cannons of the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum comprises a total of 550 guns and barrels, making it one of the most important collections of its kind in the world. The majority of the exhibits in the collection are still from the old Imperial armoury. Initially, the collection was more than double the size of the current one, but several historically valuable items were melted down for their metal content. Many of the gun barrels are located either inside the halls or in front of the museum building, yet the majority is on display in the two artillery halls (buildings 2 and 17) which flank building 1, the former headquarters of the Arsenal. Building 2 - the one on the left as seen from the museum - is dedicated to the development of artillery from the Middle Ages until the 18th century. A side chamber contains what is probably the historically most valuable part of the collection, the wrought-iron guns of the Middle Ages. These include the world-famous Pumhart von Steyr, a thousand-pound, 80 cm-calibre stone cannon from the early 15th century. This is the oldest gun from the Imperial armoury and one of the very few surviving huge medieval guns. The opposite chamber and the central area contain brass barrels in all sizes dating back to the 17th and 18th century. The right artillery hall (building 17) contains mostly foreign exhibits, such as Venetian and Turkish gun barrels, though French gun barrels - spoils from the Napoleonic Wars - are also on display. The two side chambers, on the other hand, feature Austrian gun barrels, including some early breech-loading guns. The frescos in the artillery halls are the work of various artists. Painter Hans Wulz, for instance, created the fresco titled Seizure of Utrecht by Maximilian I for building 17; portraitist and military painter Hugo von Bouvard decorated building 2 with illustrations of the medieval army and transportation systems, various military vehicles, and means of carriage from the Maximilian era. The opposite hall of the artillery hall in building 2 was designed by Arbert Janesch with the help of contemporary references from Jörg Kölderer's Artillerie Maximilians I. Events, information, special exhibitions, branches Events Thousands of visitors flock to the museum to see four major events: Go Modelling, an exhibition for scale models organised each year around mid-March by the International Plastic Modellers Society Austria (IPMS). The items on display include several models