Medieval Ships

[Anders T]

 

Lately I have made some ships from the Middle Ages.
I am sharing them here as they could fit nicely with castles, knights, catapults and armor.

The Middle Ages is a broad term, but according to Wikipedia, it is the period 500-1500.

So far I have made:
A Dromon, The Skuldelev Ships, A Cog, A Caravel, A Carrack and A Galley.

All ships are minifig scale or approx. 1:40.
Some models can altered in to waterline models, ie. the bottom can be removed so that they can stand on a "water surface".
They are digital for now, but that may change.

Here I confine myself to a picture of each ship.
Some of them have additional pictures.

These are in the pirate forum, where each ship has its own topic

 

 

and on Flickr

https://www.flickr.com/photos/131641614@N06/albums

 

Dromon

 

 

From Greek δρόμων, dromōn, "runner" was a galley and the most important warship of the Byzantine navy from the 5th to the 12th century.
Length: 93 cm, Height: 43 cm, Width: 37 cm (with oars)
Bricks: approx. 4350
Can be altered in to a waterline model.

 

Skuldelev Ships 1-6

The Viking ships from Roskilde. Excavated in 1962.
 

 

The largest model, Skuldelev 2, will have the following dimensions
Length: 80 cm, Height: 40 cm, Width: 10.5 cm
The smallest model, Skuldelev 6, will have the following dimensions
Length: 29 cm, Height: 21.5 cm, Width: 7 cm

Approx. 4900 bricks in all models combined. 2100 in Skuldelev 2, 1100 in Skuldelev 1 and 450-700 in each of the other ships.

Skuldelev 1

 

A”large” cargo ship, Knarr, 1030 A. D.

Skuldelev 2 (and 4)

 

A warship, Skeid, 1042 A. D.

Is so large that the excavation team initially thought it was two ships, hence 2 and 4

Skuldelev 3

 

A cargoship, Byrding, 1040 A. D.

Skuldelev 5

 

A small warship, Snekkja, 1030 A. D.

Skuldelev 6

 

A fishing boat or small cargo vessel, Ferje, 1030 A. D.  

 

Cog 

 

 

The cog is a ship type used from the 10th century to the 14th century.
This model could represent a cog from from approx. 1270-1330. If anyone knows anything else, do tell.
Length: 68 cm, Height: 75 cm, Width: 19 cm
Bricks: approx. 4300
Can be altered to a waterline model.

 

 

Caravel

 

The caravel was developed in the 14th and 15th centuries. Shown here in both a lateen rigged and square-rigged version.
With a length of 14 m (scaled), the model is roughly the same size as Niña (Santa Clara) and Pinta from the famous journey to Asia in 1492.
Length: 40 cm, Height: 45 cm, Width: 10.5 cm
Bricks: approx. 1300 (in one of them)
 

Carrack
 

 

Karrack, Caravela, Nau, Nao, Neef or Kraak., About. 1500
The ship type is a precursor to the galeon and builds on the cog, the holk / hulk and various Mediterranean ship types.
When I researched this type of ship there were some very far-out versions of what it might look like.
Maybe I will make some of them at some point, but here I have used different plans for Santa Maria and a lot of common sense.
 
Length: 85 cm, Height: 75 cm, Width: 23 cm
Bricks: approx. 6400
Can be altered to a waterline model.

 

Galley

 

This is a model of an Italian style galley.

14^th century, 1571 or mid. 18^th century depending on weight put on references or type.

The main characteristics of the model are from La Capitana, a galley of Malta.

The lines, armament, oars and overall arrangement follows the drawings of this ship. These are indexed in Architectura novalis mercatoria (published by Fredrik Henrik af Chapmann in 1768) as no.18 on plate LVIII 

Details, such as color, not provided by Chapmann, are from Real, the flagship of Don John of Austria in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.

The details from this Spanish Real compared to the French La Réale from 1694; however, this ship is not a main reference.  

 

 

Length: 166 cm, Height: 113 cm (with stand), Width: 82 cm (with oars)
Bricks: approx. 16200

Can be altered to a waterline model.

 

Edited December 12, 2019 by Anders T

[Aine]

Geez, these are pretty cool and imposing ships! Very nice job!

[Littleworlds]

Very good models! It is pretty crazy how long some of these types have been in use!

[Anders T]

On 11/1/2019 at 7:27 PM, Aine said:

Geez, these are pretty cool and imposing ships! Very nice job!

Thanks, that was what I was aiming for, although some of them are quite small and I do think they could blend just fine in a castle or town environment.

On 11/1/2019 at 7:35 PM, Littleworlds said:

Very good models! It is pretty crazy how long some of these types have been in use!

Yep, that was also somewhat surprising for me.

Especially the galleys were successful in keeping the types in service. Even the dromon and the Italian style galley are not that different from each other, the latter being developed from the first.

I was also quite fascinated about the fact that the Italian style galley was so fast that the development of artillery did not really have an impact before the 17^th century, and then only marginally on fleets based in archipelagoes.

Even though cogs replaced longships in medieval Scandinavian navies, the Viking ship design is still in use for smaller boats in Scandinavia.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Anders T