An
armoured train is a railway train protected with
armour. Armoured trains usually include railroad cars armed with
artillery and
machine guns. They were mostly used during the late 19th and early 20th century, when they offered an innovative way to quickly move large amounts of
firepower. Most countries discontinued their use - road vehicles became much more powerful and offered more flexibility, and train tracks proved too vulnerable to sabotage as well as to attacks from the air. However, the
Russian Federation used improvised armored trains in the
Second Chechen War of 1999-2009.