Exhibits

Historical background

Armored trains were first used in the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 The English army created armored trains to protect communications from Boer guerrilla formations. Armored trains were also actively used in World War I.

Armored trains were also part of the USSR's weapons system. By 1941 the country had built new trains, and then deployed railway air defense batteries.

Armored Trains of War

In the first years of the war, armored trains were used to protect bridges and stations. However, they could no longer resist air forces: air defense sites were ineffective in protecting trains due to poor maneuverability.

Armored trains suffered heavy losses until 1943 the strategy for their use was changed. Now they were used to protect railway communications of the operational rear, which made it possible to eliminate their losses.

New weapons

The Bryansk plant, the only enterprise that produced armored trains before the war, was evacuated to Krasnoyarsk. The construction of new armored trains began at locomotive and wagon repair plants, as well as at railway depots. To create new armored trains, standard drawings of the Bryansk plant were used, sent to factories under the name NKPS-42.

War experience showed that two-turret armored cars were impractical. Due to their heavy weight, they overloaded the track and made it difficult to lift the vehicle in the event of a derailment. If one of the turrets was damaged, the armored train lost half of its artillery.

At the end of January 1942, the armored train department ordered the development of a new type of armored train. The vehicles were to be armed with a 76-mm gun of the F-34 type, which was used on T-34 tanks, as well as a hull made of heat-treated armor.

In April 1943 the project of the armored platform PL-43 was approved, which stands for "light platform model 1943". A set of drawings for the new armored train BP-43 was ready in July 1943.

The BP-43 consisted of the armored steam locomotive PR-43, four armored platforms PL-43 with turrets from the T-34 tank and platforms with anti-aircraft weapons PVO-4. The latter consisted of a two-axle platform armed with two 37-mm automatic cannons.

The People's Commissariat of Railways plant manufactured 20 armored trains, and another six were manufactured by the Kolomna Plant of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Machinery.

Our days

The light armored platform PO-43 was built on the basis of a two-axle platform created at the Serp i Molot plant (Kharkov) in 1935. It was later converted from an artillery platform into an air defense platform. This weapon, as historians suggest, was part of one of two armored trains: "Ufa" or "Salavat Yulaev". Received by the museum from the Rzhev station in 1987

Historical context

The only plant that produced armored trains before the war - the Bryansk Plant named after Profintern - had to be evacuated to Krasnoyarsk. Therefore, the construction of new armored trains began at locomotive and car repair plants, as well as in railway depots.

War experience showed that the two-turret armored cars used in armored trains were impractical due to the excess weight, which overloaded the track and made it difficult to lift in the event of a derailment. And if one of the turrets was damaged, the armored train lost half of its artillery.