Example of the museum’s diorama section: The Battle of Cibadak - 9 December, 1945. “On 9 December 1945, a British military convoy escorted by several tanks moved in the direction of Bandung. At the village of Bojongkokosan, of the district of Parungkuda (Cibadak), this convoy was attacked by Indonesian troops, and fighting broke out. At one stage of the fighting, the Indonesians succeeded in paralyzing several tanks and destroying several trucks with the enemy troops. The Royal Air Force came in and flattened several villages near Cibadak with rockets and napalm, and broke the resistance. At that time the Indonesian troops had only small arms and no air cover. That event became a subject for debate in British Parliament.

There is one absolute “Must-See” military museum in the Jakarta area in regard to small arms.  It has amazing dioramas on the first floor, but once you find the basement full of small arms, and the back yard full of cannon, mortar, recoilless, vehicles and aircraft, it will be worth the trip.  The upper floor of carefully made dioramas showing important events in Indonesian military history is carefully displayed and well crafted.  The downstairs held a lot of surprises in that hundreds of small arms were on display.  We found examples of most of the common small arms of the pre- and World War II era, but there were many treasures of local origin or adaptation that have never been shown outside of Indonesia.  Heading back outside, there is a large cannon display with many historic pieces, and an aviation display as well.  If you are in Jakarta, it’s definitely worth a side trip to spend time in this museum.  The next IndoDefence Jakarta is scheduled for 10-13 November, 2010.  We at SADJ urge you to take some extra time and visit the museum.

Museum Satria Mandala 
(Armed Forces Museum)

14-16 Jalan Gatot Subroto
Kuningan Timur Village
Jakarta Pusat, 12710
Phone: +62 21 522 7949

A good photo review of this museum can be found at: www.aroengbinang.blogspot.com/2007/02/satria-mandala-museum.html.

In the basement of the museum were several rooms full of firearms. In this room, the tripod and wheel mounted 20mm and larger weapons were displayed. Note the Oerlikon 20mm on naval mount and the B-10 82mm recoilless in the center of the photo.

Part of the “assault rifle” section, left to right: Indonesian SP-2 in 7.62x51mm, HK G3 (Model 58 with collapsible stock) called a Popor Lipat, HK G3 (Model 58 with fixed stock) called a Popor Kayu, U.S. Model of 1918A2 BAR (no bipod) made by NE Small Arms, serial number 563945.

A Russian DShK 38/46 on wheeled mount with the armor sits next to a Yugoslav M55AB3 triple 20mm Hispano setup.

Russian DShK 38 on AA tripod in high position, showing the “humped” receiver top indicating the rotary drum feed. This is not the later DShK 38/46 or DShK M with the side-to-side feed shuttle action, and it uses a much earlier non-disintegrating metallic belt for feeding. The early twin circle sight, a crude yet very effective “computer” that allowed the assistant gunner to keep the gunner’s aim leading the target, is center.

Soviet era B-11 107mm recoilless rifle. This is the big brother to the more common B-10 82mm recoilless.

Very rare Italian Scotti .50 caliber machine gun on even rarer ground tripod.

Left to right: U.S. Model of 1928A1 Thompson submachine gun in .45 ACP, Australian Owen MK2 in 9x19mm with shortened solid wood buttstock, Australian Austen MK2 in 9x19mm with modified foregrip, U.S. Reising Model 50 submachine gun in .45 ACP.

Type 100 Japanese Aircraft twin barreled 7.7mm machine gun from 1940 series. (Could be in 7.92x57 – 8mm.)

Several vintage airplanes are exhibited outside the museum, including this well-armed B-25 medium bomber.