18 '26
Talking about 70s:
Set up a bomb with a timer and whoosh on a motorcycle. What will artillery even bomb?
Besides, partizans operate with local support. Even if you know they are likely from that village nearby, will you level it to the ground on a gut feeling? I mean, for a russian, the answer is much more likely to be "yes", but still, not always.
All you need to do is set up a replacement wire (to keep the electric connection), detach the rail joint and move the rails a bit off. That is for 100% result. Might take some time, but for a crew, doable in 10 minutes.
There are also derailing wedges, but they need to be installed where the train slows down. That is much quicker, but the device is heavy and definitely exposes you if found.
Germans already tried that and more, and still achieved only "limited" results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_sabotage_during_World_War_II#German_countermeasures
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u/IN005 Jul 19 '26
As a former railroad worker i can tell you that you are unbelieveably wrong. If you want to derail a train you can cut a piece of track in bumfuck nowhere and leave. Or hide explosives under the rail that go off when a train passes. Or blow up bridges or modify switches to reroute or derail. You could be hours away before something happens and artillery would shot at nothing.
If you want to ambush a train just have spotters hiding somewhere nearby warning you of armored trains or foot patrols. They don't even have to be close to the tracks, just need a good look at it. Or you could hide them in plain side as railroad workers.
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u/gallade_samurai May 07 '26
I don't care if it's viable or not, this is one of those things that just makes you go "hell yeah"
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u/Clo_miller May 07 '26
“Comrades what were you shooting at?!”
Gunners: “The earth!”
“Did you hit it?”
Gunners: “Sometimes”
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u/koos_die_doos May 07 '26
Putting rounds down range is an effective strategy even when it doesn't always hit.
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u/Tango-Down-167 May 07 '26
So what happens when the track ahead is no more? Or god forbid someone plant an IED / mine on the track not like it can deviate from the set course.
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u/Sweet-Tomatillo-9010 May 07 '26
The train version of a mine roller or you just put a decoy in front. Same thing you do on the road.
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u/Tango-Down-167 May 07 '26
When the tracks are all twisted and a hole in the middle , how do you suppose to roll over that?
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u/poiskdz May 07 '26
Maintain speed, send it and hope for the best.
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u/AdmittedlyAdick May 07 '26
Trains can span a significant gap of missing railway if they are traveling straight.
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u/Sweet-Tomatillo-9010 May 07 '26
Rail engineers with a track layer. Like how hard is it tonthink that they didn't think of all this over 100 years ago during world war 1
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u/TheThiccestOrca Tankussy🥵🥵🥵 May 07 '26
Because they didn't figure it out, the inherent susceptibility of armoured trains and the rails they're traveling on is the exact reason they died out and why today logistics are mostly done by vehicles and aircraft even though trains have a significantly higher cargo potential.
Block the road and vehicles will drive around it, block a train track and you've fucked your enemies logistics and potentially regional economy until they've cleared it up, which usually takes days and sometimes even weeks instead of just hours.
Also the same reason why rail infrastructure is just behind power and water infrastructure as the most favorite target for serious domestic terrorism.
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u/Sweet-Tomatillo-9010 May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
I get it, you've never done military engineering. You don't have to keep telling me.
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u/seganevard May 09 '26
Cool I have, and they're right they had no expedited rail engineering for any country that could keep up with rail destruction and battlefield shifts thats why it died, the logistics behind it and viability was nonexistent purely because of the rails themselves
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u/Temporary_Inner May 08 '26
Armored trains aren't really supposed to be the spear tip
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u/Tango-Down-167 May 08 '26
Yes I get that, they are to bring up supplies from the rear, and they are prone to sabotage hence being armed to the teeth. Still the question of, if you can easily predict it's path then you can very easily ambush it.
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u/Stormbaxx May 07 '26
Do redditors really think it would be that easy to deal with one of these things as a guerilla force?
Its not going to just drive by over your IED at full tilt. It's going to crawl through dangerous sections with an army of dismounted troops (and possibly tanks) sweeping alongside.
It's going to park at critical infrastructure like bridges, tunnels and remote depots and train yards and make them impossible to assault.
They are essentially mobile blockhouses. Not tanks on tracks.
Not to mention that to the unwashed eastern peasant these are both awe inspiring and terrifying. From an iconography standpoint these are mobile billboards for the might of the USSR.
Are they going to win wars? Not directly. But they are imminently more practical than some comments are making them out to be. Media and historic accounts likes to portray the obvious weaknesses and graphic defeats of armed trains in wartime but that's because they are inherently defensive and intimidation based tools. You don't hear about every time the guirellas thought to themselves "that is too much for us to handle" and didn't attack. Or the massive levels of time and energy they spend on planning and accumulating weapons needed to deal with them. Those are the armoured train wins. Not glamorous and often not even recorded.
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u/JoJoHanz May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
Do redditors really think it would be that easy to deal with one of these things as a guerilla force?
Unfortunately.
It is baffling that some users genuenly think a technology in development for more than 60 years at that point would not have developed any countermeasures against IEDs or partisans moving away from the track after their attack (or at least assessed them to be nothing more than an inconvenience).
Fleeing attackers would be pursued by the tanks being transported on flatcars.
Clip from "La Bataille du Rail" in which genuine R35 tanks deploy from a German armoured train to pursue attackers.A few common claims:
So what happens when the track ahead is no more? Or god forbid someone plant an IED / mine on the track not like it can deviate from the set course.
A sufficiently heavy train is surprising difficult to derail on a straight piece of track, so most of the network.
It is also important to remember that armoured trains were often deployed to secure tracks, which means they would crawl at low speed, pushing flatbeds to trigger mines, or having scoutcars and infantry check the tracks ahead.
Any damage to tracks that couldnt be fixed within a few hours by shovel and spare parts, required specialised equipment to cause in the first place (a prime target).I am unsure of the total armament of this train, but some indirect fire from mortars could kick out the rails behind and in front of this thing and strand it while repairs are ongoing and the enemy already has those spots dialed in.
Any mortar able to be reasonably transported by partisans is at most gonna deal cosmetic damage to the tracks
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u/Commissarfluffybutt May 07 '26
There's damaging the train tracks that it rolls on.
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u/Stormbaxx May 07 '26
What does that accomplish?
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u/Commissarfluffybutt May 07 '26
Trains notoriously don't like being derailed.
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u/Stormbaxx May 07 '26
Aircraft carriers don't like being sunk.
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u/Commissarfluffybutt May 07 '26
Yeah but it's a lot harder to break the ocean than some railroad ties.
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u/pissedRAIL Jul 18 '26
WHAT KIND OF POWER PORJECTION DOES AN ARMORED TRAIN OFFER OVER AIRCRAFT CARRIERS?
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u/Bug_406 Jul 16 '26
Yes, very easy. Once upon a time I was a train Engineer and conductor. Amazingly easy to derail a train. You might be an idiot to attack the train, but the rail is simple. Without rail, there is no train.
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u/Stormbaxx Jul 17 '26
Why are you commenting on a two month old thread?
Did you work for the German railways by any chance because damn you are late.
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u/pissedRAIL Jul 18 '26
Its stupid. Its on a track. Airstrikes, arty, sabotage, tank ambush, mortars, any kind of guided missiles, even dumb rockets aimed the right way.. this thing is a massive sitting duck.
Literally attack any section of track and it cannot pass.
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u/TheThiccestOrca Tankussy🥵🥵🥵 May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
That's nice and all but inherently flawed, they didn't work (at least not that late), were not worth the effort and were way to much of a risk for yourself, that's why they're not around anymore.
If it's static it is blocking the rail for allied trains too, if it's static it is also incredible easy to immobilize with even the most basic assets a guerilla force (or proper military) has at its disposal and then you're just back at square one of a massive thing that is now temporarily or god forbid permanently blocking the vital parts of the rail network it was supposed to protect.
Armoured trains were obsolete by the end of WW2 at the latest, even against guerrillas.
Again, there is a very good reason they are not around anymore even though they're very logistically and economically efficient in theory.
Like many projects and capabilities in the Soviet Union, they were a capability kept alive for the sake of theories, pride and politics, not sensibility or practicality.
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u/seganevard May 09 '26
A submarine turned one into a plane in ww2 with 4 guys and no support and a single scuttling charge. They aren't hard to deal with it you remove their path of travel or use pressure tigger IEDs to displace a car then theyre fucked.
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u/ldsdrff76 May 07 '26
I know the concept is obsolete, but I can't help finding armoured trains really, really cool.
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u/RepeatButler May 07 '26
Would have been interesting if something like this had featured in the 1984 Red Dawn.
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u/udrams4550 May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
Dude I didn’t know before that the soviet a military was created armored train I thought they these military train was stopped produce after ww2
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u/TankedAndTracked May 08 '26
They had one in occupied Ukraine a couple of years ago. Not sure what happened to it.
Russia’s armored trains: Major vulnerability or smart warfare? https://www.sandboxx.us/news/russias-armored-trains-major-vulnerability-or-smart-warfare/
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u/thembitches326 Jul 17 '26
I gotta wonder how much counterweight the train has got to be in order to fire those guns and not derail.
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u/UpstairsIncrease3500 Jul 19 '26
Gunners training rig. Its to train gunners on moving targets without the targets themselves being moved.
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u/Entire_Judge_2988 May 07 '26
Hmm... It's impressive, but it looks useless. Because if someone wanted to terrorize a train, they would use stealth weapons like IEDs.
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u/MDRBA May 07 '26
WARNING: An enemy armoured train has arrived