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 have also had ports 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 the early 20th centuries, when they offered an innovative way to quickly move large amounts of firepower into a new location.
Most countries have discontinued their use since 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 have been occasional uses in the late 20th century and early 21st century. Russia has used improvised armoured trains during the Second Chechen War (1999–2009) and in its invasion of Ukraine (2022–present).
