Ok, when is it that you ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY HAVE TO use wood dowels when stacking a cake?
i.e., I want to make a Vikings cake for my mother for her birthday. The bottom layer will be 10 inches the top layer 6 inches, both round. Do I need to use wood dowels for this?? Or are they used when doing say a 10 inch double and a 6 inch double??
Clarification would be nice. Her birthday is Monday so I will be baking away this weekend. 
I think you will get a lot of different opinions on this one. Personally...whenever I put one cake on top of another..........I use dowels, period!! (unless it is just a tiny half ball cake or tiny half egg shaped cake) IMHO...even a small cake on top of another cake might be just enough to squish out the filling, if not worse, in the cake below and distort it in some way! I prefer not to take chances! I like to do things once and be done and not worry about "what if"? 
I never used dowels to stack 1-2" cake on top of another 1-2" cake. I have made several cakes like you describe & never used dowels. If the size is bigger then a 10" then I would use a cake board between each cake. I don't even use cake boards when doing that size & under~
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