Thread by @TrentTelenko

This is a video of a WW2 Office of Strategic Services & Office of Scientific Research & Development test conducted at the US Army Claiborne Polk Military Railroad between 03/08/1944 & 03/10/1944 showing how much rail damage is required to derail a train
1/

Now, compare that video to these GMLRS strikes on the Antonovsky railway bridge.🤨🤔

2/

https://twitter.com/worldonalert/status/1553358407066869763

And for a "compare and contrast," see this Russian missile strike on a Ukrainian Railway on 20 May 2022.

Note also the Ukrainian "cross tracking" problem with the Russian strike.
3/

https://twitter.com/DemeryUK/status/1527601342298087425

There are good reasons why French Resistance fighters preferred attacking the outside rails on a curved track to derail trains.

The physics of the train's inertia on a curve would help push the locomotive to derail compared to a straightaway.
4/

Zachary Kallenborn over on the Small Wars Journal had a really good piece on the need to bring back anti-railroad land mines, complete with modern train engine schematics.

5/
smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/bring…

Popular Mechanics also did an article (behind the paywall) on the need for such a weapon.

6/
popularmechanics.com/military/weapo…

I'll also suggest that adding a smart anti-train engine sensor & aiming device to one of these German off road mines -- so as to aim for the alternator of a diesel-electric engine -- would be a very useful short term kit-bash.

Big A/C alternators are industrial long lead
7/

...items taking months to replace.

And a mine that is effective 100 meters off to either side of a railroad track will require orders of magnitude longer for combat engineers to sweep than a mine in the track bed.

8/

The difficulty that March 1944 OSS/OSRD film depicts in partisans derailing a train points up that Russia's much scoffed at armored trains are in fact a relevant and very useful military capability.

A useful military capability that requires...

9/

https://twitter.com/tinso_ww/status/1501240423653818377

...a new generation of 21st Century electronically upgraded direct & off-route mines for irregulars to deal with them.

(H/T @LIM49Spartan for the video)

10/End

P.S.

OSRD and the National Defense Research Committee are two names for the same organization.