I have visited four military museums in the last ten years.

Bovington tank museum.
Has one of the best collection of WW2 armour in the world including a working tiger tank.
A most enjoyable day out for me (I don't take the kids) have visited five times in the last ten years.
All in the UK. but would love to visit other military museums around the world.

Imperial war museum London.
A good day out.

Duxford Air museum /part of the imperial war museum.
A must if your in to aviation.
When I say you will need a full day I mean it its huge.

The Muckleburgh Military Collection
A small museum.
But had a decent collection.

So what Museums military museums have you guys visited and did you rate them

The Air & Space Museum in DC is absolutely great.

I've always wanted to visit Duxford and the big Air and Space museum in Washington DC.

I haven't seen all that many military museums down here in Australia but the National War Memorial is a must see. One of the few places worth visiting in Canberra. http://www.awm.gov.au/

Got a few family names on the roll of honour.

Another neat place is the Puckapunel tank museum, which is very cool because the army still do exercises there.
http://www.armytankmuseum.com.au/i-about.htm

A few military museums over the years

Duxford:
a great day out and they have more than just aircraft, there is a big tank museum out the back too.

IWM London:
been to it a few times and even held an exhibition there, great place and the staff are very helpful

RAF Cosford:
TSR2 and a Sunderland flying boat - what's not to like! they even have an English Electric P1A Lightning

Army Museum of Transport at Beverly: (not sure if it has closed now tho).
They have the last Blackburn Beverly transport aircraft. A smallish museum but lots of interesting stuff in it.

East Fortune Aircraft Museum:
mainly military aircraft including a ME163 Komet

Solway Aviation Museum:
A friend runs this and I go and visit as often as I can, it has improved over the years and there are lots of unusual aviation related items there that you don't normally see.

Military Transport Museum in Newcastle (may be closed now as they were under threat of closure) lots of trucks jeeps and Lamdys.

Durham Light Infantry Museum:
Regimental museum good insight into how foot soldiers fared through out the ages.

Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders Museum:
Housed in Stirling Castle pretty good regimental museum, and my dad served with them part time at the start of WW2 while he worked in the shipyard.

Regimental Museum Edinburgh Castle, so interesting I cannot remember the name of the regiment!

Ah forgot one (at least!)
Westland Helicopter Museum at Weston Supermare
Really great day and a walk through helicopter history and being able to clamber all over the Lynx

Probably missing some...

Imperial War Museum London?
Duxford (I think. Have to check with Dad lol)
Pensacola Fl Naval Museum
Boeing Seattle Wa
Ft Lewis Wa Museum
Paul Allen's collection Everett Wa

I agree and make sure you do not just visit the Air & Space Museum on the Mall



but make the trek out to the Udvar-Hazy Center Museum branch out by Dulles Airport



and not far south of DC at Quantico, VA is the Marine Corp. Museum



and eventually the U.S. Army Museum will be even closer to DC at Fort Belvoir, VA



and also a nice day trip further into Virginia in Bedford, VA you will find the National D-Day Memorial: http://www.dday.org/

I have three museums on my wish list the first is Kubinka Russia. second would be Mus�e des Blind�s - Saumur - France. And lastly the US Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen.
Had arranged the time and finance to visit Kubinka a few years ago but I discovered they have some pretty Draconian Rules for foreign visitors you basically needed approval and a chaperone.
You could not take photo's. I will visit one day, if they drop some of the red tape

Yeah I definitely want to check out the Udvar-Hazy Center. Unfortunately it was still under construction when I was last in the DC area. I want to go soon for sure though.

I'm a huge Civil War buff so my trip to the Northern Virginia region was heaven for me.

I only saw UH once, when it had only recently opened and the space wing was still under construction but Enterprise was there behind a rope.
Now of course Discovery is there, but we've got Atlantis here, not that I've had the time to go see it yet. I really should, haven't been to KSC as a tourist in like 8 years.




The Jedi Master

Duxford: Mentioned already, and I concur;

RAF Hendon: A lot of aircraft exhibits, definitely worth a look if you're in the area;

RAF Cosford: A reasonable size, but with a very different set of aircraft - a lot of Cold War-era British fighter and especially test aircraft (Bristol 188 and Fairey FD.2 spring to mind). I've yet to catch the airshow though;


The following I wouldn't necessarily classify as military museums, but since I'm going at this from an aviation slant, I thought they ought to be incliuded:

De Havilland Museum, Hatfield: A small collection on the former DH site; they have a number of airframes, so Sea Vixen, Vamp, Comet and a few Mossies, including one of the prototypes;

Air & Space Museum, Le Bourget: A lot of stuff here, same size as Farnborough. Two Concordes, and a number of fighter aircraft through to space vehicles, rockets, biplanes... take your pick;

Kennedy Space Centre: Rockets. Big rockets. Holy crap big rockets;

Fantasy of Flight, Orlampa: A lot of Kermit Weeks' private collection, and quite a collection it is. On the face of it, it's not particularly special, until you realise that a large number of the exhibits are still flightworthy. I'm sorry to read in wikipedia that it has downscaled.


None of the above are duds, and if you're an aviation person, there's no reason not to visit any of them if you're in the area. Personally I'd love to see the NASM, amongst others, but that's... a long way from here...

Anyone been to the FAA Museum at Yeovilton?

Not to the museum but I have had a look at the Swordfish on base at Yeovilton when they were getting it ready to go off to an airshow, that is one large biplane!

Another I have visited is the Citadel at Verdun in France, it's a really good trop through the tunnels under the hill and they do provide spoken commentary in many languages.

The Underground German Hospital in Jersey was also a good tour with some very good guides. Hellfire Corner at Dover Castle is another underground tunnel system, we hosted a corporate day there once, it was excellent.

If I had the money and the time I'd visit every place mentioned in this thread. lol

Marko, if you enjoyed Bovers you would love this:
Cobbaton Combat Collection
No frills museum. Some geezer bought some tanks, weapons and other military clobber and chucked them in a couple of Nissen huts. They sell lots of stuff and the genuine NAAFI canteen sells nice wads and a cuppa.
Beware though, I took a small child in who emerged looking like the tar baby after our first visit.
It's a bugger to find though.

FAA Museum, I highly recommend, also Stratford Armouries and the Royal Armoury in Leeds.

China Aviation Museum - we arrived only an hour and a half before closing time, but I could've spent at least a day there. Very interesting to see the 'adversaries' of when I grew up in the '70s in real life.

Duxford is fantastic, especially if you visit during Flying Legends or one of the other airshows there.

The Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden is also absolutely top-notch!

The RAF Museum at Hendon is HUGE and very, very good.

HMS Belfast, the cruiser moored right next to Tower Bridge in London. You can walk around the ship, and in the command centre behind the bridge, they play a recording of the Battle of North Cape, where the Belfast took part in the sinking of the Scharnhorst as the flagship of Vice Admiral Burnett.

Concur on the Mosquito Museum at Salisbury Hall. A wonderful little place with lots of de Havilland nostalgia. As a de Havilland pilot myself, I loved the place! They do in fact have the prototype Mossie, W4050, there.

If any of you ever visit Oslo, or transit through the airport, and have a few hours to spare, take one of the shuttle buses to the west side of the airport and visit the Forsvarets Flysamling ("Armed Forces Aircraft Collection"). It is situated in a very nice building right next to runway 01L/19R, and has a lot of interesting aircraft..a Junkers 52 recovered from Narvik that took part in the invasion in 1940, one of the very few original Heinkel 111s in existence, a Junkers 88 under restoration, and several Cold War jets that served with the RNoAF, including an F-104, F-84, F-86D, the world's only surviving Northrop N3PB, and lots of other goodies.

That's a point; there is a lot of stuff at the Shuttleworth Collection, and is even wife-friendly since they also have a garden, aviary and quite a bit of grounds there for the non-aviation-minded folk.

On the subject of Norway, there is also the Norwegian Aviation Museum near Bod� airport, which although a bit further north than most people will go in their lives, has quite a nice collection... and the last time I was there, they had one of our nuclear gravity bombs...