How can something so impractical be so awesome?

>>33585364
Because if we find impractical concepts, we only make/put thought into the most awesome ones.

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>>33585364
>impractical

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>>33585364
>How can something so impractical be so awesome?
They weren't always impractical. Before the proliferation of aircraft they were a perfectly legitimate component of your defensive structure.

>>33585626
He posted a fucking train, not a boat

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>>33585649
He posted a heavily-armed-and-armored form of transportation made obsolete by military aircraft, Anon.

>>33585653
They weren't made obsolete by military aircraft, they were made obsolete by their fixed routes, easily damaged tracks, and difficulties supporting an advance. Long before aircraft were a thing if you needed to arm and armor your trains then you were probably having to rebuild your tracks.

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>>33585364

Military trains is still in use, just in a different form

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>>33585668
>easily damaged tracks
And easily-repaired, since they carried the necessary spares with them. In >>33585653 the flat car at the front has spare rails.
>and difficulties supporting an advance
They are not for supporting an advance; they are mobile firepower to support the garrison patrolling the rail line to prevent sabotage.

Where do people get these retarded ideas about how armored trains were used?

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That didn't Stop the Serbs

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>>33585653
>>33585668
this

armored trains were useless as early as the Boer war, Winston Churchill himself was ambushed by Boers attacking and derailing his train with nothing but a few rocks on the track and a maxim gun.

WW2 and you see this repeated

German train lines were utterly shattered all over Europe thanks to partisan activity and constant aerial bombing

>>33585724
Yet they were used to great effect in the Russian-Polish wars proving that it was tactics and not material that was at fault

>>33585862
The key is to fight an enemy who was 100 years behind

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>>33585692
Oh wow so they just parked an m18 on it then?

>>33585497

goddammit I did not expect a Hrabal reference here.

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>tfw you will never see two armored trains fire at eachother, broadside

why even live

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>>33585876
Hey, if it works it works

>>33585872
So are you saying the Poles or the Soviets were 100 years behind?

>>33585936
More like a couple of million

Slavs are the missing link between man and ape

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>>33585364
They have proven to be insanely practical, though.
Apparently it's pretty easy to fix tracks by skilled team, at least enough to drive armored train through.

We used them with great success in Polish war for independence, Polish-Soviet war od 1920, and even during 1939 campaign they brought some pain to the krauts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mokra

I read a lot of articles about them in professional magazines, and one testimony of a soldier I remembered:
"The tank pretty much controlled the area of 2.5km left and right with its canons howitzers & machine guns, those who underestimated it's firepower died".

But don't blame OP, guys, I was thinking in similar paths like him, before I educated myself.

> Armoured train No. 53, known as Śmiały ("Bold"), which arrived on the battlefield just as the German tanks were crossing the railway line. It stopped in the middle of the German column and opened fire on the German tanks at close range with its two 75mm guns and heavy machine guns. The German column was dispersed and retreated with heavy losses, losing a number of Panzer I and II tanks

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>>33585965
>Slavs are the missing link between man and ape
I know having a small penis is hard, but there are surgery options for people like you.

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>>33585876
Tried-and-true concept.