RAILWAY WAR

______Russia just didn't have any luck. First, it got involved in World War One, for which it was woefully unprepared. Then the Tsar was overthrown and a provisional government set up, which insisted on continuing the War on the Allied side. And after that the Bolsheviks launched a revolution of their own, triggering the Russian Civil War.
______The Reds wanted to set up a communist state, while the Whites fought for a variety of causes, from national independence for many ethnic groups formerly dominated by the Russians to restoration of the monarchy. Neither side possessed the huge armies typical of the Great War and mobility became an important aspect of the Civil War, whether it was cavalry or railroads.

______Armored trains, or bronepoyezd, dominated warfare. This was especially true on the strategic link of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the rail line between European Russia and the far east. During the Civil War Reds and Whites would fight back and forth along the line, measuring progress by how many versts were taken or lost.
______Armored trains fell into the hands of both White and Red forces, most of them leftovers from the Great War. However, many were built or modified during the Civil War, with extra machineguns and artillery crammed aboard. The trains were like land battleships, able to dominate the terrain around the rails with fire. A train, regardless of its configuration, was known as an echelon, and each echelon could be broken down into smaller echelons as the need presented itself.. Three echelons or more formed a divizion.
______Some trains included cars for horses, providing mobile cavalry detachments, or detachments of armored cars. Some Red trains even had Cheka detachments, in order to tighten the communist grip of power on small towns and villages along the railroad line.
______Trotsky, the Bolshevik Commissar of War, had his own armored train in which he traveled from front to front: the Revvoyensovet (Revolutionary Military Soviet). Trotsky's crew dressed in all-red leather uniforms, complete with a distinctive metal armbadge depicting their train. The well-armed revolutionaries served as shock troops, able to turn to the tide in battle despite their small numbers.
______The Whites, for their part, had names for their trains as well: Admiral Kolchack, General Kornilov, Scout, United Russia and Officer, just to name a few. The trains (some of them equipped with Navy guns) provided vital firepower during White offensives and were important in retreats as well.
______In the end it was the Reds who won. Their experiences during the war would lead them to combine tanks, armored cars, and armored trains into the Armored Forces of the Red Army.

Symbol of the Red Army armored forces

WHAT WAS THE FIRST SHIP SUNK BY AN ELECTRONIC MINE?

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