- longo213

- Doug_Kibbey

Very interesting. As my Czech is not now, and never was, what it used to be,

You mean Slovak, or?

- Doug_Kibbey

what was the reasoning behind incorporating an entire vehicle within the railway car? "Field expedience"*? Perhaps it was just simpler to drive a tank onto a flatbed car and build an armored shell around it?

*Simplest and quickest way to get a turret ring and associated traversing/sighting gear and ammo storage onto a railway car?

Doug, the three armored trains (named Stefanik, Hurban and Masaryk) which were used during Slovak National Uprising were improvised designs. They were based on a standard transport carriages with a simple armor shell build around them. Unfortunately the sheets which were used for armor protection were from same tin as steam boilers, so relatively thin.
By that time there were enough disabled or obsolete tanks with broken engines etc ideal for "recycling". And yes, fixing the whole tank on the flatbed carriage was the fastest way - for example Stefanik (named after M.R.Stefanik) was built in just two weeks.
But I can also imagine that the crews welcomed the fact that they can be covered by the extra armor provided by the tank hulls, considering the thin armor of the train.