A bar shot is a long, narrow iron bar with 2 balls at either end. They were used as ammunition to take down enemy ships by destroying their rigging. Their range was a third of that of a cannonball, meaning that they were better for distances of less than 1,312 feet, since they caused more damage by tearing off large splinters of wood.
A bar shot could be: Spanish-style (2 balls joined by a bar), French-style (2 half-balls joined in the same way), or English-style (a piece of wrought iron or gray iron with 2 truncated hexagonal pyramids and a hexagonal prism connecting them at their smaller ends).
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