The thing was that they held the Flying Dutchman in their grasp because they believed thought that they still have it's captains heart, so they can't turn on them, realistically they wouldn't even have prepared the burning torches to fire cannons as the Flying Dutchman is invincible and Black Pearl would be destroyed in matter of seconds or minutes. So both ships turning of them was a complete shock and unbelievable situation, sailors would wait for clearly states order to fire to alleviate any tactical planning in the fight but the order couldn't come as captain was utterly shocked and paralysed, that's why lieutenant order to abandon ship because at that point he couldn't be court marshalled as it would be lucky if captain would survive. However, it's a movie so it's exaggerated for entertaining purposes. Flying Dutchman was magical ship and basically indestructible, so fast nobody could outrun it, had even front cannons and captain practically couldn't be killed as whoever killed him would need to replace him on eternal duty on board
Welll then definitely the best course of action is to sit there with your guns out for several minutes but not fire them even though the enemy is feet away and getting ready to fire too.
Imagine you had control of Superman for years then in a last fight he joins your enemy to attack you. You would be in shock too as this was the last thing you expected. Also a 0% of not dying if you fought back. You know for certain you are dead no matter what you do.
In this analogy though, in the middle of the fight superman would slow-walk in front of your giant array of kryptonite machineguns while you figured out whether to press the fire button or not
The flying dutchman cannot be sunk. Superman is weak to kryptonite, the flying dutchman isn't weak to cannonballs. There's nothing they could do to win.
realistically, the guys manning the cannons can't see shit. they get 1-2 shots at best, so if they try to act on their own initiative they are highly likely to waste the shot, they rely on the captain (or other leadership like the 1st officer) telling them when to fire. they likely thought the captain was waiting for a better shot when more of the cannons would hit even as they were being shot.
Endeavor was supposed a first rate ship of the line, over 100 heavier guns and thicker hull. The pirate ships are frigates, less than 50 guns each. And British crews reached faster rates of fire than other nations. Endeavor should have shrugged off any shots Pearl and Dutchmen sent at her, then deleted them from existence.
In a real battle of this time, it was “ungentlemanly” for a ships of the line fire on a frigate, they were protected by rules of war. Though this would to apply to pirates. If a frigate shot at a first rate, they waved this protection. Happened at the Battle of the Nile. French frigate shot at a British third rate. The British ship returned one full broadside, completely wrecking and sinking her.
They didn't forget they all knew they were fucked and relying on the captain for strategy while he digested he was going to die and his legacy being ended with being outplayed by the piece of shit pirate he hated the most
When the ship came up out of the water, he thought it was going to be on his side, but then he saw that it wasn't on his side, so he went into shock. If you haven't seen the movie, then go check out the first three.
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u/SwordfishOk504 9h ago
I haven't seen the movie. Why did the middle ship not fire?