A cannon chainshot

[M ELEY]

Hello folks. I've been away from the Forum for a while after some family issues, but I wanted to post again on a new addition to my pirate/maritime colletion. Here we have a piece of chainshot late 18th/early 19th (?) century. The piece measures approximately 12" long with each ball approx 8" in diameter. As most know, these ordenance were specifically made to take out sails, spars and ropes/rigging on enemy ships. They could be used offensively to slow the craft you are trying to board or defensively to disable a pursuing enemy.


I wanted to go into a little more detail on these pieces from what I have learned through research over the years. Chainshot is in a 'family' of unique items for the above said purposes of dismantling a ship's movement. Other members from this grouping include barshot, which are two cannonballs attached by a square bar (variations of this pattern include two half cannonballs and bar, called 'angels', wedge-shaped bars, two balls with two bending bars allowing for motion/spinning, two disc-shaped weights with attached square bar, etc), spike shot and spider shot. Spider shot consisted of a base with hinged expanding baldes that sprung open in flight. Here are some early pics of different types of shot-