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decorared. During rhe fighring for the Koluszki station in late November 1914 near Lvov, the 4th Railway Battalion's armored train managed to repel a German infantry attack and then pursue the Germans, allowing the station to be captured by the 6th Siberian Division. When Russian forces in the area were surrounded, the armored train was used to facilitate the escape of the corps headquarters. In the summer of 1915, the 3rd Railway Battalion's armored train was used extensively in the defense of Brest-LitOvsk. These Russian armored trains were so successful that the AustroHungarian Army decided to follow suit. The first Austro-Hungarian armored train, the improvised Panzerzug I (Pz.Zug f), was assembled in the winter of 1914-15 by Magyar Allamvasutag (MAV; Hungarian Railways). A tender was modified into a gun car to lead the train, followed by infantry cars protected by steel rail. The next design, Pz.Zug II, was a more sophisticated design, and by 1916 some ten armored trains had been assembled. They served on the Russian, Romanian, and Italian fronts with distinction. For example, on September 15, 1915, Pz.Zug II was used to assault the Babinrub runnel on the lsanzo Front, blasting an Italian blockhouse with its guns while its infantry assault detachment disembarked and set fire to the runnel. The German Army on the Eastern Front built its first improvised armored train, with crude sandbag protection, in the autumn of 1915 in East Prussia. In 1916, construction began on Pz.Zug I and II for operations on the Romanian front. In contrast to the Austro-Hungarian and Russian armored trains, the German trains were local improvisations rather than refined industrial designs. The value of the armored trains in the autumn 1914 fighting prompted the Russian Army to begin building an armored train for each of its railway battalions. The Eastern Front did not develop into the same type of trenchwar stalemate as the Western Front, and armored trains remained valuable as a mobile shock force that could be used for conducting sudden raids, or rushed to trouble Spots to bolster defenses. Russian armored train design evolved from the early fortress pattern based around armored infantry wagons with numerous firing slirs, to a warship configuration using one or more turreted guns with multiple machine guns in place of infantry firing slits. One of the most active and innovative units was the 2nd Zaamurskiy Railway Brigade of the Southwest Front commanded by Gen. Maj. Mikhail

Another armament option

on German armored trains like PZ V. seen here, was mounting a Gruson armored pillbox in an Omk(u)·Wagen with its domeshape cupola and 53mm gun exposed at the top. This train also has one of the typical 76.2mm guns in an armored "dog-house." (NARA)

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