Baber on wargames

Museo Historico Militar

My long suffering and totally wonderful wife Debbie was kind enough to allow me several hours browsing here during our recent trip to Valencia.

The museum entrance is situated on Avienda General Gil Dolz, just behind the Mestalla stadium, the front of the building faces the Turia River Park.

Opening times Tuesday to Saturday 10 - 2 & 4 - 7, Sunday 10 - 2, entrance is FREE

The museum is housed in an active barracks and you often see young soldatos (and soldateras) training in the central courtyard or helping clean/repair various exhibits. Around the front of the barracks (turn left out of Avienda Gen. Dolz) you`ll find the gate flanked by these

Upon entering the museum, the first thing that greets the visitor is an `88

Tucked into the halls corner is a Mantra R530 air-to-air missile

This hall also has tables and chairs for you to sit and have a coffee or snack from the cafe, there is also the bookshop - which I have been told is excellent, but I avoided due to my lack of self control 😁

We then proceed to another larger hall with some impressive ordnance

T-26

Weirdly painted dark grey, but it may be in the process of a repaint as I`ve seen images on the net of her in Nationalist colours.

View into the driver`s compartment

Austro-Hungarian 149/12 field howitzer

Rechambered to 155mm by the Spanish, the gun is mounted on a train rouleur

Breda 20mm

St Etienne model 1907 machine gun

Oerlikon 20mm

RCLs 57mm & 105mm

Classic French `75

French 155mm

Vickers 105mm

Italian 105mm

German 77mm

Steam boiler for cleaning and sanitizing clothes

The breech, shell and range-finder

All for a Vickers 381/45 model 1926 coastal gun

The shell weighs 1061KG

Off this hall was a room full of various shells, fuses, bullets etc; another with measuring and mapping equipment and a third with machine tools - lathes, bench drills, presses, printers and sewing machines.

You then entre a small open area with a few more pieces

Maxon quad .50cal turret

Cobra anti-tank missile system

Breda 47/32 M-35 AT gun

M114 155mm Howitzer

MG151

Used by the Spanish on Alouette helicopters

Next you cross an open area and come to a room dedicated to the Valencian tradition - Hogueras where they build and burn statues. The tradition followed units into the field whilst on active service, the room has displays of photos and a couple of small examples

Across the open courtyard you then enter the hall of armes (weapons)

75mm Blockhaus cannon

Erhardt 76mm mine launcher 1917

Branching off htis large hall are other smaller rooms dedicated to supply, medical, logisitics depts etc

Field kitchen (1/16th scale model)

mule pack saddle (model)

There was also a room about nuclear, biological and chemical warfare (NBC)

Horse/mule gas mask

Out into another open area

Pak40

Vallero 120mm mortar

40mm AA

These next photos are a pair of 1939 Chevrolet trucks which were used as part of a command HQ during the Civil War. Later they were used by the Captain General of the 1st Military Region. One has been set up as personal/sleeping quarters for the General the other as an office/dining truck. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the second vehicle or both together - D`oh! 😡

80mm AT gun model 1951

We now climb the stairs to the first floor which has a number of halls and rooms some of which lead out onto a balcony which overlooks the barrack square where we could see soldiers milling about and these two guns.

At this point I have a confession to make - I`m only really interested in 20th Century topics, so The Hundred Years War, the Tercios fighting for the Pope, Napoleonics and the Carlist wars of the 1830-70s arn`t really my thing, so if you want to dig into these parts of the museum you`ll have to book your own trip - sorry.

Guadia Civil

The walls were covered in paintings

These two by Jose Navarro Llorens (1867-1923) depict scenes from the Third Carlist War 1873

Mountain battery on the move

Coastal battery

Franco

The Napoleonic War section did have some fantastic 1/87th scale models

Torres de Quart 1808

French Army crossing a river

Siege

(I wish I`d taken more notes sorry)

This is an interesting 3D model showing the terrain fought over during the Battle of Morella (January 1838) during the 1st Carlist War

Spanish-American War 1898

Morocco 1909

The artificial arm and hand of Captain Antonio Ripoll

This last piece was really interesting as our youngest has just finished his Masters Degree in bio-medical engineering, I`m going to do a bit of digging and see what I can find about "Captain Silver Hand"

Rif War

Hotchkiss MMG 7mm

Spanish Civil War

Now weapons and equipment have obviously appeared earlier, but the civil war is still not a topic pushed in Spanish museums. The walls were covered in posters and news paper headlines, but there was little actual info as such.

Maxim MMG