>>525785
Recently have been taking the train a lot. I can't stop myself from thinking how to protect a train route from potential ambushes. Obviously fences A GREAT WALL would be required to keep anyone away from the tracks, but what then? Ladders exist, and some fuckheads walking up to your traintracks, dumping some thermite on them, and just walking away will probably be enough to, if not derail, cause serious problems and delays in your logistics. So you either have to go at slow speeds to be able to spot such hazards from afar, or accept a total loss of the train and possibly worse by going full speed (looking at the insane speeds modern cargo trains can transport thousands of tons from A to B).
How would you avoid losing thousands of tons of ammo, fuel, spare parts? Anything you need! to two fucktards with a metal saw, and how would you justify using hundreds of soldiers for a couple thousand of kilometers of railway security?
Using bikes, soldiers could easily and without using fuel travel 50 kilometers a day without straining themselves. Lets say teams of two would patrol that distance every single day.
The distance from Berlin to Moscow (by train) is roughly 1.800 kilometers. If you require two soldiers for every 50 kilometer stretch, two bikes, radios, guns, ammo, food, and other supplies, that would mean you waste approximately 7.200 soldiers, bikes and other supplies on one train line. Of course not the entire distance needs someone patrolling it 24/7, but especially "liberated" lands would require more than two blokes on a tandem bike for proper security. That would be a response time of up to three hours, assuming they patrol 24/7.
Using automated drones and having quick response teams in helos nearby would be an option, but even if a drone can cover 100 kilometers of distance, that would still leave an equally shit response time.
And now imagine:
Drone A spots two fellas on the train tracks in area A. Response team is dispatched. Fellas flee into the woods, turns out they were just some suicidal teens.
Meanwhile drone X spots four men on the tracks. Response team has to pack their shit up, fly all the way to area X (which could be a couple hundred kilometers away, which may require a refuel for the helo), and could possibly find the same ruse has been pulled on them once more, while the two teens in area A do their thing and blow up a bridge or whatever.
And all of this doesn't even include RPG strikes against locomotives, or just some guy dumping a belt into the windows of a troop transporter. Hundreds of soldiers wounded or whatever, just with one guy and a machine gun. Before anyone in the train even notices the rounds would have already shredded through two compartements, before the first guys get on the floor three more have been hosed down, and before anyone can form a reaction strike or get their own guns out of the window, the guy could already be on the move, leaving his gun, a couple hundred casings and a whole load of blood. Or a well planned low altitude stealth bombing run, a group of super commandos setting up elaborate traps, secret agents in the rail signal control system causing delays,
I know this topic probably requires another thread, but how on earth would you protect your train lines against some partisans? It doesn't even require a genius, or particularly good planning. All it needs is one fucker and some tools.