Podcasts by War Stories

A Most Unlikely Race from 2021-06-23T22:00

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 int...

The 82nd's Almost Mission to Rome from 2020-11-12T17:16:53

There were a lot of crazy ideas in World War II. But possibly none more than dropping the 82nd Airborne Division on Rome in order to seize it after Italy capitulated. In this episode, Angry Staf...

Bats! The Musical from 2020-05-21T18:30

Nearly every one of our episodes focused on humans' interactions with a particular type of inanimate object on the battlefield, sometimes the way in which the object is wielded by others, someti...

A Very Special Lexington and Concord Reading from 2020-04-12T11:30

Hello! We've missed you during our extended hiatus.

As both Staffer and Adin have been holed up in their respective bunkers and finishing up their book projects, they found some extra tim...

Loose Rounds #9 - AUSA Live Show from 2018-12-03T03:30

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, br...

Loose Rounds #8 - Wheels from 2018-09-17T02:30

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 developmen...

Loose Rounds #7 - Ship Design from 2018-08-21T16:00

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...

Loose Rounds #6 - Cartography from 2018-07-16T02:30

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 f...

Loose Rounds #5 - Field Rations from 2018-06-18T02:30

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 ...

Loose Rounds #4 - Communications from 2018-05-18T02:30

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: firs...

Loose Rounds #3 - Logistics from 2018-04-16T02:30

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 s...

2.9 - The Once and Future Sniper from 2018-04-09T02:30

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 k...

Loose Rounds #2 - Blood Transfusions from 2018-03-19T02:30

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...

2.8 - The White Feather from 2018-03-05T03:30

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, w...

Loose Rounds #1 - Mortars from 2018-02-19T03:30

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 tur...

Loose Rounds Trailer from 2018-02-12T03:30

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 st...

2.7 - A Soviet Sniper's American Journey from 2018-02-05T03:30

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 Na...

2.6 - The White Death from 2018-01-08T03:00

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...

2.5 - A Duel in the Trenches from 2017-12-04T03:00

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 o...

2.4 - The Fighters of the Black Snake's Den from 2017-10-31T13:32:17

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 ri...

2.3 - Individualism Comes to Warfare from 2017-10-02T02:00

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 ...

2.2 - Morgan's Lucky (or Unlucky) Riflemen from 2017-09-04T12:36:42

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.<...

Bonus Episode - The U.S.S. Indianapolis from 2017-08-20T13:06:02

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 yo...

2.1 - Edward Braddock Walks into a Bullet from 2017-08-07T02:00

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 ...

Season Two Trailer from 2017-07-31T02:00

Next week, Season Two of War Stories launches, but for those of you who can't wait to figure out the subject we're covering, we've got a shot trailer for you. Enjoy.

Listen

Interseason #3 - World War III, Almost from 2017-07-17T02:00

While the world watched Cuba as it became a potential nuclear missile launch site, another threat lay off the east coast in the Sargasso Sea. Four Soviet submarines waited for the outbreak of ho...

Interseason #2 - Armor from a Long Time Ago... from 2017-04-24T02:00

In our second interseason episode, Angry Staff Officer and Adin look at the tragic decline of armor in the Star Wars universe and explore why it might have occurred.

Listen

Interseason #1 - Operation Vengeance from 2017-04-03T02:00

In the first of our interseason episodes, Adin tells the story of the encrypted messages received by the United States on the 13th and 14th of April 1943 and arguably the most important decapita...

1.8 - Where Do We Go From Here? from 2017-03-13T02:00

Over the past seven episodes, we've traced the development of armored warfare through the end of traditional, horse-driven cavalry to the armored warfare of Desert Storm. But as military planner...

1.7 - A (Desert) Storm is Brewing from 2017-02-20T12:41:56

The battles of 73 Easting, Medina Ridge, and Norfolk. Were they the pinnacle of the near century of tank warfare we've covered in season one, or the last gasp?

Listen

1.6 - Task Force Zvika from 2017-01-16T03:30

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of the 1970s emphasized a number of qualities: proactive leadership, heroism, and a recognition of the young life of their country that rose in the wake of great...

1.5 - Tigers on the Eastern Front from 2016-12-12T04:00

Nazi Germany fielded a military with many components designed to amaze as much as to destroy. While this philosophy meant that many designs never left the drawing board, one that did was the Tig...

1.4 - The Tank Destroyers of El Guettar from 2016-11-14T03:00

The 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion, the first of its kind, was stood up in 1941. The theory governing their use had yet to be tested on the field of battle. In November of the following year, Li...

1.3 - Seseña: The Interwar Proving Ground from 2016-10-17T01:00

Well before the threat of World War II entered societies' collective minds, smaller regional conflicts gradually simmered away across Europe. One of these, the Spanish Civil War, might not have ...

1.2 - Patton at the Saint-Mihiel Salient from 2016-09-19T01:00

Near the end of 1917, a young captain by the name of George S. Patton received orders from the chief of the newly created U.S. Tank Corps, Colonel Samuel Rockenbach. His task was to launch the l...

1.1 - High Wood (Prologue) from 2016-09-06T16:02:56

In Northern France on July 14th, 1916, a cavalry unit from Hyderabad made what most consider to be the final cavalry charge of World War I before the invention of tanks. The unit, Deccan Horse, ...