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If you are preparing to fight an armored train, you have many ways to get results. But usually you meet him when you did not expect it. You do not have explosives and people who can handle it, you do not have the tools to loosen the nuts on the rails. Most likely, your soldiers are yesterday's illiterate peasants who generally have little idea what a locomotive or car is))) Red regiments at the beginning often fled in terror, just seeing tanks away ... Single tanks.
You simply don't need explosives to derail a train. Just some basic tools .These are. of the period .(exhibit at the Russian Railway museum Moscow.)You can remove the fixtures and fittings on a rail with pry bars and wrenches in under an hour.With just a section of men.[/quote}Sure, this happened often enough. And the crew simply got out and replaced the track and were on their way. They had all the equipment and parts they needed.QuoteNor do you need hundreds of men to assault one .Thirty is more than enough. Advancing with 30 men across an open field into even one emplaced MG would be brave. To do it to a train that is, even without a landing party, full of artillery and MGs behind armour? It would be suicidal. If you attack with a battalion, and there is a decent landing party, then you are still in real trouble, given that the landing parties tended to be the very best men available and they are backed up with armoured artillery. There were attacks in the rear on armoured trains, but they weren't common, because it was really, really difficult to pull off. The ones I know of were usually at night, by surprise, while the train was stationary. That avoids having to take on the armour, but like all night attacks is quite difficult to co-ordinate. Even to penetrate into the rear of the enemy lines, when capture meant certain torture and death, was only for the brave. To do so on the off-chance you might find a decent opportunity to strike wasn't really on. When it happened, it was an attack of opportunity. Even if you took the train, then what? You have a train behind enemy lines that you can't return to your side. The best you can hope to do is wreck it (which in practice meant loot, derail, and blow up the locomotive -- often by over-stoking the boiler). A new locomotive is produced, and they are back in action. This was a major problem for Makhno and the other Greens.
Nor do you need hundreds of men to assault one .Thirty is more than enough.
BooksArmored Trains by Steven Zaloga (Osprey Publications)Armoured Trains – An Illustrated Encyclopedia 1825-2016, by Paul MalmassariArmoured Train: Its Development and Usage; Balfour, G
The two Osprey titles on Armoured Units of the RCW - Red and White both have info on armoured trains as well as tanks and armoured cars Osprey has them on sale now