Revell Viking parts question and decals?

Despite the legendary (and, as the performance of the various replicas has established, very real) seaworthiness of the Viking long ships, it seems that they actually didn't sail far out of sight of land for more than two or three days under normal circumstances.  The epic Norse voyages to Iceland, Greenland, North America, and Constantinople almost certainly were made not by long ships like the Gokstad Ship, but by considerably more chubby, fully-decked vessels that were built for carrying cargo and people over long distances.

This thread has been so inspirational that yesterday I went through the family DVD collection seeking our copy of "The Vikings," with the intention of spending a blissful evening watching Kirk Douglas falling into the fiord, getting his eye clawed out by a hawk, getting impaled on Tony Curtis's sword - and finally, of course, getting immolated with his ship. (Some folks have all the fun.  Incidentally - I don't know where the legend about Viking chieftains getting burned up in their ships got started, but so far as I know it has little or nothing to do with reality.) Then I discovered that my wife had absquatulated with the movie in order to show it to her high school world history class.   She's promised to bring it home Monday.

A friend of mine married a young woman who brought to the marriage her beloved, 1970s-vintage Oldsmobile sedan.  My friend kept trying to get rid of it, on the grounds that it was (a) a gas hog, and (b) falling apart.  But his wife resisted all efforts to either sell or trade the thing.  He eventually announced that he was going to give her the modern equivalent of a Viking funeral:  lay her out on the back seat of the Olds and point it down I-64 with the cruise control set.  At least that's what he told me; I'm not sure she ever heard about the idea.

In another web forum I read about a ship modeler whose modeling friends, after his remains were cremated, dumped the ashes into a model of a Viking ship, shoved it out into the middle of the local pond, and touched a match to it.  Now that's the way to go, folks.

This thread is going downhill.  I'd better shut up and go to bed.

Part of Heath's estimate may have been based on some calculations that he did using the recorded numbers (and sizes) of vessels in a fleet vs. the recorded complement of that fleet. IIRC, it worked out to be more than two men per oar overall.

Note that most voyages were probably not of the epic crossing-of-the-Atlantic sort, and that they could well have put in to shore for water and/or to launch a strandhogg (a quick, impromptu raid) for supplies. Again, I would not be surprised if the Vikings followed something like the ancient Mediterranean sea tradition of coasting - sailing by day and putting into shore for the evening, even if they may have remained at sea for a few nights in a row. In fact, one small Viking fleet was found encamped on a river island in Carolingian territory, but there was not much that the Carolingians could do about it.

In a more sustained invasion rather than raid, the Vikings would draw their ships up onto shore and built banked ditches and palisades around them.

Here's a relevant thread from another web forum, with some inspirational photos:  http://modelshipworld.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3490&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0

Regarding the number of oarsmen working each oar - I can't recall having seen any reliable pictures of Norse vessels with more than one guy at each oar.  But there's no reason it couldn't have been done.  The ships didn't have permanent benches; if another guy pulled up his sea chest, he could grab hold of the same oar his buddy was pulling.  On the other hand, if we use the Gokstad Ship as an example (which, as we've established, is dangerous), doubling the number of men on the oars increases the crew to at least sixty-five men (assuming everybody on board is working an oar, plus one to work the tiller).  Sixty-five guys in a ship with an overall length of seventy-six feet are going to get mighty well acquainted with each other.  I'm not sure the ship could carry enough food and fresh water to keep them alive for a lengthy voyage.  But I guess they could have tolerated a trip from, say, Norway to northwest Germany well enough.

A somewhat related point:  Some time back I bought a DVD copy of the 1958 movie "The Vikings."  It contains some beautiful shots of full-size replica ships, clearly based on the Gokstad Ship, sailing and rowing in the Scandinavian fiords.  The DVD edition features audio commentary by the director, Richard Fleischer.  He notes that the movie company based the replicas on the real thing - including the spacing between the oars.  But when the 20th-century extras got on board to practice rowing, they discovered the oar ports were so close together that the guys couldn't swing the oars sufficiently.  So they left alternate oar ports empty.  (That, at least, is what Mr. Fleischer says; it's not obvious in most of the shots.)

The movie is worth watching.  The plot is pretty juvenile, but Kirk Douglas and Ernest Borgnine make wonderful Vikings - and Tony Curtis is suprisingly believable.  And nobody wears a helmet with horns on it.  (For a really juvenile version of the Vikings, take a look at the Robert Wagner movie "Prince Valiant."  Bring a barf bag.  "The Long Ships," with Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier - both of whom really should have had better things to do - isn't much better.) The scene wherein Kirk Douglas's ship comes back to the fiord, after having succeeded in kidnapping Janet Leigh off an English cog, is priceless.  Kirk - who refused to use a stuntman for the scene - pulls the old, genuine Viking stunt of running along the looms of the oars, outside the gunwale.  He makes it the full length of the ship once, then tries it again - and missteps and, with a truly memorable splash, falls in the water.  That wasn't in the script.  According to Mr. Fleischer's commentary, when they fished Kirk out the first words he said were, "did you get all that on film, or do I need to do it again?"  Fun stuff.

Hi Guys,

Sorry I've ben away for a few days, Gee I mis all the fun. Another BB member sent me some spare cleats so I have all the parts I need.  I sent a request for the decal sheet to Revell Germany, So I would expect that in a few weeks.  I'll probally do my model in darker earth tones on the hull and a light shading on the deck/mast.

Jake

Good points- I'll look for those books too. I was free associating a little there, but from experience half the year it's day all the time and the other half night all the time.

Skol!

On pp.21-22 of his book Armies of the Dark Ages 600-1066, Ian Heath discusses Viking fleets, ships, and crews, and writes that there were 2 men per oar in Scandinavian vessels. He also suggests that typical raiding fleets numbered from 10-35 ships.  In his book The Vikings, Heath clarifies on p.10 that there was normally one man per oar, but that rowers could be doubled-up when battle was likely.

On p.31 of The Vikings, Heath writes that the Vikings' battles amongst themselves mostly took place at sea, e.g. Hafrs Fjord (872), Svoldr (1000), and Nissa (1062). In this sort of battle, they would seem to have tied several ships together, to make one large platform. Obviously, the crews would have picked the shields up and used them.

As for shore raids, I suspect that much of the North European coast was relatively undefended. Indeed, given the likely delays for militias to muster, etc., there is no obvious reason why the Vikings should need to have raided by night.

Landstrom gives a good description of the size of longships in the Viking era. Each space between deck beams was called a room.  Each room comprised a pair of oars. Each oar had one oarsman. He suggests that the crew sat either on loose benches or chests, neither of which are in the ship finds, in that position.

The "old law books" classify the ships as usually 20 rooms, but often twentyfive or 30. Beyond that the very largest Drakkar were 32 or in single instances each 34, 40 and 60! rooms. The distance between oars in the Gokstad ship was 38 1/2" (hats off to the carpenters for accuracy!). The Revell ship is 16 rooms, I believe because it is a second generation copy of the Gokstad ship.

So a ship of 20 rooms was about 100 feet long, and the supposed largest would have been 260 feet long! The Gokstad ship has 16 rooms. The Drakkar might have had 32.

I suspect a great deal of misinformation is involved in all of the actual recreations, except for the several found.

For certain a ship on a raid would not have sailed with shields outboard. These ships could sail and even beat to windward and had no thwarts,a  low and working freeboard and would have been quite wet.

The sailors were not normally at the oars, most probably huddled on the higher side of the ship. The excavated ships are full of racks, tent frames and other temporary structures that seem to me to suggest a lot of spar and oar storage.

I cannot find reference at all to ship vs. ship battles. These were shore raids, and as such would probably have been in stealth, not against castles or fortified positions. I personally do not see the need for a shield row as protection. Even in 1066 the Normans landed and did battle on dry land.

I also think that while it is frustrating that we can't find a picture of the Gokstad shields, in all probability they were in the same category as the dogs, horses, kitchen ware, etc. sent to meet Odin with the occupant; more ceremonial than useful.

Landstrom has a beautiful (surely) drawing of a ship under sail, with a wealth of detail. As I mentioned, the beitass is rigged on the lee side to the end of the yard, the sail is a billowy square with leather crosshatch, the lower corners of the sail are belayed fore/ aft, the yard has double rigging, there is a deep single rudder, there is a prominent strake on the stern, an iron anchor over the bow. She has one thwart board, no shields overboard, but also no crew so who can say where he drew the line with his knowledge.

Many of the eighth and ninth century Goteborg stone drawings of Norse ships show a hull with a right angle at the keel to stern and bow posts, at least in overall profile. Which would have been a more stable sailing ship, and I suspect that may have been an added strake feature at least at the stern for longer voyages.

Also he draws some very fine blocks which beggar verbal description but are certainly not what we are accustommed to.

I guess if I were to model a 16 room ship on a raid, I would expect either a ship before the wind at full sail, no prow figures mounted, and the crew taking protection from the weather in a tent at the stern; or, not under sail, under oar, no doubt muffled with sacking, sail struck and the yard stowed, with a raiding party assembled in the middle, armed, helmed and brandishing unlit torches and their shields. And dragon head fitted.

I'll have to look at my references, but my recollection is that there could easily have been two rowers per oar, which would make it one shield each.

Again, I would not generalize too much from the alternating colours on the Gokstad ship, especially given the funereal-ritual nature of its deposition.

Above all, it is important to recall that shields are not thought to have been a ship's equipment, but the crew's equipment, for use on land or sea.

Given Northern European military traditions that predated the Vikings by at least a thousand years, and the apparent lack of evidence that the Vikings were organized or drilled along anything comparable to Roman lines, there is a very good chance that the warrior-crew of a longship would have displayed their individuality with their shields.

I have decided to paint (decal) my shields in a yellow and black theme.  I am taking it a step further by adding designs.  For example, yellow with a black dot, black with yellow cross, quarters with yellow and black, etc.  I think it will highlight the all brown boat and still add a bit of variety.

The shields were tied to the gunwales.  My thought is the two shields protected the oarsman as they headed towards shore.  Once there he would take one with him to battle.

I think Bondoman is absolutely right:  some time away from the computers would be good for all of us.  Nowadays I'm in the habit of telling my students that they are not allowed to base their term papers entirely on web sources.  (I suspect some of them spend four years here without setting foot in the library.)  We are, I fear, rapidly approaching the time when American (and other) kids will grow up not knowing what a book is.

To elaborate a bit on what Mr. Landstrom said - it strikes me as illogical that if a gang of slightly berserk professional warriors hung their shields along the gunwales of a ship, those shields would have the uniform appearance that characterizes the standard pictures of Viking ships.  Surely the shields that hung on the gunwales were made for the purpose.  Mr. Landstrom says their function was decorative; he's undoubtedly right, but it does seem like the shields, by extending the bulwark up a little (and, in effect, "armoring" it), would have had some use in defending the ship during fights.  I wonder if, in fact, the crew members also carried their own shields - which, I imagine would have shown a great deal more variety and individuality.

Bondoman makes another good point:  the evidence from the Gokstad find, fascinating and beautiful though it is, just establishes (at best) what that particular ship looked like under those particular, rather unusual circumstances (i.e., getting buried under a mound of dirt).  Using that information to establish what a Viking longship looked like in action is more than a little risky.

Remember that the Gokstad ship as discovered is only indicative of a burial ship. From that I would guess that whatever the shield display, it was related only to the occupant of the burial.

Landstrom, whom I hadn't looked into in quite a while, makes another point as well that:

"When the ship was excavated in the burial mound 32 shields were hanging on each side, and since that time they have dogged nearly every picture of a Viking ship under sail. But we can be certain that they only hung there when the vessel was shown off and only in calm weather otherwise the waves would have washed them away."

He believes that at least in an earlier era in Scandanavia, the sails were reinforced on the diagonal with double thicknesses of fabric strips, of linen or of leather.

He also has an illustration showing a ship with the beitass employed, in the forward of the pair of depressions in the mounting block. One of his plan drawings seems to show that the depressions in the blocks have a ramp, towards the bow in the forward one and towards the stern in the other. I hope that makes sense.

We didn't have any power yesterday, so I spent a very enjoyable afternoon reading, and away from the net which is good from time to time.

Big Wick - I fear your last post is going to be an invitation for me to make a fool of myself again.  I am by no stretch of the imagination an "expert" on Norse shipbuilding.  I've never been to Scandinavia, I don't read any of the Scandinavian languages, and my modest library doesn't contain a single book that's devoted entirely to Viking ships.  But here goes.

I read the verbiage on the website to mean that half the shields were painted all black and the others all yellow, and that they were hung so the colors alternated - just like the ones in the cover illustration on the Osprey book.  That website gives us the tantalizing information that one of the shields is hanging on exhibit in the Viking Ship Museum - but doesn't give us a picture of it.  (Was the iron boss in the middle painted along with the wood?  I have no idea.)

I think you're right about reef points:  980 A.D. is too early for them.  I believe the Vikings were in the habit of lowering the yard to the deck (or, more correctly, onto those T-shaped supports that stand on the centerline) when the sail was to be furled.  My general impression is that Viking sails were cut rather baggy, the theory being that such a shape "held more wind."  (One of the rare instances in which those old boys were pretty clearly wrong.)  Several surviving graphics show Viking sails with what appear to be almost net-like ropes stretched all over the surface, apparently as a means of controlling the sail.  (That's clearly what the Revell designers were aiming at with that "grid" pattern on the vac-formed sail in the kit.) 

As I recall, the Gokstad Ship was buried with her mast erected, and it, like whatever carvings were on the prow and sternpost, rotted away long before the archaeologists got to her.  So any reconstruction of her spar(s) and rigging has to rely on a great deal of inference and guesswork.  If I remember correctly, the Revell kit includes two gadgets, called bieatas (I've probably butchered the spelling), that were used to stretch out the leeward leech of the sail when the ship was working to windward.  That the Vikings used that technique seems to be pretty widely accepted.

On the other hand, I recall reading an interesting article in The Mariner's Mirror quite a few yeas ago by a scholar who suggested a radically different interpretation.  He, like others, was puzzled by the fact that each of the wood blocks on the deck, where Revell (and lots of other sources) says the heel of the bietas was lodged, has two circular depressions in it.  What's the second one for?  That author (whose name I fear I've long since forgotten) suggested that the ship's gear included a rather massive a-frame apparatus that was used to rais and lower the mast, and that its legs were bedded in those pieces of wood.  I haven't seen any other reference to that theory; maybe the experts have rejected it.  But I've never seen any other explanation for why the depressions in those blocks are duplicated.

Every source I've seen agrees with the idea that the oarsmen sat on their sea chests.  There are no integral benches for oarsmen in any of the surviving Norse vessels, the oarports are too low for the oarsmen to have rowed standing up, and the one or two sea chests that were found at the Gokstad site are just the right height to be sat on.

I'm sure there's a great deal of information out there about these wonderful vessels that I don't know.  The standard scholarly book on the subject, from what I can tell, is The Viking Ships:  Their Ancestry and Evolution, by A.W. Brogger and Haakon Shetelig, originally published in 1951.  The relevant volume in the Conway's History of the Ship series (which is where I always start when trying to sort out the literature about such things) comments that this book is dated, but still the most comprehensive coverage between two covers.  Our university library has a copy, but it's been checked out (probably by somebody in our maritime history program who has more pressing use for it than I do) for a long time.  I've found several used copies on the Web, but most of them are quite expensive.  Taubman Plans Service (www.taubmansonline.com) offers a tantalizing set of plans for the Gokstad Ship:  8 sheets plus 19 "detail sheets."  The price is $90 - too much for my blood at the moment.  If I were trying to build a really serious model of the Gokstad Ship I'd get hold of those two resources.  I imagine they'd clear up any questions - to the extent that the extant evidence is capable of clearing them up.

For the moment, though, that's about the best I can offer.  Good luck.

jtilley

How do you read this? Would the entire shield be painted all yellow, and then the next one painted all black?  This pattern would then continue down the side of the ship?

Also, a number of models show reef points in the sail, I would think that the Viking ships would be before reef points were invented.

My wife had brought home a number of books from the library.  A couple of books showed the seat/sea chest concept.  What are your thoughts?

Well, vonBerlichingen, you may want to retract your last statement in a few seconds.  Here's a link to the website of the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo:  http://www.khm.uio.no/vikingskipshuset/gokstadskipet_english.php

Sure enough, it describes the 64 shields of the Gokstad Ship as "painted alternately black and yellow."

Score one for Osprey.

And here's some interesting material on the Chicago replica, on which (according to Dr. Graham) the Revell kit was based:  http://www.nnleague.org/vikingship.htm

I was questioning that alternation of yellow and black shields myself, and suspect that it may not be explained in the book. It could be that the artist may have relied a bit too heavily on the Bayeux tapestry and/or on a modern reconstruction.

P.S.: I don't think that you've yet made a fool of yourself here, at least not that I've noticed. 

I don't think I've got that particular Osprey book, but I've bought several of the others and have a high opinion of all of them.  The publisher seems to work with researchers and writers who really know what they're doing - and the prices make the books outstanding bargains.

I do wonder about that picture on the cover, which shows the shields on the side of the ship painted in an alternating pattern of black and yellow.  Maybe the text sheds some light on this point (and the author undoubtedly knows more about it than I do), but it seems to me that if, as I've always assumed, those shields were the personal property of the individual crew members, each of them would have looked different.  But maybe that wasn't the case.  I'd better buy the book before I run my mouth and make a fool of myself (again).

This book may not be in quite the same class as Landstrom, but it is a decent (and cheap) reference:

http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=S3497~per=47

Ah, nostalgia....I got Landstrom's The Ship and the National Geographic book as Christmas and birthday presents when I was in junior high school (as Americans called middle school in those days).  I've still got both of them; they're literally falling apart at the seams, but I wouldn't part with them for anything.  Landstrom's coverage of the Viking ships is especially good.  I can think of few, if any, works that contain more information between two covers.  The combination of the man's research and his artwork is absolutely mind-boggling.  (As I understand it, his book on Egyptian shipbuilding, which is quite scarce nowadays, is still regarded as the best book of that sort - more than thirty years after its publication.)  Some of the material inevitably is dated (the Forrestal is presented as the "last word" in aircraft carriers), but the overall achievement that book represents is downright staggering. 

What this world needs is a nice, fresh, low-cost, paperback edition of The Ship.  And it sure would be nice if the National Geographic would give us an updated version of Men, Ships and the Sea.

Bondoman's comments on the structure of the surviving Viking ships are, of course, dead on target.  I was studying some drawings of the Gokstad Ship last night and, not for the first time, was awestruck by the combination of ingenuity and low-tech construction methods that vessel represents.  The planks are held to each other, along the edges, by iron spikes, their ends "riveted" over iron washers inboard.  The lowest plank is nailed to the keel.  The planks below deck level were hewn out of the tree trunks in such a way that little wedge-shaped "blocks" were left standing proud on their inner surfaces in line with the locations of the frames.  Those "blocks" then had holes bored in them, as did the frames.  The planks were then tied to the frames with flexible tree roots.  The frames are not fastened to the keel.  The captain of the 1893 replica (on which the Revell kit is based) reported that, when the ship was working in a rough sea, the gunwale would twist as much as six inches out of true - but the hull didn't leak.  Those people truly were among the great shipbuilders of all time.

Actually, my point was that the shield designs on the Revell transfers were a little suspect, as was some of the wood texture on the shields. On the other hand, there is little wrong with the idea of painted shields, leather-covered or not, as they had been a part of military tradition for at least a millenium before the Viking era.

Cheers,

vonB. 

P.S.:  The Roskilde museum has some very interesting books at its web boutique, but the postage is a killer! I ordered some by surface mail, thinking that I would save on postage, but it actually cost more than the average postal rate that they normally charge!

Even more senility, but is isn't actually so, J.

I was an Architecture student in Copenhagen in 77-78. I happened to live up at the north end of that fair country, which was an hour by train, then another hour by interurban and walking to my house. But that is a story for another day.

Roskilde was due west of Copenhagen on another line, on which many of my friends commuted. Maybe an hour overall. We all used to have a bad habit of passing out on the train late at night, no doubt because we studied so hard, but I was awoken very early one Saturday morning by the shout of "ROSKILDE !!" in my ears, and pried open an eyelid to see that I was in fact there, had gotten on the wrong train. What to do, it was a fine September day so I wandered down the the end of the Fjord and spent the afternoon in this Museum.

Random thoughts: in Oslo there is the "Fram" as well as the very well displayed vikingskippes, and also now I think the Gjoa, which was displayed for many years to her disadvantage and ruin at the west end of our otherwise very shipfriendly City.

I've been to see the Wasa a couple of times. It's a very, well, intimidating display as it sits in a shed under a constant spray of preservatives.

90% of what I ever learned about historic ships were from the National Geographic Society's "Men, Ships and the Sea" and Bjorn Landstrom's "The Ship",; the other 10% from the ensuing 40+ years of constant reading about the sea.

But do go there. It is a society with one foot on the water, and very lovely.

The viking ships, in person, are as perfect in form as anything I've seen. The color, out of the bogs, is black. The forms are very minimal, and obviously were designed to work with the sea; there aren't ribs so much as oarlocks and davit stakes. But here I'll quit because I'm no expert.

I did become an expert in why a thatched roof is superior to any other in that age and climate, however.

Hooray for the Bronze Age!!

I'm inclined to agree about the shields.  Treating them like either leather or unpainted wood probably would be most appropriate - thoughI suspect the idea of painted shields, like most aspects of this subject, can't be totally disproved.  (I wonder, though, whether those Revell decals, like the ancient Aurora ones, provide for identical shield markings on the port and starboard sides of the ship.  That seems extremely unlikely.) 

The Revell kit cries out to be treated as an exercise in imitating wood textures and finishes.  I did a little reading about the Gokstad Ship a couple of hours ago.  Apparently almost all of her components are oak, with the notable exceptions of the deck planks, which are pine.  In photographs she looks almost pure black; according to the book I was looking at, she was that color (or close to it) when the archaeologists unearthed her from the burial mound, but they think much of the coloration came from the soil.  (She was buried for about a thousand years.)  I wonder if, in her prime, her hull was bare, untreated oak, or if it was treated with some sort of oil or tar-like substance for durability.  Lots of room for individual interpretation and taste here.

The Gokstad Ship was unearthed in 1880, and the archaeologists spent close to thirty years getting her ready for public exhibition (and, I guess, building the museum in which she's still housed).  The replica that the Revell designers consulted was built, and crossed the Atlantic, in 1893.  At that time historians thought it was reasonably close to the sort of vessel Leif Ericsson sailed to from Greenland to North America in about the year 1000.  More recent research has led to the view that, by Ericsson's time, the traditional Viking "longship" (of which the Gokstad Ship seems to be a small to medium-sized example) had given way to a chubbier, bulkier cargo vessel called a "knarr."  But the replica Gokstad Ship had no trouble coping with the Atlantic. 

I've noted in another Forum thread the sad news that the Revell kit apparently is no longer on the market.  Right after payday I'm going to see if I can track one down.  It's really a shame that such a fine kit should disappear again so fast.  It's particularly valuable as a newcomer's project.  I can't imagine a better way to introduce people - either kids or modelers who've already picked up experience with other subject matter - to sailing ship modeling. 

Bondoman has sent my senile brain off on a nostalgia trip regarding that old Aurora kit.  (Dr. Graham has published a book about Aurora; I really need to get hold of a copy.)  If I remember correctly (an increasingly dubious proposition these days), in its original release it was in a very pale cream-colored plastic.  At least one later boxing was in the color bondoman accurately described as caramel colored.  The original box (dating, I think, from some time in the mid-fifties) featured a rather garish painting that fairly accurately depicted the model inside the box.  Later issues had a beautiful painting by the distinguished marine artist John Steel (who also did box tops for Revell - starting with its "Picture Fleet" series).  Steel apparently couldn't bring himself to depict the model accurately.  The "dragon's head" on the bow of the ship in his painting was much smaller than the one on the kit - and his version of the hull looked considerably more like a real Viking ship.

As I remember, the figures included, in addition to the numerous rowers, a helmsman, a character (obviously the captain) with his arms folded across his chest and an imperious expression on his face (as well as a horned helmet on his head), and two or three guys with beards, horned helmets, and spears.  I spent many a happy hour in grade school and high school painting those figures - along with the "dragon head and tail" - with my Testor's glossy paints and the 10-cent brushes my mother bought me at the drugstore.  (In fairness to my younger self, by the time I got to high school I was trimming the horns off the helmets - and I think I knew by then that the ship didn't really look much like a Viking ship.  But it was still a fun project.)  I remember that red-and-white-striped vinyl sail; I believe there was also a decal, shaped like a bird, to be applied to it.  (But the stripes were only printed on the front.  The back was all white.)  My recollection is that there were waterslide decals for the shields, but I could be wrong about that.  I do remember the rather impressive stand, a pedestal-shaped thing with lettering molded in relief.  (The Aurora "Black Falcon Pirate Ship" and Chinese junk had something similar, I think; I imagine those kits were designed by the same people.)

Thanks to bondoman for linking us to that most interesting Roskilde site.  One of my fantasy vacation trips is a summer cruise to the Baltic, with stops at Roskilde, Oslo, Copenhagen, and Stockholm (to see the Wasa).  Maybe some day....

When I lived in Copenhagen I went out several times to the Vikingshipsmuseum in Roskilde, where there is a nice collection of partially preserved boats, and a great program in living history, which is a very popular thing in Scandinavia.

http://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/default.asp?contentsection=3964B7C731974A1DA15F5741EA743FE9

To be sure the museum in Oslo is quite fine too.

I too remember the Aurora model as probably my earliest maritime model. I loved the figures, both rowing and standing on deck. I believe it came with a red/white striped vinyl sail. The heralds on the shield were dry press ons?

I built at least two, required little to no painting as the hull, oars and mast was a nice caramel colored plastic.

SKOL!!!

I checked the instructions for my 'quick build' Revell Viking ship, and they show six (6) cleats being installed near the stern. There are also six (6) cleats on my sprue, all in a row. The instructions that I have call them part no. 11.

As for the transfers, I may be able to spare some, but I would suggest using something else, because they are generally quite different from what military history and wargaming sources would suggest.

In fact, the shields are not that likely, either. Yes, they are round and have bosses and rims, but there is a good chance that the wood would have been covered with leather or similar. So, I would suggest filling the wood texture that is on at least some of them.

One option would be the Foundry's transfers, but I do not know how well they would suit the Revell shield dimensions. Note that most wargames transfers are designed to be applied over a painted surface. Other options would be Little Big Men Studios' transfers and Veni Vidi Vici transfers. Note that at least LBMST are designed for specific makes of figure, i.e. specific shield dimensions and shapes.

Foundry:

http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/DECAL/3/index.asp

http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/DECAL/3/7.jpg

VVV:

http://www.3vwargames.co.uk/graphics/D3.jpg

http://www.3vwargames.co.uk/darkage.htm

LBMS (their 'Dark Age' transfers, organized by figure make which they are sized for): 

http://www.littlebigmenstudios.com/catalog/index.php/cPath/1_10_11

http://www.littlebigmenstudios.com/catalog/index.php/cPath/1_12_14

http://www.littlebigmenstudios.com/catalog/index.php/cPath/1_26_33

http://www.littlebigmenstudios.com/catalog/index.php/cPath/1_55_58

A couple of wargames sites where you might find some painted Vikings:

http://www.3vwargames.com/galleries/gall_darkage/25darkage03.jpg

http://www.wabforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=63&p=261

http://www.wabforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=175&p=1264

http://www.wabforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=848

http://www.wabforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2156

http://www.wabforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1245

http://www.wabforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=479

http://www.wabforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=279

http://www.wabforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=53

Cheers,

vonB.

I assume the Revell kit Jake's talking about is the one released in 1977.  There's a world of difference between it and the ancient Aurora one. 

The Aurora kit, released sometime in the early or mid-fifties, was a fun, attractive little project that undoubtedly played a role in introducing lots of kids (including this one) to ship modeling.  But it was not, in any reasonable sense, a scale model of anything.  It wasn't shaped anything like any known Norse vessel, the "planking" detail (such as it was) on the hull was carvel rather than clinker, and the "dragon's head and tail" on the stem and stern were vintage 1950s American.  (I can still quite easily visualize that "dragon head."  An actual woodcarving that looked like that would have weighed about half a ton.)  One of its most delightful features was the set of crew figures - lots of guys sitting on benches pulling oars, and quite a few walking around with spears wearing horned helmets.  (One of the first things one learns when reading seriously about the Vikings is that the horned helmet has no connection with Norse culture.  Wagnerian operas yes; Vikings no.)  I wouldn't mind getting hold of one of these old fossils (I think the kit is being sold by one of the Eastern European companies - Smer, I think - at the moment) as an exercise in nostalgia.  (When I was in grade school I probably built it five or six times.)  But it's not a scale model.

The Revell kit, on the other hand, is a beauty - to my knowledge the most accurate Viking ship kit ever, in any medium.  (It beats the out of the various Heller monstrosities.)  According to Dr. Graham's fine book, Remembering Revell Model Kits, it was based on a full-size replica that used to reside in Chicago.  We've discussed this in a couple of other threads; I guess the Chicago replica isn't there any more.  It was built for one of the World's Fairs in, I believe, the late nineteenth century, and crossed the Atlantic from Scandinavia under sail and oar power.  It was, in turn, a full-size replica of the Gokstad Ship, one of the two major Norse vessels that have survived (in the Viking Ship Museum at Oslo). 

The kit, according to Dr. Graham, was originally released in 1977, and remained in the company catalog through 1979.  It was, sadly, the last genuinely new sailing ship kit released by Revell (excluding Revell Germany).  Revell's sailing ship kit program lasted from 1956 (with the 1/192 Constitution - which is still on the market) to 1977.  The company has now been out of the sailing ship business for considerably longer than it was ever in it.  (Again - I'm just talking about the U.S. company.  Revell Germany has released some sailing ship kits of its own - in addition to re-releases of the U.S. Revell kits and some Heller and Aurora ones.)

The Revell kit features (to my notion) excellent "wood grain" detail (strongly reminiscent of the best Imai kits) and enough parts to reproduce the real ship pretty accurately, while keeping the parts count low enough to make it a good beginner's project.  The biggest challenge to making it into a really detailed model might be the inboard strake of planking just under the caprail.  In the real Gokstad Ship there are holes in that strake; the leather straps on the shields pass through the holes, thereby securing the shields to the gunwale.  Revell represents the holes as countersunk "surface detail."  Not a big deal - but it would make it tough to hang the shields realistically.  The real Gokstad Ship was buried in a funeral mound for (literally) about a thousand years.  The original bow and stern ornaments (whatever they may have looked like) projected upward into a more acidic layer of soil, and rotted away long before the archaeologists excavated the wreck.  The "dragon's head and tail" in the Revell kit are speculative - but they're obviously based on other Norse artwork, and are pretty believable.  (I confess I'd be sort of inclined to leave them off, though.) 

After more than twenty years' absence from the market, the kit was recently reissued by Revell Germany.  I bought one as a Christmas present for my grandson.  I took a look at it (without ripping open the plastic bag, of course) before I wrapped it and sent it off to Texas.  It certainly looks like the same, excellent kit, the only obvious change being the addition of a rather hokey-looking decal for the sail. 

Sorry Jake; wish I could help.  My guess is that Revell Germany would send you the missing piece and a fresh decal sheet (the instructions, by the way, can be downloaded from the Revell Germany website), but I have no idea how long it would take.  On the other hand, if you don't mind spending some money the new version shouldn't be hard to find.  It's advertised by Squadron mail order, and the local craft and hobby shop here in Greenville, N.C. has one; that implies that it's available just about everywhere.