I am publishing these pictures taken on various visits to the Land Warfare Hall at IWM Duxford. I will be using them in a current model build, to be shown shortly. As an aside, I am sure I am not the only visitor to this museum who appreciates the attempts made to weather the vehicles and place them in a diorama like setting. In most other museums of my acquaintance the exhibits are spotless!
During my recent visit to St.Petersburg I went to the Artillery Museum. It is a spectacular collection, especially for a Westerner, unlikely to see a lot of these exhibits elsewhere. It’s a shame that there is no signage in English – you feel you are missing out there. The vehicles in the courtyard could do with signs too – even in Russian! I think I can recognise more Russian\Soviet hardware than the average visitor – even so, there are some pretty obscure things there.
Free for a few hours in London today I visited the Imperial War Museum, quite recently redeveloped. It is obviously different from how I remember it, especially the central lobby, containing a Spitfire, T-34, V weapons, Land Rover and more. There are many small items (uniforms, weapons, medals and other pieces of war), particularly in the First World War section, which could be the most impressive part of the museum.
In this particular museum I would say that their collection of armoured cars is probably the best part of it for me. Lined up along either wall, for instance, are all the notable post war British vehicles – Saladin, Saracen, Ferret and Pig, as well as ones I had not seen before, such as the BTR-40. They also have a very nice collection of tanks, many of which still seem to run. From a modelling perspective, the T-55 and T-34 were interesting – I took a few close up shots of the weathering on them. In particular the T-34/85 has supposedly only had one minor repair in over 70 years and has the original paint – an amazing vehicle!
Situated at the top of Norfolk, on a former artillery training camp, is the Muckleburgh Miltary Collection. As well as a host of smaller items – medals, pistols, rifles, uniforms – they also have a very decent vehicle collection. The above pictures I took represent a selection of their guns and trucks.
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