What type of rifle to puncture a locomotive boiler

At the point you have actual physical possession of the locomotive, there are many fine options in order to cause excitement.

If you have control of it and it's relatively undamaged, you might as well just capture it. Not only have you deprived the enemy of the use of a locomotive, you have one for your own use.
 
.30-06 Ball can penetrate ~10mm of mild steel at 100m
.30-06 AP can penetrate ~10mm of mild steel at 100m


The same?

The other picture I posted was what mild Steel core(not AP) 7.62x39 could do vs the the video at 6:30, M2 AP going thru 1 inch, 25.4mm of mild steel, and then kept going
 
If you have control of it and it's relatively undamaged, you might as well just capture it. Not only have you deprived the enemy of the use of a locomotive, you have one for your own use.

Locomotives are not easy to capture for a few reasons. First of all, guerillas don't have anywhere to put it, and the tracks are controlled by the enemy. Second of all, steam locomotives are not something that most people can run.

An attempt to run the locomotive to friendly track has to deal with other possible trains on the track, too. The Andrews Raiders, when they stole the General in the American Civil War, had to be careful not to collide with an oncoming train.
 
The same?

The other picture I posted was what mild Steel core(not AP) 7.62x39 could do vs the the video at 6:30, M2 AP going thru 1 inch, 25.4mm of mild steel, and then kept going
Oopsie, the AP round can penetrate 10mm of armour steel.
 
MKD, I agree with you on that point. But if the Soviet army has placed guards on the bridges and tunnels that reduces the chances of a successful attack. I assumed that when the guerillas were successful on one tactic, the Soviets would use counter measures. So the key is that the guerillas have a variety of tactics to use to keep the Soviets allocating more and more resources to protecting the rail roads and less resources to other areas.

Regards

OK - but the bridge you knock out doesn't have to be the forth bridge. Any small bridge over a road or river will do. That would be better than blowing an overbridge and blocking the track with debris. Also i can still attack the track formation in almost any location and cause massive damage. Timed with an approaching train the resulting derailment will create loads of issues.

Christ I could knock out a signal box and tie up loads of resources and stop trains for hours. I can then snipe the experts who come to repair the equipment and then rinse and repeat 20 miles away. I dont even need to blow anything up. I could take over a signal box and cause two trains to crash head on. Loads of spectacular damage!

I get the train blowing up is really dramatic but the damage done is minimal in the grand scheme of things. If you really want to blow up the boiler then some kind of heavy machine gun (Browning 50 calibre?) or recoil-less rifle would be best

Locomotives are not easy to capture for a few reasons. First of all, guerillas don't have anywhere to put it, and the tracks are controlled by the enemy. Second of all, steam locomotives are not something that most people can run.

If you are going to capture the locomotive you may as well either drain the water ( and run like chuff) or fill up the firebox, set the road and let the thing lose. A steam loco out of control into the path of an oncoming train should cause a bit of a mess.

No need to blow the thing up!
 
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Thank you weasel_airlift, I have not heard about the coal bomb. Since the guerillas would be secretly back by Germany, this is something that the Germans could make and supply the guerillas with.

"The coal torpedo was a hollow iron casting filled with explosives and covered in coal dust, deployed by the Confederate Secret Service during the American Civil War, and intended for doing harm to Union steam transportation. When shoveled into the firebox amongst the coal, the resulting explosion would at the very least damage the boiler and render the engines inoperable. At worst, a catastrophic boiler explosion would kill crewmen and passengers, start a fire, or even sink the vessel."

The Union Navy had large stockpiles of coal at their yards, and civilians quite frequently stole coal to keep warm. When it was discovered that these bombs existed guards had orders to kill any unauthorized persons approaching a coal pile for fear they would slip one of these into the pile...
 
I think you'd be better off sabotaging the rails themselves. Actually derailing the locomotives would be far harder to deal with.

Basically. Pry up the rails in a section of forest, while some other team members cut down a tree to make a fire. Heat some rails over the fire till they're red hot in the middle, then have your strongest men take the rail up to an intact tree and tie it around it. Or sabotage signal boxes, track equipment, the countless small bridges over streams or small gullies any rail line has...
 
Basically. Pry up the rails in a section of forest, while some other team members cut down a tree to make a fire. Heat some rails over the fire till they're red hot in the middle, then have your strongest men take the rail up to an intact tree and tie it around it. Or sabotage signal boxes, track equipment, the countless small bridges over streams or small gullies any rail line has...

Messing with signals is a good one. It's something that can be done without being easily noticed, and it might be some time before you actually get a result. But it should be a good result when you get it (From your perspective, at least).

The streams made me think of something that I saw happen when I was a kid. A creek got blocked when an embankment collapsed during heavy rains. When the creek spontaneously, and energetically unblocked itself, it eroded the ground underneath some track that went over the creek until I'm quite positive that any train that would have gone over that would have derailed. It was noticed and fixed first, but it's something that could be done artificially easily enough.

Building a fire on a section of rail would also be a good one, particularly on a curve. A good fire should weaken the rail to the point that it will break...maybe not immediately, but that's not a problem....
 
The tying of a hot railroad rail around a tree was done in the American Civil war and was known as "Sherman's neckties" :

"Sherman's neckties were a railway-destruction tactic used in the American Civil War. Named after Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army, Sherman's neckties were railway rails destroyed by heating them until they were malleable and twisting them into loops resembling neckties, often around trees. Since the Confederacy had limited supplies of iron, and few foundries to roll the rails, this destruction was very difficult to repair. They were also called Sherman's bow ties or [1] Sherman's hairpins."

It was my understanding that one of the factors in the differences in the economic growth of the North versus the South after the American Civil War was that the Northern railroads were expanded during the Civil War while the Southern railroads were destroyed along with the rolling stock. Therefore the South had to rebuild their rail roads while the North was enjoying the benefits of better transportation.
 
Naturally setting up ambushes at breaks in the line to kill the valuable repair crews would be a strategy worth doing a few times, as it forces the Soviets to deploy escorts with each repair crew.
 
The tying of a hot railroad rail around a tree was done in the American Civil war and was known as "Sherman's neckties"[snip]

Originally the troops just tore up the rails and tossed them aside. It didn't take the Confederates long to put them back. When this was discovered the Yankees started the "neckties" bit, which now meant the rail had to be shipped back to a foundry and recast. And there simply wasn't anywhere near the necessary foundry capacity to do this...

It was my understanding that one of the factors in the differences in the economic growth of the North versus the South after the American Civil War was that the Northern railroads were expanded during the Civil War while the Southern railroads were destroyed along with the rolling stock. Therefore the South had to rebuild their rail roads while the North was enjoying the benefits of better transportation.

100% correct. Did you know the Confederacy started the war with no fewer than FOUR different gauges, one of which still used wooden track? When Jackson brought back five captured Union locomotives all the railways were fighting each other to get them. Some wise politician suggested those with the right gauge should get them.

And the rail system in the south was woefully inadequate from the beginning, with large gaps of no coverage or having to shift to a new locomotive and train due to different gauges...
 
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