Hey listeners, did you know we're not just trying and failing to come up with new podcast ideas every week? Staffer and Adin have been away working on books. Adin's is out next week; Staffer interviewed him about it. Sprinting Through No Man's Land tells the story of the first Tour de France race after World War I, arguably its most grueling iteration. In telling this story, Adin also looks at that first moment after a war ends, when people are trying to figure out what their new world will...

To wrap up the season of Loose Rounds, Adin and Angry Staff Officer ventured to Washington, DC and the Association of the United States Army's annual conference. There, they held a live show, brought together by Nammo, which covers everything from what a trade show might've looked like before the Battle of Crecy to how the podcast came into being. www.warstoriescast.com/loose-rounds

What's the simplest item that's changed the shape of warfare? The bullet? The boot? How about the humble wheel? In this episode of Loose Rounds, Adin and Angry Staff Officer trace the development of the wheel throughout history, and how it's shaped how wars are fought on and off the battlefield.   www.warstoriescast.com  

For nearly as long as people have been fighting, they've had ships to take them to the fight, or to use as weapons of war themselves. From the coracle to the trireme to the battleship, has there been an overall arc toward the perfect naval vessel?   www.warstoriescast.com/looserounds  

Before compasses, sextants, and the telescope, there was the map. They were simple things to begin with. Then they became essential, allowing explorers and conquerors to leave their home lands for far off destinations. Then they became something even more.   www.warstoriescast.com Become a War Stories supporter on Patreon

Members of the military oftentimes talk about how little they need to get by. Without the creature comforts the everyday person may come to expect. But there's one thing they've needed from the first days we fought wars. Food. In this episode of Loose Rounds, Angry Staff Officer and Adin take a look at the history of eating in the field and whether there's a higher purpose to field rations than jamming it full of calories, protein, and vitamins.    www.warstoriescast.com

Until someone invents a solution to time travel, distance on the battlefield will define how wars are fought. Communications have attempted to solve for this problem since wars first began: first with runners, up to the present day with radio communications. But how much have things really changed over those thousands of years? Angry Staff Officer and Adin take a look.   www.warstoriescast.com

Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. Right? In the third episode of the series, Adin and Staffer discuss the incorporation of logistics into professional militaries and how, in some ways, logistics helped bring about an international trading system. www.warstoriescast.com  

What's the quality that defines a sniper? Is it the pulling of the trigger? The skilled stalking of their target in the hours or days prior to making a shot? The mathematical and physics-based knowledge that prevents them from making an error? In our season finale, we look at the future of the sniper and whether the mythos they've cultivated over the centuries can withstand scopes that aim for them, guns that can fire thousands of yards, and robots that do what they do, only better. ...

For something so central to our lives, the role of blood wasn't something we could explain for much of our history. We knew it was important, and when someone was bleeding out on the battlefield, you needed to fix them, but just how you would go about doing that was a source of constant trial and error. In the second Loose Rounds discussion, Adin and Angry Staff Officer look at how blood transfusions came into being on the battlefield and how it changed how wars were fought. War Stories...

In the Vietnam War, snipers returned to some of their earliest environmental roots while simultaneously reaching the pinnacle of their development: taking part in long missions, independently, where high value targets were taken out. Carlos Hathcock, a Marine from Arkansas, would grow to become one of the best of them. www.warstoriescast.com Become a War Stories support on Patreon  

In our first episode of Loose Rounds, a mini-series produced in partnership with Nammo, we discuss the humble mortar. You know, the tubes that fire grenade-looking munitions into the air? It turns out they have a far deeper and wider history than you might've expected. We trace that path and all the ingenious things people have done with them in the meantime.   Loose Rounds show page

On War Stories, we often focus on what’s happening at the proverbial tip of the spear: the latest and greatest, at least for the time, weapons platforms, how militaries shifted their fighting styles to accommodate these technologies, and what it felt like to use these on the frontlines of the battlefield. After all, those weapons are what gets top billing when we talk about the most interesting parts of warfare. What we sometimes miss are all the bits and pieces that make those weapons...

By the time Lyudmila Pavlichenko joined the rest of her peers at the International Student Assembly at American University in Washington, DC, much of the country knew her name. As well as the Nazis who despised her for the deadly aim she took with her rifle.   www.warstoriescast.com Become at War Stories supporter on Patreon

When the Soviet Union invaded Finland in late 1939—the action that kicked off the Winter War—they expected an easy fight, if there was one at all. Instead, they found a military with an intimate knowledge of Finland's terrain, and one that was willing to fight. Among them was a man who very nearly became one with the freezing environment in an effort to take a stand against the invading nation.   www.warstoriescast.com Become a War Stories supporter on Patreon

We know World War I for a number of things: trenches, poison gas, the ever-present thrum of artillery. But it also served as the birthplace of the sniper. And one of the best couldn't be found on the Western, or even Eastern Front. Instead, Billy Sing fought on the shores of Gallipoli.

On a scraggly hill in Pennsylvania, a unit of sharpshooters took part in some of the most fierce, if not frequently discussed, fighting of Gettysburg. Many only know them from the accessories riding atop their heads: bucktails. www.warstoriescast.com Become a War Stories supporter on Patreon

While Napoleon swept through Europe, the rifle took up a central location on the battlefield with the 95th Rifles of the British Army. The impact of their weapon would reach far and wide beyond technological platforms.   www.warstoriescast.com Become a War Stories supporter on Patreon

From the time of the French and Indian War, Daniel Morgan had a bone to pick with the British Army. Over the following decades, he and the riflemen he led would do their best to even the score. www.warstoriescast.com Become a War Stories supporter on Patreon

After hearing the news about the discovery of the Indianapolis wreck, we thought we should unlock this Patreon episode that we recorded over the course of the summer. Make sure you sign up if you'd like more of them hitting your download queue in the future! www.warstoriescast.com Become a War Stories supporter on Patreon

What is it that makes a good marksman? Is it their training? Their weapon? Maybe they’re just born that way, or raised with a rifle in their hands. In our Season Two premiere, we take a look at the shift to the modern rifle and the individuals who sometimes had the power to change the course of an entire battle with their weapon. www.warstoriescast.com Become a War Stories supporter on Patreon