This was tonight's. For a while I've fancied trying some small ancient naval battles using Galleys & Galleons. So I thought I'd see if I could make a simple ship on the same lines as my lolly-stick galleons.
I checked some actual ship measurements, looked at loads of pictures to get the basic shape of ancient warships into my head, and then sketched out some ideas. This evening I cut up some card and a lolly-stick, and made this trireme.
The plans were written out after the fact, mostly because if this sits on the back-burner for another year I'll need them for reference. But I was quite pleased with what I put together; it evokes the right feel. I'll probably run a strip of thin card down the centreline as well, just to break up the deck.
I think the design can be scaled down a little, to at least cover a bireme, and I'm certain it can be scaled up to make the larger post-classical ships. For now I wanted to keep things a bit Peloponnesian War for the sake of simplicity.
The next step, obviously, is to chop out multiple components, and make a batch of ships.
This reminds me of building fleets of galleys back in the late 1960s using the plans in Don Featherstone's "Naval War Games". All balsa wood, cardboard and fuse wire. Painted up they looked remarkably good: not triremes though as they had a single bank of oars. They were I think based on a Roman prototype but stood in well for earlier Greek vessels as we left off the fighting platforms. A bit longer than your model at about 6cms but otherwise fairly compatible I would think and easily mass produced (assuming that fuse wire - or an equivalent - is actually available these days).
ReplyDeleteDoing it today I might follow your approach and use lolly sticks instead of the balsa; they are an extraordinarily useful modelling - and indeed general woodworking - resource and free as long as you know someone who likes lollies.
Lolly-sticks are incredibly cheap in craft-shops ;)
Delete(I also acquired a load when a local barbers shop shut down. I have no idea what they use them for, but they had hundred of them in a drawer, in two different sizes.
(To be fair, since the shop was almost certainly laundering drug-money, and may have been dealing drugs too, the sticks may not have had anything to do with gents' hair-care :-D )
I like the look of your galley design already. Even though it looks like a single bank of oars, the thickness of the card might indicate more than one bank. I'd probably call it a trireme anyhow.
ReplyDeleteIf you're looking at the wars of the Diadochi, though, you might be looking at quinqueremes, septiremes or even decaremes(?) or hexadecaremes(?)! I have occasionally toyed with the idea of a kind of 'what if' War of the Diadochi at sea, on the supposition that the projected twin-hulled quadragintareme of Demetrius Poliorcetes actually got built and entered service.
I thought I'd start small :)
DeleteI think in terms of bigger ships I'd do a quadreme and quinquereme design, then simply do a few one-size fits all 'polyremes'. Also one size of galley smaller than this one.
To be honest the look is very much 'inspired by' ancient galleys. More of a generic galley than anything period-specific.
I think I'd go the same way, myself. Years ago I was inspired by Paul Hague's galleys (from his naval war games book - in my view THE classic of the naval war games genre). Unfortunately, I tried going with his style of vessel, whereas something more like what I'm looking at here might have got me a whole deal further along!
DeleteI loved that Paul Hague book. I was never that fussed by the rules, but the book itself was a fun read and inspiring in a number of ways.
DeleteI also loved the Paul Hague book, at least supposing we are talking about the same title? My admiration - and many re-reads - is given to his "Sea Battles in Miniature" (1980) and not the later "Naval Wargaming" (1992). I didn't think the latter was an improvement on the original - in fact it's definitely inferior - though still well worth buying.
DeleteI'm talking the 1980 version. I don't think I ever saw his later book...
DeleteWell now I know what I'm doing with my school holidays!
ReplyDeleteLooks great Alan. Something I have been tinkering with as well, mentally at least. Would adding a bit of an angle to the oars give a sense of motion e.g. a sweep?
ReplyDeleteAdding an angle would look better, but obviously I'd either have to angle the card a little, or paint the oars on at an angle, both of which are *slightly* harder to do than just leaving them straight. And I really was after the simplest possible approach here :)
DeleteThanks for posting this. It is awesome!
ReplyDelete