Ilya Muromets - WWII armored Train

Plastic model kit for the ILYA MUROMETS armored train in WWII

• 1:72 scale
• unbuilt/unpainted
• Paint and glue not included

The legendary armored train (hereinafter bepo) of the Second World War "Ilya Muromets" was built in 1941-1942 as a gift to the Red Army from the railway workers of the Murom junction. (All the main armored platforms for guns were welded in their free time by workers of the train depot.) After construction, this bepo was included in the "31st separate, "special" Gorky division of armored trains." (The term "special" meant that the bepo was armed with rocket mortars ("katyushi")). The second bepo of this division was the “Kozma Minin” armored train built at the same time in Gorky. The bepo "Ilya Muromets" consisted of: Armored locomotive of type Ov (No. 4635), armored with hardened steel sheets (30 mm); two closed artillery armored platforms, each armed with two 76.2 mm guns F-34 in the turrets of the T-34 tank, as well as six DT machine guns (7.62 mm); and 1-3 open air defense platforms (divided into three compartments each). In the front and rear compartments, 37 mm 61-K anti-aircraft guns (or 76 mm Lender anti-aircraft guns) were installed, and in the central compartment there was a M-8-24 rocket launcher. The thickness of the side armor of the armored platforms was 45 mm. Bepo was equipped with communications and surveillance equipment. Since April 1942, bepo left for the front (in the 3rd Army of the Bryansk Front). It was actively used in the fighting of the Bryansk and 1st Belorussian fronts. This bepo became especially famous after the victory in a duel with a German armored train (the only battle in the entire war between the "steel monsters"), held on June 4, 1944. The battle did not last long, thanks to careful preparation, the bepo crew managed to destroy the enemy in two volleys. One of the "Katyusha" rockets hit the boiler of the locomotive. . As it turned out the "Bogatyr" defeated a captured armored train equipped with turrets from the "Tigers". In the battles for the liberation of Poland and its capital Warsaw in 1944, the "31st ODBP" (which included the bepo "Ilya Muromets" and "Kozma Minin") was awarded the Order of Alexander Nevsky, and in early 1945 it was given the guards name "Varshavsky." The armored train covered the way from Murom to Frankfurt an der Oder. The victory was met by "Ilya Muromets" fifty kilometers from Berlin. During the war it destroyed 7 aircraft, an enemy armored train, 14 guns and mortar batteries, 36 enemy firing points, 875 soldiers and officers. In 1971, the armored locomotive of “Ilya Muromets” was placed in Murom for eternal storage, as a monument to the legendary armored train.