Loose Rounds #1 - Mortars

02/19/18 • 38 min

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

Loose Rounds show page

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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 effective: camouflage patterns in clothing that allow soldiers to hide in their environments, infrared glint tape that helps designate friend from foe to aircraft up above a battlefield, shipping containers that changed the way militaries could move, to only name a few. In each episode of Loose Rounds, the War Stories team takes a look at one of these underrated technologies and traces its importance throughout history.

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2.8 - The White Feather

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.

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