The Australian Armour and Artillery Museum

Call Directions Website

The Australian Armour and Artillery Museum The Australian Armour and Artillery Museum display armoured vehicles and artillery from the late 1800’s onwards. Open 7 days!
2 Skyrail Drive, Cairns 4878
(906)

The Australian Armour and Artillery Museum opened to the public on Saturday the 6th September 2014. The museum is privately owned and is the largest museum of its kind in the southern hemisphere. We are located next door to Tjapukai and Skyrail in Smithfield, a suburb of Cairns, North Queensland. We are dedicated to the collection, preservation, restoration and display of Armoured Vehicles and Artillery from the 1800’s to the present day. Our collection includes armoured vehicles and artillery from both world wars with a particular focus on WWII. Currently our collection consists of over 200 armoured vehicles and artillery pieces, many of which will not be found anywhere else in Australia. We are constantly on the lookout for additional pieces of equipment that will make our museum a richer experience for those visiting. INSTAGRAM:
TRIPADVISOR: https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attraction_Review-g1152915-d7129046-Reviews-The_Australian_Armour_and_Artillery_Museum-Smithfield_Cairns_Region_Queensland.html

02/10/2026

The recoil housing on this captured WWI war trophy had rusted through completely. Cut back to good metal, a new piece bent on a jig the boys made themselves, welded in and blended until the join disappeared. 108 year old steel meets brand new.

The full episode drops Wednesday.

🎟️ AusArmourfest 2027 tickets are LIVE: https://bit.ly/AusArmourfest2027
📍 Australian Armour & Artillery Museum, Cairns QLD

01/10/2026

This is the world's only Sd.Kfz. 251/20 Falke: Germany's WWII infrared night vision half track, restored by our good friend Dmitry Bushmakov of Bushmakov Restorations.

It recreates the Falke most photographed at Bad Fallingbostel in 1945, right down to the camouflage. Three infrared lamps: one for driving, one for the driver that rotates with the steering wheel, and one lighting up the machine gunner's position. But the Falke never fought alone. It was one part of an entire night fighting system, and the infantry riding with it had night vision of their own.

Want to see it working? The full episode is up now.

🎟️ AusArmourfest 2027 tickets are LIVE: https://bit.ly/AusArmourfest2027
🔧 Full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JecJQHqZd8s
📍 Australian Armour & Artillery Museum, Cairns QLD

SUNRISE IS COMING TO THE MUSEUM 🎥This Wednesday morning, Sam Mac and the Sunrise Weather team are broadcasting live from...
28/09/2026

SUNRISE IS COMING TO THE MUSEUM 🎥

This Wednesday morning, Sam Mac and the Sunrise Weather team are broadcasting live from the Australian Armour & Artillery Museum, and we need a crowd.

Seven live crosses between 5:30am and 8:30am, going out to 1.2 million people around the country.

📍 Australian Armour & Artillery Museum, Smithfield
📅 Wednesday 30 September
⏰ Be here by 5:15am
☕ Coffees on us! (*If the coffee van man answers his phone and can get in early enough...)
🎟️ Free museum day pass for anyone who stays through to the last cross

We need people there from 5:30am right through to about 8:35am. The more faces behind Sam, the better it looks, and the better Cairns looks.

Drag a mate. Bring the kids. Tag someone who'd love this.

See you Wednesday.

25/09/2026

Ron was asked what he'd like to make a runner next. He walked the museum, weighed up a few candidates, and then something caught his eye: an M24 Chaffee. Other than a Sherman, the tank he's dreamed of owning his whole life. One of only three in Australia.

Then he looked inside. No engine. No gearbox. No differential. No steering. No turret ring. Everything unbolted and removed. A clean slate, as Ron generously calls it.

He's taking it home anyway. Four day drive to Victoria, and the next Rustoration begins.

🎟️ AusArmourfest 2027 tickets are LIVE: https://bit.ly/AusArmourfest2027
🔧 Full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vDIrEOZS8Qk
📍 Australian Armour & Artillery Museum, Cairns QLD

24/09/2026

Three days of heating, hitting, punching, jackhammering and needle-gunning just to get the rivets out. And that was the easy part. The steel in this trail has rusted paper thin, and Jesse's problem is a catch-22: the more rotten metal he cuts out, the more strength he takes away. Cut too far and the whole thing lets go. This is how you put new steel into a WWI German howitzer without it collapsing in the process.

Captured by Australians in 1918. Fifty years in a Sydney park. Sold for scrap. Rescued. And now, saved.

🎟️ AusArmourfest 2027 tickets are LIVE: https://bit.ly/AusArmourfest2027
🔧 Full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/00hgaHEQCYI
📍 Australian Armour & Artillery Museum, Cairns QLD

19/09/2026

"Come on, you can do it." Our Kanonenjagdpanzer hasn't run in four years. This week it did. Along with what Steve is now calling the river of oil. Some non-standard hydraulic fittings are spitting oil everywhere, but the engine is alive, the MTU V8 sounds healthy, and Steve isn't convinced things are really that bad. Time will tell.

🎟️ AusArmourfest 2027 tickets are LIVE: https://bit.ly/AusArmourfest2027
🔧 Full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BiEDig5vZ-M
📍 Australian Armour & Artillery Museum, Cairns QLD

17/09/2026

Somewhere in Chelyabinsk in 1942, a factory worker welded this bracket onto a KV-1S hull. He probably had dozens to do that day, along with hundreds of other parts, and never gave a second thought to where it might end up. Why would he?

Eighty years later, his few minutes of work have outlasted him, outlasted the war, and travelled further than he ever would, all the way to a workshop in Cairns. In a way, it's immortalised him.

🎟️ AusArmourfest 2027 tickets are LIVE: https://bit.ly/AusArmourfest2027
🔧 Full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BxFRmxXlxvQ
📍 Australian Armour & Artillery Museum, Cairns QLD

11/09/2026

Remember the showstopper at AusArmourfest? Our T-34-85 started spraying oil, making a nasty noise and had to be pulled from the show before it did itself real damage. This week Steve works out exactly what went wrong.

Running a fleet of 80 year old vehicles means the casualty list after an event is always longer than you'd like. Here's the first one off the list.

🎟️ AusArmourfest 2027 tickets are LIVE: https://bit.ly/AusArmourfest2027
🔧 Full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oxAv0vPpkhc
📍 Australian Armour & Artillery Museum, Cairns QLD

09/09/2026

Before the turret goes on, here's everything that's been added to the KV-1S since last episode. Armoured angle over the front glacis. Towing points and shackles front and rear. A mix of original and fabricated mudguard brackets. A surviving section of original mudguard that will form the basis for what Beau has to fabricate. A hand-made rain shield for the gun mantlet.

And a genuinely curious one: a 40mm piece of steel welded to the hull plates with a deliberate gap behind it. We reckon it's there to armour the join between the roof and the hull side, because with the turret on, that join forms a shot trap. There are even little holes in it to let water run out.

Eighty years on and this tank is still teaching us things.

🎟️ AusArmourfest 2027 tickets are LIVE: https://bit.ly/AusArmourfest2027
🔧 Full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yUTIjBbGFwM
📍 Australian Armour & Artillery Museum, Cairns QLD

05/09/2026

The show ends. The work doesn't. Days 2 and 3 of AusArmourfest brought their own dramas: a distributor issue on the M8 Greyhound, the Patton starving for fuel, and a mystery puddle somewhere in the lineup that sent the boys on a leak hunt through the fleet. The culprit? The T-72. Of course it was.

Running a fleet of 80 year old vehicles means the to-do list never ends. Good thing that's exactly how we like it.

🎟️ AusArmourfest 2027 tickets are LIVE: https://bit.ly/AusArmourfest2027
🔧 Full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/nY0lIsaHBEc
📍 Australian Armour & Artillery Museum, Cairns QLD

Address

2 Skyrail Drive
Cairns, QLD
4878

Opening Hours

Monday 9:30am - 4:30pm
Tuesday 9:30am - 4:30pm
Wednesday 9:30am - 4:30pm
Thursday 9:30am - 4:30pm
Friday 9:30am - 4:30pm
Saturday 9:30am - 4:30pm
Sunday 9:30am - 4:30pm

Telephone

+61740381665

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Australian Armour and Artillery Museum posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category