WWII Austro-Hungarian Kanonenwagen
Armoured trains were not unique by 1914. The order to design and build there was given to MAVAG in Hungary (Magyar Állami Vas-, Acél- és Gépgyárak = Hungarian State Iron, Steel and Machine Works). The basis for these trains was engines of Type 377, armoured, plus two types of armoured waggons: 1. a so called Infanteriewagen and 2. a so called Kanonenwagen.
The Kanonenwagen had a big turret with a 7.5 cm gun, a smaller turret for one M.07 Schwarzlose MG (plus an armoured observation cupola), plus two big slanted loopholes on the rear sides for two more M.07 Schwarzloses. The wagons were also well equipped with big food supplies, sand in containers (to increase adhesion when the tracks were slippery), heating, toilets and snow plows. Later searchlights were added.
These three units – engine, infantry waggon and cannon waggon – were put together in different combinations, all depending to the needs and the circumstances. Heavy Trains consisted of five units: one Infantry Waggon in the middle, flanked on each side by an engine, and on both ends a Cannon Waggon. (Every armoured train also had a service train with a more powerful engine, which carried the ammunition and other goods for the armoured train. During long transports it pulled the whole combation, to increase speed and save the type 377 armoured engine. The 377 engine was used primarily in battles.) Light Trains for the most time consisted of one 377 engine flanked by two Infantry Waggon. Other combination also existed, like Panzerzüg IV, that added a Cannon Waggon at the front of this Light Train combination, etc.
The Cannon Waggons could only be used on rail lines that lacked tunnels. In practice this meant they could only be used on the Russian Front. There were some re-designs made during the war and a new Cannon Wagon with engine was introduced that could move by itself. The original underpowered 7.5cm gun was often refitted by the Poles to an ex-Russian 76.2mm gun.
When the war ended in 1918 there were nine Armoured Trains in K.u.K. service (the two improvised trains from 1914 had then been scrapped) of which five were in active service, and four were in storage. These were soon taken over by the new states that had risen from the ashes of the Austro-Hungarian empire: no. II and no. VIII were captured by the Czechoslovaks, and used by them. No. V and no. III were given to the new Polish Army by the 2nd Army Division, and they were used by them. Nos IV, VI, VII and IX were taken over by Hungary, and in 1919 the Hungarian Army ordered six more trains from MAVAG. All these trains were often used in the small wars that followed in the years just after the war: so was one of the Hungarian Armoured Trains destroyed in the fighting with Rumania and another destroyed in skirkishes with the Czechoslovak army. One Austro-Hungarian Armoured Train, no. XIII, was used by the Austrians in the fighting in Kärnten in 1919. One of these trains (probably of Czechoslovak origin) were taken over by the Wehrmacht, and used by them in the Balkans. The Hungarian Armoured Trains were again employed in the occupation of Slovakia in 1939, in the taking of Ruthenia in 1940, and in the attacks on Transsylvania, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in 1941. In 1944 all the four Hungarian Armoured Trains fought in Hungary, and the last recorded usage of one of these Armoured Trains was actually at the northern side of lake Balaton in 1945!
