Armoured train

An armoured train operated along the railway: it supported the infantry with its fire, guarded stations and bridges, scouted and raided. Steel plate, or concrete and sandbags on improvised trains, protected the crew from rifle fire and splinters. In 1914–1918 the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and German armies had the most; the British used a train with naval guns in Belgium in 1914, and the Italians guarded their Adriatic coast with them.

They mattered most where the front was fluid and roads were few: in Russia in 1917–1918, in Finland, the Transcaucasus and Central Asia. The Bolsheviks, the Whites and the Czechoslovak Legion all had armoured trains. From late 1918 the Polish Army formed its own, largely from wartime equipment; train no. 11 "Poznańczyk" supported the Greater Poland Uprising.