From books and articles which I have read, I came to the understanding that chain shot or dismantling shot was used to disable a ships rigging before closing so that advantage could be taken of a less maneuverable opponent. this favoured mainly by the French rather than the English who preferred to concentrate fire on the hull. This being so why do the rules exclude Chain from being used in all but extreme close range situations? I can understand this for Grape or Canister but not in the case of Chain.
Any observations on this would be interesting.How close is close?

Rob.