Kubinka - The world's largest tank museum

For us Kubinka was the Big One - the enthusiast's museum. In seven huge hangars plus outdoor exhibits which include an armoured train.

We had the inevitable escorted tour by a charming young woman Tatiana who spoke quite good English and was very knowledgeable on her subject.

Kablinka is very interesting because it has quite a lot of material on the history of the development of Russian tanks as well as the actual tanks themselves.

Here are some of the best pix.

This is actually a Czech knock-off the SdKfz 250, but so close it is hard to tell the difference.

The T-35 had five turrets and looks tremendously imposing. Unfortunately the multi-turret idea was an evolutionary deadend. They were used to crush the Mannerheim Line in 1940 but after that rapidly fell into disuse. 

There is a whole gallery devoted to Western and Japanese tanks and there is a good selection, although there is no attempt to show historical colours or markings. his Churchill looks in good condition though.

This Cromwell is also well presented.

This gives you an idea of the lineup in each of the galleries.

This big AEC armoured car is one of a relatively small number of survivors. Bovinton certainly has one but I can't think of many others. It looks ungainly but was apparently quite successful.

This BA-27M looks very top heavy but apparently worked quite well.

The sign describes this as a PB-4 but I've never heard of such a thing.

This is a KSP-76 on the chassis of a GAZ-68, an early attempt at a self-propelled anti-tank gun for paratroops.

This is an immaculate T-26, the single turret version. The panel does not indicate its Vickers origin.

This BT-5 is track-less to show its ability to run on wheels, using the original Christie concept. The added: the additional mechanical complexity survived until the A-32 but was abandoned for the A-34 in favour of a bigger gun and heavier armour.

This is a Russian T-37A light tank.

There is an entire gallery for Soviet/Russian light tanks and reconnaissance vehicles. This is a T-40.

Not surprisingly there were a number of SU-76s. Though their crews loathed them, they did the job and allowed the light tank factories to continue to build something useful.

An immaculate Valentine Mk VI is one of the gate guards.

One of the most interesting tanks in the whole exhibition this is the T-50, right next to a T-34. You can see why the Soviets decided that two T-34s were more useful than three T-50.

T-50 rear view.

T-34 rear view.

I have a soft spot for armoured trains. This one was heavily armed with what appeared to be three 76mm guns and four machine guns plus others for air defence. It carried a total of 385 76mm rounds and more than 22,000 rounds for the MGs. The armour was 16 to 20mm over most areas and 40mm over the most vital.

I'm not quite sure how this SOMUA S-35 got here but it seems in good nick.

As is this Panhard 178

There is a good selection of Hungarian vehicles too, including this excellent Nimrod.