Chain Shot — pirates

"Load your guns with chain shot! Aim for their rigging -- we must slow them down!"

Chain shot was a type of of artillery ammunition as a cannon projectile formed of two sub-calibre balls, or half-balls, chained together. They were used in by sailing ships to shoot masts, or to cut the shrouds and any other rigging of a target ship. When fired, after leaving the muzzle, the shot's components tumbled in the air, and the connecting chain fully extended.

History

The crew of the Black Pearl was known to employ chain shot during battle, with the cursed crew led by Captain Hector Barbossa most notably using it during the battle with the commandeered Interceptor. Pintel and Ragetti toppled the Interceptor's mast with chain shot, rendering it dead in the water and trapping Will Turner below decks.^[1] Captain Jack Sparrow's crew later used chain shot against the cursed crew on a merchant vessel they stole to knock the cursed pirates overboard, allowing Sparrow to plunder their ship.^[2] Clanker, a member of Davy Jones' crew aboard the Flying Dutchman, used two chain-shots as his weapons of choice.^[3] During the meeting of the Fourth Brethren Court, Barbossa used a chain-shot as a gavel. At the end of the battle in the maelstrom, the crew of the Pearl used a chain-shot to free their mainmast from the Dutchman's mainmast.^[4]

Behind the scenes

Chain shots first appeared in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.^[1] The term "chain shot" was first identified in the 2005 comic "Chain Reaction!" published in Disney Adventures.^[2]

In Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio's revision screenplay draft for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, during the battle between the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman, the chain-shot used by Pintel and Ragetti to free the Pearl's mainmast from the Dutchman was taken from a defeated Clanker, with Pintel making a bawdy joke about how they have "got balls."^[5] In the final cut of the film, a similar innuendo was used instead between Hector Barbossa and Jack Sparrow during the meeting of the Brethren Court.^[4]