The Eastern front in WWI did not experience the stalemate of trench warfare, as happened in the west. In many places, the front line was in a quick motion. As a result, a new weapon system appeared, tachánka. It was an open wagon drawn by four horses with a heavy machine gun installed in the back—a far ancestor of the modern-day tactical machine-guns and anti-aircraft cannons mounted on trucks.

Tachankas were occasionally used by the British during the Boer wars. They became an established tactical feature first among Russian troops in WWI, and then very common in Ukraine during the Civil war of 1918–1922. The peasant army of Nestor Makhno had hundreds of them. Makhno often used them as standalone units for stealth attacks without any infantry or cavalry support. A frequent tactic was to camouflage the wagons as wedding processions or hay transports, in order to get to the enemy’s flanks or for a rear attack.

The total weight of a battle-ready wagon with the machine-gun, ammo, horse fodder and a crew of three men was about one metric ton. Running speed up to 40 km/h, distance between maintenance stops 30–50 km. Tachankas were also used by the intra-war Polish troops. They remained in service in the Soviet Army until the early 1950s.