Railroad plough

As rail wolf one called a used primarily in World War II railway carriage, with which one could make the track of a railway route unusable. For this reason, rail was the wolf the last car in the train. This tactic came at the defensive to use to destroy the supply lines of the enemy in rail traffic.

Description

Rail Wolf consisted of a flat car, which had a hook at one end in the form of a claw. This tore the sleepers from their anchorage. The hook could be lowered and raised as needed. Furthermore, there were variations of the vehicle, which allowed the dropping of the explosive charges on retractable ramps. Here, the rails were bent so far as by the explosions that further use with new thresholds was impossible. Rail Wolf of the Wehrmacht was in the Soviet Union and in Italy used.

The Red Army used a similar vehicle at their retreat in 1941. It consisted of railroad tracks that were bent into a loop and attached to the rear of a train. The laid on the track bed rails were unscrewed at one point and pushed underneath the loop. On departure of the train, the rails were then demolished by the thresholds.

Literally took him Arno Schmidt (as the " threshold thriller 'this term was also used in the German newsreel ) in its 1945 gambling story Leviathan as a symbol of evil.

From Wolf destroyed rail track, Belarus in 1944

Rail wolf in Italy, 1944

Wolf destroyed rail tracks, Italy 1944