How were armored trains useful in any way? >blow up the

>>1895841
If i remembered correctly they are used mostly bombing fortresses. Yes its true that theyre useless when the train track are blown up. But if they are present if battle they can inflict massive casualties

>train catches you unprepared
>gets into your base
>"I know I'll just destroy the tracks"
>still in ur base killing ur dudes

apparently it's easy to repair train tracks

>>1895841

To defend convoys and support troops

>>1895841
It's a semi-mobile fortress

>>1895841

Any army is going to have to transport stuff by train. The train might as well have some ability to defend itself.

If your trains are getting blown up and the crew knows it's basically a fast moving death trap, you're going to want to armor the train to protect the crew and cargo.

>>1895841
>Blow up tracks.
>Armored train halts
>Repairs tracks with its crew of engineers.
>Proceeds.

>>1895953
>train stops
>"its a stick up boys!"

>>1895953
>Armored train halts
>Repairs tracks with its crew of engineers.
>oh dear, there's another destroyed track a kilometer down
>Armored train halts
>time is wasted

File: Warlord Period Armored Train.jpg (162KB, 1100x762px) Image search: [Google]

162KB, 1100x762px

>>1895960
>Train proceeds to rain hell on you.

There were also used offensively. During the Zhili-Fengtien Wars in Northern China during the Warlord Period, a Fengtian Clique commander, Zhang Zongchang, plowed an armored train laden with troups in the middle of a railway station in some Chinese city held by his Zhili Clique enemies. The train not only disgorged troops but participated in the fighting by utilizing its mounted artillery firing into the rear positions of the enemy.

File: 1473236727206.png (2MB, 1400x1572px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1400x1572px

>>1895841

Railroad guns were useful for the initial push into France. Their utility ended pretty quickly after that, but they had already served their purpose at that point so it didn't matter very much.

Hitler did come up with a crazy idea to recycle them as battleship guns, though. The resulting ship would have weighed more than a modern Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

>>1895988
I want to read more about this, that sounds incredible.

I thought they were mostly to patrol the tracks to make railways harder to raid.

Also if you put artillery on tracks, it can move very fast and has a long range. So the idea is you don't let them near your tracks. The armor is just a deterrent to make it less likely for them to send a small raiding party.

>>1896002
Russian and Chinese Civil Wars of the 1918-1920s were all sorts of crazy shit. Also the wars where armored trains shone.

>>1895841
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa9Wfpx4LFw

>>1896033
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHJks438zvY

>>1895998
The Germans didn't use railroad guns at all for the push into France in 1940, it was all their air force and field artillery...

>>1895988
How are they going to rain hell on anyone when you lasso the guns off the train?

>>1895841
How were longbows useful in any way?

>wear plate armor
>longbow can't hurt you

waow

>>1896056
I think he's talking about World War 1, not 2.

>>1895877
No, that would be railway artillery.