Pirate Attack!

Flags, Torture, and other Combat Strategies

Sea Combat in Sid Meier’s Pirates!

• Firing broadsides and reloading cannons

• Variety of cannon ammunition (round shot, grape shot, chain shot)

• Reefed sails, full sails

• Grappling and boarding

• Fencing and swordplay

• Repairs and upgrades with shipwright

• Plunder food, luxuries, gold, sugar, spices, cannon

• Recruit new crew members in taverns

Real Pirates Combat • Usually single pirate vessel, such

as sloop• Pirates did not attempt to disguise

hostile intentions• Faced little or no resistance from

victims• Used torture to elicit information,

especially about gold• Spent 24-48 hours plundering ships• Only occasionally used broadsides

• Recruited volunteers from captured crew

• Forcibly recruited specialists such as coopers and carpenters

• In addition to gold, plundered “household goods” (ropes, sails, needles, candles, cookware, tools); also, plundered and sold slaves

Scavenger Hunt! (Your Quiz)Identify the historic significance of each image by explaining what it is and what it tells us about pirate combat?

1.

2.3.

4.

5.

Goal: Maximizing Pirate Profits

• Limiting pirate casualties

• Avoiding potential damage to the pirate ship

• Avoiding potential damages to prize

Weapons and Strategies designed for “Instant Surrender”

• Attacking in open boats, called canoes and piraguas: common among 17th buccaneers, including Henry Morgan “because they were much harder to detect from the shore than a fleet of sailing ships” (Cordingly, p. 113)

• Attacking from the windward position, “with the wind at your back you were faster and better able to adapt to changes in wind direction” (Leeson, p. 85)

• Launching hand grenades (from granada, Spanish term for pomegranate) on the decks of merchant ships, tactic “designed to cause death and injury, and could totally demoralize a crew” (Cordingly, p. 120)

• Launching stinkpots, “an early form of teargas similar to grenades but packed with rancid meat, fish, and other putrid items found on a ship” (Leeson, p. 87)

• Sneak attacks: “Ruse de guerre” flying false flags, disguising weapons, and dragging barrels “to slowly approach targets without suspicion” (Leeson, p.87)

Pirates Flags• Black pirate flag adopted

between 1700 and 1720• Name “Jolly Roger” could come

from “Jolie Rouge,” Ali Raja, or “Old Roger” (Cordingly, p. 118)

• Red flags represented “No Quarter” (show no mercy)

• Skull represented death, hourglass represented time running out, cutlass represented violence

• Pirates used variations on the black flag, including Bartholomew Roberts who “customized his ship’s flag to send a pointed message to the governors of Barbados and Martinique” (Leeson, p. 92)