An armoured train (Commonwealth English) or armored train (American English) is a railway train protected with heavy metal plating and which often includes railway wagons armed with artillery, machine guns, and autocannons. Some also had slits used to fire small arms from the inside of the train, especially in earlier armoured trains. For the most part, they were used during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when they offered an innovative way to quickly move large amounts of firepower into a new location. Most countries discontinued their use – road vehicles became much more powerful and offered more flexibility, train tracks proved too vulnerable to sabotage and attacks from the air, and air transportation was an even more flexible way to relocate firepower to a new location. However, there were occasional uses in the late 20th century and early 21st century Russian Federation used improvised armoured trains in the Second Chechen War (1999–2009) and the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022–present).
en
