Speaker 1: The best way to support this show is by going
to patreon dot com slash softcore History. We get two
additional episodes every week and a three year evergreen back
catalog of ad free content. Again that is pictreon dot
com slash software History.
Speaker 2: This week on softcore History, we are talking about my
favorite war crime America ever committed. In World War One.
America hit the battlefield and the Germans were immediately like, whoa, whoa,
you guys are going way too hard. That is way
too much. What you are doing is a war crime.
That weapon you are using using it is a war crime.
Please stop. You know what the American said, We said no,
So learn about my favorite American war crime in World
War One. It's not really a war crime today right
now on softcore.
Speaker 3: History, Welcome to softcore History. What is up?
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Softcore History. I am your host for
the week, Rob Fox, joined as always by Dan Regester.
Speaker 1: You got a little zen in your mouth?
Speaker 3: Huh uh?
Speaker 2: Forgive me father, for I have zend zen.
Speaker 3: Daddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now I want to know I've been zenning in
front of my wife.
Speaker 1: They don't sponsor the show, by the way.
Speaker 2: But no, they don't. Lucy by Lucy. Actually, if you're
gonna buy anything, because they sponsor our other employers, but
not until they pay us.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, But I've been zenning in front of my wife.
She hasn't noticed. And I know people who know my
wife listen to this, and I know my wife would
be not thrilled that I start begun to zen, So
don't tell her that. Guys, don't inform my wife that
I'm throwing us in in. I actually had it in
just to see if she would notice.
Speaker 3: Multiple time.
Speaker 1: I guess it beats.
Speaker 4: You smell your breath, and I can smell someone's breath
when they's in. I know there's inn. It's minty. Have
you always had a minty fresh breath always?
Speaker 3: Oh? That makes sense? Then? Yeah.
Speaker 1: He brushes his teeth twelve times a day, twelve.
Speaker 2: Times a day. I'm terribly afraid of ginger vite.
Speaker 1: He currently has no gums.
Speaker 3: It's bad.
Speaker 2: They bleed when a breeze hits them, like he was
adush if I smile on.
Speaker 3: A breeze, all teeth. Yeah.
Speaker 2: We're joined today by our returning guest, but our first
time expert guest, Scott Lopez.
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, how's it going.
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. By the way, you're the one that
did the episode I'm Bleeding Kansas.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't think Max Martini was an expert on
D Day.
Speaker 2: It turns out he is not a method actor.
Speaker 1: Didn't know what goddamn think about sim Brett Ryne. You
put a helmet on and showed up, which I respect. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because really the first expert of anything you've had
on about a topic.
Speaker 2: Maybe we have my pregnant wife on and an episode
about pregnancy, but she didn't feel I didn't feel like
she knew.
Speaker 3: What she was talking about.
Speaker 1: No, well, she didn't have a kid up until that point.
It wasn't about pregnancy there, it was about being a mother,
so she had no experience.
Speaker 3: True.
Speaker 2: True, she was praying with our first child.
Speaker 3: That's really funny.
Speaker 1: Jake's been on obviously many episodes where he leads the conspiracy. Well,
Jake did an oyster episode, but he had not done
oyster farming yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I will say what I was gonna say was, actually,
I've been an expert on the show before. Because you
did Bleeding Kansas, it doesn't mean it and I'm an
expert on Bleeding Kansas. That's why I wanre my Mizoo
gir today would be kay. You go listen to Dan's
Bleeding Kansas episode if you want to hear my hatred
for that.
Speaker 1: Stay you're a propaganda piece or whatever. He's just the
mouthpiece for Miszoo.
Speaker 2: For the Missourians, for the Bushwhackers. Look, we've all made mistakes.
I'm just getting fuck Kansas.
Speaker 3: So why are you spitting with the zen? Why not?
Speaker 1: You can suck?
Speaker 2: I know I do both, but I'm a little baby
with nicotine.
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: You want to feel like you're actually dipping.
Speaker 4: It does feel cool to spit, but also it's gross.
Do you leave cups everywhere.
Speaker 3: Or bottle I don't do that.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're gonna do that, let's get a spatoon.
Speaker 2: We should get a spatoon, like an old Western spatoon.
Speaker 3: I'm down with that.
Speaker 1: Somebody can send it.
Speaker 3: In, give it its own mic, we can hear it
when it thinks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but today we're talking about some weaponry. Scott, what
is it? What is your background? You don't need to
say who you work for, but you are a gun maker.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I've been a fan of guns my whole life. I
joined the military and shot a bunch of guns, rocket launchers,
you name it. And then over the past four years
almost I make guns now, so what kind of guns?
Speaker 3: Handguns? Handguns?
Speaker 4: Mostly yeah, mostly mostly handguns. We've dabbled in other things before,
but currently we just make handguns.
Speaker 1: Now, we're not saying the organization because he's a FED,
he's under cover FED.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, he's collecting information. He wrote down everyone who wore
a Trump Vance Take America back shirt at his at
his work, which was everyone. Uh so they didn't even
really need you there. It was just like who works there.
Speaker 1: They're all getting part in it anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the best undercover FEDS look like me. Yes, long hair,
a puka shell necklace, and a beaver costume.
Speaker 3: They'd never suspect you. Yeah, that's why they're building dams.
Speaker 2: That's my favorite thing about late stage Ku Klux Klan
is it was just like half FBI agents, not like
joining it, like like infiltrating. It's all FBI dudes.
Speaker 4: My my ex girlfriend's mom said that she did that
to infiltrate the clan, but really.
Speaker 3: I think she was just she was That's what they
that's what everyone said to the clan. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now Pukashell in Texas puts everyone's mind in a pretzel. Like,
who's this guy who's pukashell necklace?
Speaker 3: He's one chill Ombra. They say Central Texas. There's water Texas.
Speaker 4: Who is kind of pukash shell territory. Not really, This
is Austin hippie dude. I have a salt life tramp stamp. Okay,
I'm about that life you.
Speaker 1: Catch them wave.
Speaker 2: Also, yeah, he looks like he has a timeshare on
the Gallison coast.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: That would make more sense. Yeah, on the coast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you work at a restaurant that's South Padre.
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly right, just as a cook a line shot
yeah yeah, not even anything cool?
Speaker 3: Yeah man, so life, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: But today we are talking about maybe my favorite war
for firearms because it was such a transitional period.
Speaker 1: Were talking about the Pressure War.
Speaker 2: No, we're talking about World War One because that was
like steampunk war.
Speaker 3: Oh cool.
Speaker 4: There's still some World War One guns currently in Ukraine
right now. It's pretty wild.
Speaker 2: We saw that. I saw better than that today, Ben
and Kansas shout out. He sent me a video from Syria.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: They were using a two hundred year old Ottoman cannon
on the back of a truck.
Speaker 3: That was it a highlux too, like a tod a
high lux?
Speaker 2: Uh, it was a little bigger than that.
Speaker 3: Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 1: Well listen check out patreon dot com slash softcore history
where we actually talk about Syria.
Speaker 3: Whoa do we?
Speaker 1: I was writing an episode in midway through the news
broke that Syria has fallen.
Speaker 2: Oh we're talking about okay this week?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh just recent hell yeah, so we'll talk about that
on this Wednesday. Yeah, patroont coms last software history. But
what do you guys think? World War One was full
of nightmare weapons? Possibly even more than World War Two? Really,
what do you guys think the worst thing the Germans
faced in World War One was flame throwers gas tanks.
Speaker 4: For the first time, I'd have to say for them,
the like seventeen year old American with a slam fire
shotgun and a sword on the end of it.
Speaker 2: That's what we're talking about today. Yeah, fucking goddamn shotguns,
specifically the Winchester Model ninety seven pump action shot.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say the bio of the French I
think they're pretty.
Speaker 4: In the bio of just dead bodies all around you,
with rats eating them. It probably just all smelled and
you couldn't tell a Frenchman from everyone corporates.
Speaker 2: Everyone was French hy Yeah, and not at first, but
two weeks into the trenches, everyone smelled French. I would say,
I would, I would take a guess. What's funny to
me though about World War One that I was thinking
about is that, like it was such and freshly advanced
technological war, like in a way that I don't I
was trying to think of what a modern comp would
be like, what would it be like? And the best
thing I could come up with, like from a movie,
is like that scene in Transformers where the troops are
in the desert and that scorpion robot just starts popping
out of the ground. Yep, and Tyres and Josh duml
are like, what the fuck that is? Like every month
in World War One was basically a scorpion robot propping
out of the ground.
Speaker 1: But now insert like a million dead horses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: People don't think about the horses that were all just
littered across the You know, man's.
Speaker 4: Still doing cavalry charges is wild, That's so crazy, a
fucking night.
Speaker 2: Like like literally like it's it's shit. So we talked
about We talked about this in the Hannibal episod, right,
like like elephants were so terrifying to like the Romans
and stuff. It would be the equivalent of like people
riding out of the sea today on giant octopuses and
you're just like, look like people are just killing themselves instead.
Speaker 3: Of they're like what if that?
Speaker 2: Like fuck, fuck it, I'm out. I can't deal with this.
That Like World War One was like that, but machines.
I feel like like it's like or like you know,
the the tripods pop up and wore the worlds and
everyone was like what the fuck that? Every month in
World War One is a new thing, Like what's that
cloud on the ground coming towards us? What is this?
What is this fucking giant metal box with eight machine
guns on it crawling.
Speaker 3: Towards us going three miles an hour?
Speaker 2: What a flamethrower? Like a flamethrower is like, what do
you mean they're throwing flames at us?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they do a pretty good job on it.
Speaker 3: And then you see like your first person die from
a flamethrower. You go, what, no, I've gotten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a scene in all Quiet on the Western
Front that like really hammers at home, like.
Speaker 2: Just with both yeah, tanks and flamethrow.
Speaker 1: I think the flamethrowers come after the tanks. Yeah, And
he's just like what and yeah, it's this.
Speaker 2: The Germans are just like I don't know what that
is or what to do.
Speaker 4: The other I got told to go to the front
lines yesterday. I was just on a farm a week ago.
Speaker 2: But for Germany, none of those weapons apparently bothered them
as much as the Winchester Model ninety seven pump action
shotgun aka the trench broom YEP, which is one of
my favorite weapon nicknames of all Goddamn time.
Speaker 1: I didn't care for the finger wag.
Speaker 2: You just did the trench broom. Well, this is this
is Z rob points fingerways, energies.
Speaker 1: High spirit fingers because you just be ku.
Speaker 2: Oh boy m I Z baby fuck k you. We
got a live fuck Ku chan on on ESPN. It
was great, What a day?
Speaker 3: What a day.
Speaker 2: I definitely wasn't screaming at my television, thank god. By
my children were napping.
Speaker 1: They're not conscious, They're not really gonna comprehend what's going on.
Speaker 2: No, they were both awake during the gold medal game
against France. Yeah, and Steph Curry like, you know, it
got a little tight at the end, and Steph Curry
hit the big three.
Speaker 3: After big three.
Speaker 2: When Steph Curry hit I think his second three, I
just go.
Speaker 4: Fuck yeah, and they get scared.
Speaker 3: Rory just was like, I was like a whole buddy.
Speaker 2: I was trying to comfort him while still watching the game.
Speaker 1: It was a happy their kids soft.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Finn was like, yeah, America.
Speaker 1: Good dude, Rory. He thinks he's this big, bad boy,
but the minute you can confront him, you just get
in his face. Cries like that little baby is that's true.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 2: The trench broom was such a devastating weapon that the
Germans feared so much, allegedly that they literally complained that
it was a war crime.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the saying goes, it's not a war crime
if it's the first time. And so America was like,
what are you gonna do about.
Speaker 2: It, dude, don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness. Yeah,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the model, it's not written down, it's not
against the rules.
Speaker 2: And you know what's ironic, about this. This wasn't in my notes,
but I read it and i'll I'll say it now.
Is earlier at the nineteen oh seven convention in the
hag This is sort of the pre Geneva Convention. Geneva Convention,
the same way the League Nations was the pre un
U n At the nineteen oh seven convention, the Americans
wanted to put in rules about certain types of AMMO
and stuff like that that would have potentially included the
the AMMO they were using in the Winchester and the
Germans are like, no, you bitches, fuck you, that's fun,
my dick. So the Model eighteen ninety seven. This is
where your expertise comes in. I don't know how much you
know about shotguns, but you know more than us. Uh God.
It's an external hammer shotgun lacking a quote unquote trigger
disconnector basically, like you said, it's a slam fire. You
hold the trigger down and you just pump to your
heart's content.
Speaker 4: Yep, yeah, that's exactly how it works. Now you gotta,
you know, pull the trigger that releases your action to
to pump it. Once you go forward, you can pull
the trigger again. These slam fires, it's just you hold
the trigger down and as you pump it forward, it
just goes off once you chamber that new round. I
guess the firing pin is just forward. Maybe that could
be part of it too. When you slam that action
for the firing pin just hits that round and goes
to work.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's really cool, and they don't make them anymore.
They don't make slam fires. You might be able to
find like a cheap shotgun. I can't accident it's even legal, right.
It might be something where you needed like a level
three tax stamp, similar to like a fully auto thing. Yeah,
you can get those old Winchester ninety seven's that still
do slam fire. They're very expensive, but you might need
a special permit for that, just like a suppressor or
things like.
Speaker 2: That, because it it is only I guess technically semi automatic, right, Yeah,
would be the way to describe it. I suppose I
have to do an action every time to fire it still.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But now the question everyone's probably wondering has on
their mind right now, were there more rounds pumped in
the trenches by this gun or by the soldiers themselves
just releasing some rounds?
Speaker 2: I gotta think, actually, you know, how could you possibly
jerk off on a trench?
Speaker 4: Could you even be so easy? We did it in
porta potties all the time.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's a hundred times. But how many
how many bodies were being eaten by rats?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: What was the nearest body being eaten by rats to
you jerking off when you were overseas?
Speaker 3: None? But also we did not even overseas.
Speaker 4: Just we'd be in Texas training and I'm gonna go
rubing off in the woods real quick, like your boys
are like kind of all around you and leave me
alone and they know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Not to mention this is a war where you just
kind of like sad a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you're there for it, to guess for a
week and you haven't jacked off once, you're going to
want to. Yeah, I suppose eventually, like you just like
need to, especially if there is if there's like a
German in my trench and I'm like, I'm gonna nut
in his face, like because he's dead.
Speaker 3: That might be a thing.
Speaker 2: Oh German chizrag right, German com dumpstair be kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Somebody in World War One definitely got jacked off.
Speaker 2: On a dead body, without question, got jerked off.
Speaker 4: On, I would say so, And yeah, war's crazy. It
does crazy things to people. So I wouldn't put it
past anyone to do that.
Speaker 3: Okay, it makes total sense.
Speaker 4: Then you get home and you're like, fuck, I really
did that.
Speaker 3: You got some nightmares maybe, but then you could over it.
Speaker 2: That's what alcohols were, Yeah, exactly. That was medicine back then. Yeah,
like legally, so, yeah, you just drink a lot and
you're fine. So the Scientific American wrote about the Winchester
at the time. When fired, the new American gun sprays
the contents of each shell over an area measuring nine
feet horror only, it's about a nine feet spray and
three feet vertically, which means you can't miss. Yep, if
you're pretty close to someone, you can't miss. It's almost
it says, it's almost impossible not to hit a large
number of enemy infant infantrymen coming in the attack of
a typical mass formation of Germans.
Speaker 1: Now was it required for them to go bird shot? Buckshot?
Bird shot? Bookshot?
Speaker 3: That'd be really funny.
Speaker 2: So the buck shot was double oh buck shot. Yeah,
so it was point a point three three point three
three inches across the biggest. It's the biggest buck.
Speaker 4: Shot, I think, yeah, yeah, double lot buck and it's
probably got nine pellets that I am not the the
shotgun guy. I have a couple of shotguns used for
like dove hunting and things like that. Right, use a
bird shot for the most part.
Speaker 3: Which you can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I assume a buck shot would just evaporate the bird, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: But usually buckshot has like right around nine pellets in
there or BB's whatever you want to call it. And
that's and they're big that that'll kill you. One one
of them in the right spot will still kill you.
A couple in your arm will take it off. Also
depends on distance and things like that. But and in
a trench, the further you are away, the larger the
spread is too, right, And that's the cool thing about
the trench warfare with the shotgun is they would bayonet
someone and then just slam fire through them to kill
the friends behind.
Speaker 3: You have a human.
Speaker 4: Shield, fucking noth and like a couple of feet, that
spread is a couple inches. It's not going right nine
feet by three feet or whatever it's gonna be. And
so you're just putting rounds through this trench, through a
dude's body at very close range, putting fist sized holes
and some on and then and it's a hole, right,
it's a fist sized hole. When it exits, you know,
it bounces off bones and organs and all kinds of stuff.
So the exit wound is a basketball check that point,
and you're seeing your friends in front of you getting.
Speaker 3: Shot like that.
Speaker 1: They say the shotgun is the best for home defense
because not only are you going to get the intruder
right in front of you, but your wife and kids
in the corn. It might catch them too, so you
can start a new life.
Speaker 2: I agree it just it gives you options.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I will say to the people who say
shotgun is the best for home defense because it doesn't
overpenetrate your walls to your neighbor's house, it's fake.
Speaker 3: Drywall is very thin.
Speaker 4: Any bullet or any shotgun around will go through the
dry wall as well. But it is still pretty good
because you don't have to be like for your wife,
give them a shotgun.
Speaker 3: You don't got to aim as much. You'll be all right.
Speaker 1: Now we've discussed this in previous episodes, but if your
walls are made of water. Though, you're good, good to go.
The minute it hits water, it's done. Everyone should have
water walls, a layer of water to protect your neighbors. Yeah, exactly,
it's probably good. For instance, should be a water world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, around little sea world. Yeah, just a whole.
Speaker 4: That's so funny. Your whole house is an aquarium essentially,
that'd be so cool.
Speaker 2: And then obviously you sleep on a waterbed and it's yep,
just a nice little light. They said the penetrating power
of the buckshot. Uh, the hail of lead went through
a two inch plank with plenty of energy left for
further damage at one hundred and fifty yards from the muzzle.
Speaker 4: Uh, probably not, you don't think so, No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's their fifty yards pretty far.
Speaker 2: I know that's what I that was, and that's from
the scientific American but fair enough.
Speaker 3: I mean, hey, if they proved that one round did that,
I guess it's true. Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, as you said, you could also put a
bayonet on it. And World War One bayonets were fucking
huge swords.
Speaker 3: Yep. Yeah, so cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you have like a and also, you know, Americans,
I think we're taller than most Europeans at the time too,
So you have like a taller person with the sword
coming at you, and your friend just got evaporated, and
you're like, dude, what is that thing.
Speaker 1: As a hole in the stomach?
Speaker 2: I mean, it is essentially the It sounds to me
like it's basically the equivalent of like you have a
personal cannon with grape shot in it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exact, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Like then the old Napoleon Civil War, like you see,
like they change out the AMMO long range in the
direct artillery cannons is a ball or maybe an exploding
shell depending on the era, but shorter range, they put
in grape shot. Napoleon famously said, give them a whiff
a grape shot, but he was shooting at civilians.
Speaker 3: Either way.
Speaker 2: So this thing, as you can imagine, fucked people up
so much so that on the nineteenth of September nineteen eighteen,
the German government issued a diplomatic protest against the American
use of shotguns, saying that the shotgun was prohibited by
the laws of war. The Germans said it is especially
forbidden to employ arms, projections or materials calculated to cause
unnecessary suffering.
Speaker 3: That's wild.
Speaker 4: So I guess if you do get shot, I mean, well,
unnecessarily suffering is getting shot in any appenage that doesn't
kill you no matter what.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if that's what the yeah like,
it's like.
Speaker 3: A shot on the arm by a rifle. I'm like, ow, yeah,
it's gonna hurt.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna suffer if you get the ifect my arm
gets blown out by a shotgun, I'm still suffering.
Speaker 2: I guess maybe you suffer more like it's an immediate
arm loss, like.
Speaker 3: Which I guess.
Speaker 2: The Germans also said if they caught any Americans, captured
any Americans with the shotgun or even shotgun shells on them, uh,
they would be executed immediately. The German the quote was
the German government protests against the use of shotguns by
the American Army and calls attention to the fact that,
according to the law of war, every prisoner of war
found to have in his possession such guns or ammunition
belonging there too, forfeits his life.
Speaker 4: That's wild because also at the time, well the time,
I couldn't tell you, but I'd imagine nowadays if there
was something so lethal as a shotgun i'd have if
I was a squadalor I'd have my whole squad at
least carry shells, you know, yeah, just like, hey, I'm out,
Like I just killed a fuck ton of dudes and
then my buddy has here's five more shells to refill
your two.
Speaker 3: But then i'd have everyone have a shell back then who.
Speaker 4: Knows if they did or not, but yeah, to execute
anyone they capture with shells is crazy.
Speaker 2: Because I mean, you know you want that guy like
that guy is probably if cause it's not every everyone
in the unit doesn't have a shotgun. Yeah, exactly, so
you want that guy, or I guess if you can
trade you want to trade off if that guy's like
I'm a little trumped out, like whoever has the shotgun
is kind of taking point down the trend.
Speaker 4: Or if he dies and you pick up his shotgun,
you want to have rounds instead of grabbing it off
of him, right, right, right? Even if I wasn't a
shotgunner back then, I would have shells with me just
in case I needed to grab that gun because my
bolt action didn't work. And oh cool, a perfectly good shotgun. Right,
I'm in close quarters. I don't want to have a
bolt action.
Speaker 2: You just hopped into a trench. Yeah, I would much
rather have this than like a yeah Springfield bolt action exactly.
Speaker 1: The crowds are just making things up as they go.
They started the war anyway, so they definitely are.
Speaker 2: Making things up as they go, and they used a
I mean they were pretty like we like to say,
like everyone was kind of a bad guy in World
War One, but like he.
Speaker 1: Was definitely the biggest dick of a cousin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really obscures the fact that the Germans were
still probably the bigger assholes. Yes, but it's just like
everyone was an asshole.
Speaker 1: He was the one that was starting all the problems.
All the other cousins kind of came together if he
was just like civil and didn't want to play these
like games of chicken with human lives, imperial chess.
Speaker 3: Type of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it was the Germans who were the angriest
about nothing angry.
Speaker 1: He also survived right, like he went on and just
lived a normal life after World War One.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he actually died early into World War two, just
of old age or whatever. But yes, he was deposed
and went to live in like Denmarkers.
Speaker 1: And he's like shit talking Hitler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did actually send Hitler congratulatory note when he
conquered France.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. Yeah, and Hitler was like, fuck, didn't think
they were like boys.
Speaker 3: They weren't.
Speaker 2: Hitler and all the German high command, who were like
kind of low level World War One veterans like fuck.
Speaker 1: Diasas Wilhelm, right, yeah, Wilhelm.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So they sent the US this you know, warning,
and the US was like, if we find out that
you they're like, hey, fuck.
Speaker 3: You, this is legal.
Speaker 2: And b if we find out that you executed one
single one of our guys for simply having a shotgun
or whatever, we will do something back horrible to any
prisoners you have, Like we will fuck your prisoners up.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: Just so you know, the Judge Advocate General of the Army,
Robert Lansing, uh and I guess Secretary say, Robert Lansing,
I'm sorry, you know, judge avacate general was a Samuel
t Ansel. He essentially was like, we're using the shotgun.
Speaker 3: Because it kills people. Yeah, and this is a.
Speaker 2: War, so we're gonna keep killing you.
Speaker 1: You guys are like gassing us. Yeah, I don't think
this is unfair. They're like, we like, do you know
what happen? You know where we are, there's by a
warfare happening. We're using a gun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like fucking deal with it. And they did point
out they were like, we tried to make this illegal.
You didn't want it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'd rather go out shotgun than mustard gas.
Speaker 2: It like melts off your skin and the shit fucks
up your I mean it's bad.
Speaker 1: Well, you'll be able to grow this luscious beard.
Speaker 4: Most people still survived that, and so you're just sick
and in pain. But I don't think it was that
lethal right as far as gas goes.
Speaker 2: I don't know how like maybe lethal it.
Speaker 3: Was eventually, I think it just became annoying, Like.
Speaker 2: No, it's still fucked you out. Here's a this is
a man who is mustard gased.
Speaker 1: It kills you.
Speaker 3: He looks like he's having a good time.
Speaker 1: Even if you survive, it kills you. I mean you
don't you're life the rest absolutely yeaheah, it's it's it's tenures. Yeah,
that's still good. You're getting no pussy if you get
mustard gased. Yeah, this guy's face melted, you're a ghoul. Yeah, uh,
it's not good.
Speaker 2: So like, oh yeah, I guess it's not killing them,
but it is still causing undue suffering. But there was
another reason apparently the Germans wanted to put this out
there that the Americans were, why the Americans were using shotguns,
and why they thought it was bad.
Speaker 3: It was a PR move twofold pr move.
Speaker 2: First off, they wanted to seem morally superior to the
Americans who were using these horrible weapons while everyone else
was just using standard issue chlorine gas and stuff, I guess,
like mustard gas, whatever the fuck.
Speaker 1: Trying to take the moral high ground, like it's a
UFC fight. He's on gas, We're not on gas. He's
on steroids. We're not on steroids. Right, it's a fight.
Speaker 2: And they also wanted to portray Americans as barbarians basically,
as others, like they weren't fighting like like good civilized.
Speaker 3: Europhan in the fields of battle.
Speaker 2: So they wanted to other us to the French and
British as well. And I'll get to that in a second.
But firstly, they wanted to scare the shit out of
their own people and reaffirm the righteous righteousness of their cause.
Several German newspapers wrote scathing propaganda editorials about our barbarous
Western ways and when I say western, I mean like
cowboy ways. The Cologne Gazette wrote that Tommy hawks is in,
tomahawks and scalping knives would soon make their appearance on
the American front. Americans are not honorable warriors, so they
thought we were gonna go like Native American on them.
Speaker 3: That would be pretty cool for us. Yeah, yeah, yeah
for that.
Speaker 2: But they were just like, dude, they're about to fucking
start scalping people. You're gonna get an axe to the face.
Get ready. The war's night like it is. Fighting me
that in nineteen eighteen, they're like, yeah, well, guess what.
This war is not gonna be so fun anymore now
that the Americans are in it. You thought it was
bad before.
Speaker 4: We have trench clubs. They have trench axes and tomahawks.
Speaker 3: That's not right.
Speaker 2: Trench cannons yeah, apparently full of grape shots. Another newspaper
wrote the barbarous shotguns have not been served out because
they are likely to be effective, but because the ill
trained Americans cannot use rifles and are badly supplied with
machine guns. So we're just this poor dog shit country,
too stupid and dishonorable to hit a target with a rifle.
So we're just a bunch of like mouth breathers running
around with big fucking hand cannons. We look and then
you know, scalping what's left of your head.
Speaker 1: It's almost bad shots.
Speaker 4: Well, it's crazy to me that these shotguns were so
effective because you can only have six rounds in the gun,
so once you fire off six, you're not you load it.
You're probably gonna go to your pistol, which is also
terrifyingcause we had the nineteen elevens which were like the
best pistol there's Paul, those forty five caliber or say thing,
but not only have seven shots I guess eight if
you have one in the chamber.
Speaker 3: But you don't have a whole lot of ammo in
these things.
Speaker 4: So for them to be so terrified, or for these
to be so effective with the round capacity that they
have is wild. Well, I mean, I assume because it's
it's six shots and then you're done, like that's it.
Speaker 3: You got to reload and shotgun at a time. Not easy.
Speaker 2: I assume it's like you pop it. You jump into
the trench, slam, lam, lam, slam as much, you know,
maybe like you know, you're not firing off all six
at once, maybe it's like two or three. Then you
move a little bit. Yeah, neither two or three, and
then your boys come up ahead of you and kind
of lock it down.
Speaker 3: Yeah you reload, Yeah exactly. That would be my good
tactic actually, yeah, pretended what you would do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, see Opening in the Dark, Knight at the bank
and he's like he's out right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, where'd you learn to count?
Speaker 4: I love when movies round count because like I wouldn't know,
do you what gun is that?
Speaker 3: That's my favorite.
Speaker 4: Also, did hen loaded to the actual capacity of the magazine?
Like he might have just put three in there for
some reason?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like he's in a hurry, you know.
Speaker 4: And also like most handguns these days, like a full
size has seventeen rounds in the magazine. You know your
compacts carry for the most part, ten rounds. Okay, that's
a lot of ammo. Yeah to me to be counting
who's shooting with what gun, Like if there's multiple people shooting,
I'm not keeping.
Speaker 2: Tracking, no idea. That's my favorite running bit in archer
is that he always knows the round count. Yeah, Like,
how did you know that? And he's like, because it's
my job. It's like yells at p He's like, I
enjoy how like competent he is.
Speaker 4: I don't even know my round count and I'm the
one shooting the gun. Like for the most part, I'm
like decent with it. Yeah, but no, I don't know
if I fired sixteen rounds out of my thirty round magazine.
Speaker 3: Or I like that.
Speaker 2: This definitely exists, but I feel like it should exist
more for in the military. Maybe is that sweet ass
counter on the side of the gun and aliens? Yeah,
you know what I mean, Like it literally just took
on the pulse rifles and aliens like it literally just
they have it's a ninety nine round capacity and they
just fire it, you know. But there's like a little
little like what do you call it, like alarm clock
looking counter because it's the.
Speaker 4: Eighties, someone made that for the clock. Actually, oh really
so like the back plate because there's no hammer on those.
It's just like a little striker pin or striker plate.
But someone made that like a couple of years ago.
I saw it at Chatcho and it had a round
count thing. But also it only counted based on a
full magazine. So if you like did if you're at
the range training and each have like five rounds in
the mag it'll assume you had the full seventeen in there. Okay,
because I don't know how it works. There's no good
way for it to like, there's no way possible for
it to know how many you put in the magazine.
It just assumed you put in the seventeen, right, So
it worked, and you still have to do the math.
Expect I'll put five in, yeah, and then when you
get to twelve, you're like, cool, that's about yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: I only know my round count in my monthly games
of Russian Roulette.
Speaker 4: How many more times do you have and until it's
the time for the bolt to drive?
Speaker 1: Oh, it depends how many times I get in deep
with the Philippine people that I gamble with.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, So it's not just the same gun every month.
You just fire once and you put it back down.
You you cycle a cylinder every.
Speaker 1: O I load the gun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I rigged the game, gotcha, I'm not dying.
Speaker 2: Uh, you game with Filipinos now, Yeah, it's devolved quite
a bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's my darkest day.
Speaker 4: So you haven't gotten into cockfighting with the Philippines. They're
so into that, it's awesome. We don't do cockfighting.
Speaker 3: We do.
Speaker 1: We fight with little little lizards.
Speaker 3: Oh cool beard of dragon fighting. Do you guys put
blades on their hands too, it's razor blades.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes a little strap kind of like a like a
knife to his back.
Speaker 4: Do you give them like a little barbed necklace with
razor blades on so if they bite their neck they actually.
Speaker 3: Yeah, essentially, yes, that's the that's the word of that.
Speaker 1: One thing is essentially BattleBots with iguanas sick.
Speaker 3: I'll go to that.
Speaker 1: Lizards don't have souls, they're cold blooded.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Nothing there.
Speaker 2: Another reason the Germans wanted to portray the Americans this
way and thought the shotgun might be a useful avenue
to do that, was they wanted the Americans to maybe
have less autonomy the British and French. When the Americans
got here got to Europe, We're like, perfect, you're under
our command and we'll start plugging you into the lines
and general pershing.
Speaker 3: And the Americans were.
Speaker 2: Like fuck that, Like you show us where you need
us or you know where in line should we go.
We're in command of our own Like, we're not gonna
just give you what do you think this is. We're
just gonna give you soldiers for you to fucking command.
Are you fucking kidding? Like, I'm sure that's how it worked.
In fact, I'm positive that's how it worked for all
the English and French colonial troops that had to show up,
all the fucking bastard Indians and Algerians and shit that
had to just like pop into a trench because they
got conquered one hundred two years earlier. Yep, they're like, hey,
guess what, asshole, since your grandpa couldn't defend your homeland,
you got to go into a trench in a place
you never fucking heard of, Like we just have.
Speaker 3: To go to Hell.
Speaker 2: You have to go to Hell.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But then you could send in like snake charmers.
They could bring their cobras.
Speaker 2: Releasing cobras would have actually been hilarious.
Speaker 3: That'd been so cool.
Speaker 4: But wait, but actually that's that's where the snake charmber
comes in. So that cobra doesn't attack the wrong person.
Speaker 1: So he doesn't have a gun he only has a flute.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't shoot the flute guy. I was like shooting
the drummer boy in like Civil War. I got he's
laying some.
Speaker 1: Cool Yeah, but if you knew the flute guy had cobras,
you're taking the make them.
Speaker 4: Eventually, he's the number one target once you've learned he's
the one controlling the snake.
Speaker 2: But you know those the planes didn't fly that high
back then, they could have dropped cobras.
Speaker 3: Yeah, honestly, why not.
Speaker 1: That was the Indian regiment that's really not talked about it.
Speaker 2: Also, scorpions just like drop every manner of horrible bug
you can. Obviously, you got to do it in the summer.
It's not gonna work in December. Yeah, but like a
nice June day sunny, everyone's a little happy.
Speaker 1: Do scorpions land on their feet though, they'll be fine.
Speaker 4: Imagine so they gonna use their tail to be aerodynamic
and control the flow of travel.
Speaker 1: Rain and scorpions would just be terrifying.
Speaker 2: I'd be like, I'm done, Mount, I'm done, this is over.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, I suppose that becomes a little problematic when you
eventually take that trench.
Speaker 3: But that's what.
Speaker 1: Flanthrowers are for take care of the vermin.
Speaker 4: Well, when you get bored and you're like, oh cool,
scorpion versus rat battle, Oh hell you put you put
them in a box and just see what happens.
Speaker 3: Oh hell yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you were you deployed in the wreck?
Speaker 3: No? No, were you in Afghanistan? Yeah? Yeah? Okay.
Speaker 2: Were there scorpions in Afghanistan? I feel like it's a
little mountainous.
Speaker 3: I never saw if they were, I didn't see them. Yeah.
It also kind of.
Speaker 4: Winter time for the most part when I was there.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, if they were there, they were more of
the giant fucking bugs.
Speaker 2: The camel spiders came.
Speaker 3: Oh, camel spiders are cool.
Speaker 4: Uh if you like they have such a strong exoskeleton
that when you step on them, you have to really
force your weight down after you step on them to
crush them. And they're trying to find shade, and so
they'll just chase your shadow to find shade and yah,
they're only trying to attack you, but they're hot, so
they want to find shadows and shade, so they chase
your shadow, but you run away from it and you're like,
oh god, yeah, but to kill one you have to
step on it. I mean it depends on the size obviously,
and then really crunched down on them. I remember they
got in your boots and your sleeping bags and all
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I remember there being like.
Speaker 2: Urban legends about that, Like when I was in college
and we were had first gotten into Iraq about like, dude, yeah,
this guy, I know, he fucking served in Iraq and
he like woke up in the middle of the night
and looked over and there was a camel spider just
eating his bunk mate's face.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't think so. I don't think that happened either.
Speaker 2: But at the time I was like, good lord, just
nuke that country, are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: I think they were.
Speaker 4: I think they were kind of venomous, but it just
kind of ate away at your skin a little bit.
It wasn't like you're getting right, you gotta get you know,
go to the hospital and get some anti biotics or
anti venom whatever.
Speaker 3: But they just kind of eroded your skin a little bit.
It was like, God damn it. Yeah, they weren't bad.
Speaker 2: I don't think they were just scary looking, terrifying. Yeah, yeah,
that makes sense. So to make sure that a the
Germans didn't know quite what the gun looked like, and
B because we weren't the only ones using shotguns. We
were just the only one using this bad ass motherfucker shotgun. Yeah,
and B to make sure that the French and British
didn't start to I guess buy this bullshit. I guess
the Americans basically censored the use of the gun or
like what the gun looked like.
Speaker 3: Throughout the whole war. Oh smart.
Speaker 2: They tried their best anyway. I don't know, not necessarily
that they succeeded.
Speaker 1: But Wilson was pretty good at controlling the media.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, uh, And I guess I guess that. I
don't know that they controlled the American media that well,
because we'll get to that in a little bit, But
I guess they they really kept a lid on on
exactly what.
Speaker 3: This gun was.
Speaker 2: And by the way, the Judge Advocate General ansel I
forgot this earlier. He he when responding to the Germans,
he was like, he literally was like, you use chlorine gas, flamethrowers,
And then I didn't realize this one. He was like,
you use fucking sawtooth bayonets. Yeah, and you're gonna whine
about a fucking shotgun.
Speaker 1: What it happens, Wilson's gonna infringe upon American citizens' rights. Dude,
fuck the Germans, Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I'll do it he wants. Yeah, but it
is funny to be like, what what the only use
of a saw tooth bayonet is to cause undue suffering,
Like a normal stab is more than enough. Yeah, Like
you are just trying to literally eviscerate someone with the
saw tooth bayonet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if they do survive it, the sewing process
is extremely difficult, so you're probably gonna dynam matter what.
Speaker 2: It's like a guaranteed like internal bleedout.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you know why they had the little point on
their helmets. I do, I told you, And so they
couldn't have this sword come directly down on their skull.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was an anti so the German needle helmet
whatever the fuck it was called, it was basically an
anti cavalry helmet.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, that the infantry had because.
Speaker 1: It would like glance you on the side.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh okay, we know a little bit about glancing
on the side of helmets and swords.
Speaker 3: On this set, were you the one that swung the sword.
Speaker 4: No, I think that was the the Lady Uncle Laser broud.
Speaker 3: Okay, and it was a dude in the helmet. Yeah,
which there's.
Speaker 1: Still blood on the helmet. It's on a skeleton right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's why they wore arming caps under their steel
helmets because the steel will still dig into your face.
Speaker 2: Right the metal hitting your fresh skin is still metal.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you need something else under there.
Speaker 4: And that's we're at the We're at the ren Fair.
That's what I was talking about, was the ren Fair.
Speaker 1: Bush just put his helmet on and uh, I think
Gordon and other people took turns just whack him in
the head with the real sword.
Speaker 3: It dented the helmet.
Speaker 4: It was everyone was scared because for some reason, we
all had our shirts off and not like a shirt
would help it. But if you swung hard enough and
it glanced off the helmet and hit their shoulder, it's
going in and listen.
Speaker 1: We have the video, so I'll just place it right
here so you can watch and talked over it on YouTube.
So YouTube dot com slash history. You can see Boush
getting hit in the head.
Speaker 2: With another frequent guest of the show was on mushrooms
two at the time, probably it was.
Speaker 4: It was scary, but I was you can hear me
laughing my ass off in the background.
Speaker 3: Dude, what a fucking lunatic. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I saw some of that video and booh, was like,
I'm scared, all right, I don't want to do it anymore.
Speaker 4: Looking back at it sober, they were pretty decent swings.
I thought they were very light taps, like no those
like I said, if they glanced off at the wrong angle,
it would have went in their shoulder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, because they were coming down. That's it,
because I think Dan's doing it sideways, which is the
only way to do Yeah, because if it goes down, maybe.
Speaker 3: Just don't do that. Guys, if you're listening right, don't
swing swords at your friends.
Speaker 1: It was pretty funny.
Speaker 4: And then the one guy who was throwing the sword
in the ground and I'm more in flip flops like
as I always do. And at one point the sword
fell over a couple inches like from my toes, and
I got that was scary. Like, let's just so I
just like moved my chair a little bit so the
sword wouldn't fall on my feet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, yeah, done it. Was a great nipe a
couple of times. Oh he was close.
Speaker 2: I like, by the way that if you subscribe to
our YouTube you can see the pink lighting on either
side making my cheeks look rosy and flush like. For
a minute, I was like, Man, is this in like
fucking up me up or something?
Speaker 1: Oh, you look like a vent I do I look?
Speaker 3: Oh? Man?
Speaker 2: One of the TFM commentars back in the day said,
I looked like Night of Living dummy. What was that
guy's name? Slappy?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and subscribe to see what I'm wearing, which is
always a fun thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I forgot to even mention it.
Speaker 3: I have a wolf T shirt on too.
Speaker 1: And I'm about to work the docks.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Man, we all look great today. It's always fun.
Speaker 2: So let's get to how this thing performed in combat
very well when it was used at the Battle of
bellw Wood, belly Wood the trench shotgun and basically allowed
the US troops to just mow down the advancing Germans.
A captain in an American engineering company who was there
told his hometown newspaper the shotgun volley was new to
them than being the Germans. Every time a gun fired,
three or four Germans would go down. The more the
surprise gripped them, the closer they would huddle together.
Speaker 3: Whoa, and the.
Speaker 2: Deadlier the fire had become. So the German the gun
scared the shit out of the Germans, and they were
like oh, and they went to hug their friends. And
then that made it easier for the guns to literally
rip holes in them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, shotguns especially, they spread, They spread fast. So the
further you are actually the better, which is like I
aess contradictory. They do spread, But also don't be right
next to your friend. And also, and when you think
about that, grenades are a thing. And if you're right
by your boy, artillery, Ye, same thing. A grenade or artillery.
If there's three of you guys, boom, you're dead. A
machine gun, same exact thing. One burst could kill two
to three instead of just one person. If you're all
spread out, they have to transition from targets further, giving
you a better chance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if you know your toast, don't you want
to cuddle your boy before you die.
Speaker 3: That's the best way to die. Yeah, do you ever
cuddle one of your boys? In Afghanistan? No, we were pretty,
We had beds, we were pretty.
Speaker 2: Chilly, like in the field, you'd never were like, hey.
Speaker 4: No, the only thing I've come close to actually I have.
There was one time. This was in Korea, but it
was fourteen degrees outside and our whole platoon was sleeping
inside the trucks and we went on like a nighttime mission.
So when we came back, all the trucks were full,
which means we couldn't get to our sleeping bags that
we kept inside to keep them warm. Yeah, so me
and him shared one blanket one night and that really sucked.
But besides that, as far as the closest cuddling I've
done was.
Speaker 1: And it was cold, so we took our clothes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did.
Speaker 4: That was I was on like firewatch, like you know whatever.
I was just like awake where everyone was sleeping.
Speaker 3: And you were not in a combat zone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And one of my buddies he comes to me,
He's like, Lopez, I'm too cold, but I really wanted
a dip, and I was like, I got you. So
I put a dip in his mouth as he was
laying down, because you didn't want to get up a
sleeping bag, and that was like a weird dude moment. Yeah,
I've never thought I would ever put your something in
someone's mouth like that.
Speaker 1: Don't lie, you didn't use your hands, you baby burdens.
Speaker 3: That's still my dream to have a girl do that
to me with with dip.
Speaker 1: But my god, the baby bird dip into your mouth.
Speaker 4: No, with her tongue, just like put it in my mouth. Yeah,
that's always been a dream of mine.
Speaker 2: Well, if you're one of the three ladies listening to this.
Speaker 4: Show, yeah, start dipping, or just do it once, like,
don't even don't even start. Just I'll give you some
some Southern blend.
Speaker 2: Maybe a quaint yourself with the taste before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I don't throw up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I do a little redman mix it with
some big.
Speaker 3: League Yeah that works too. Yeah, that's always a nice touch.
Speaker 2: Another American officer said, quote in a post War American
Rifleman article, his men had one good chance with the
shotguns at a German mass assault upon his trench, a
charge obviously intended to overwhelm the defenders with its solid
rush of men. So it's just a human wall coming
right at them. They let them come on, and when
those shotguns got going. With nine thirty four caliber buckshot
per loads, six.
Speaker 3: Loads in the gun.
Speaker 2: Oh man, two hundred men firing the shot So two
hundred shot.
Speaker 3: Holy I didn't know they had that many shotguns at
one time. Yeah, you were.
Speaker 2: The assaults simply piled up on top of one. Sorry,
the assault simply piled up on top of one awful
heap of bugs buckshot drilled men. So essentially, what I'm
picturing there is remember when the bugs attacked the fort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and starship troopers yep, and there's a mound.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what I'm seeing.
Speaker 4: Also, if you've seen the show The Pacific, there's a
scene where that Medal of Honor recipient bank blanking on
his name right now. Yeah, yeah, Baslone, he like runs
up and pushes the pile of Japanese soldiers down so
they can have like a better line of fire.
Speaker 1: But before he gets domed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this was like, this was in Guadalcanal or I
think it's whatever.
Speaker 3: Two years for you.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, he wins the Medal of Honor for his
action Wild Canal, uh, and then goes back gets back
into the Marines. Well, he's in the Marines a whole time,
but they he becomes kind of a celebrity so they
have him do like war war bon tours and stuff,
but he's like, I want to get back into it, lands.
Speaker 3: On action gets Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't know if he's the reason why Medal of
Honor recipients are essentially forced to retire now, but he's
definitely part of that, yeah, because now if you get
the medal, you like, they don't let you go back
inso like active duty combat type things interesting and he
might be like the reason for it, or might just
beick a part of the reason. Yeah, I mean, because
like you had this hero who was literally a celebrity
at the time, huge select and all of a sudden
he goes to Ewojima leading a machine gun team and
I don't know if he got shot or if it
was like artillery.
Speaker 3: I think it was maybe, But I.
Speaker 2: Know they don't really they don't show him die.
Speaker 3: They do, yeah do they?
Speaker 4: I thought they just kind of like he runs he
runs back to like grab a machine gun or like
ammo or something, and all his way back to his
men is when he gets clipped, and I think it
was artillery in the real world. But yeah, either way,
I only know so much things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, real quick, before we keep going, we do have
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about the shotguns and combat. A Chicago sergeant, undergoing much
hostile fire to reach a concrete pillbox, made his entrance
through the stage door of the machine gun nest, bearing
a sawed off shotgun two buckshot blasts, and the twenty
three performers left on their feet surrendered, so he fired
two shots, wiped out god knows how many people, and
the rest like, I I'm good.
Speaker 4: There's so many crazy stories of World War One people
surrendering and the odds are like, there's thirty of us
in one of them. I'm good still.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighteen especially, I mean it.
Speaker 4: Wasn't it's because that same was York. I think it
was Alvin York. Yeah, nineteen eleven, Like he took like
eighty people hostage or captured him with a nineteen eleven that's.
Speaker 3: Crazy, like this shade to shoot the guy, you know,
but they're like, now we're good.
Speaker 2: They won out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, also good yeah, good point.
Speaker 2: They want they're gonna get better food. Yeah, in the
pow camp than they are on their fucking trad Good point.
The shotguns, Now this is fun and this would be
a fun game, I guess if you were kind of
on the front lines and gonna fucking die anyway.
Speaker 3: Probably smoking out of it.
Speaker 2: Uh no, no, no, they they had two other uses,
but three other uses. They were really popular for guarding prisoners.
But they were used to uh basically trap shoot German grenades.
Speaker 3: What that's crazy.
Speaker 2: So the Germans would throw their potato masher grenade uh
and the shotgut. They would just be like, great, blasted
out of the fucking air.
Speaker 3: That's really cool. I didn't even know that cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Literally, yeah, that's fucking sick. I'd be into that.
Speaker 4: And to have the like wherewithal because you can only
throw a grenade so far. You gotta be pretty damn close.
And to see that and shoot it that fast is impressive.
Speaker 2: You just gotta assume if they're assaulting and you don't
have a if it's not like a wave like I
just described, and they're just kind of crawling or they're
in a trench or whatever, you're like, hey, they're in
that fucking impact crater up there, watch the skies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, you know.
Speaker 2: What I mean, Like we got we got the we
got a rifle straight out and just watched fuck for
fucking grenades.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 2: They were also used to kill German carrier pigeons.
Speaker 3: That makes sense too, Yeah, dub hunting action, damn dude.
Speaker 4: I wonder if they like swapped in bird shot once
they started realizing they were using pigeons, they go, hey,
it's easier if we use bird shots. I wonder if
that was a tactic they used, of just ordering bird
shots of the front lines.
Speaker 1: They're shooting down drones.
Speaker 3: That's that's Yeah. Shotguns are used right now in Ukraine
for that reason.
Speaker 2: So I kind of am wondering and maybe you can
provide some info on this. Obviously you were kind of
in the in the Global War on tear pre drone
like mini drone like personal drone usage. Yeah, but I
am wondering now, like it seems very likely where you
would almost have a if not a full time shotgunner,
like someone with a shotgun on their back who's basically
like a walking mini anti aircraft unit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so I would have it if I was
in that conflict right now and I had a squad,
I'd have one dude with like a short barrel for
breaching doors, and I'd have one guy with like a
twenty four inch barrel duck gun, and he would just
have it on his back and I wouldn't make him
grab it unless he could have the ability. But however
it's set up to his back, I would have someone
else grab it from him, Yeah, and then like, whoever's
closest to you, heye, grab this dude's long shotgun and
go for that drone. Yeah, because I've seen multiple videos
of people with their aks or m force trying to
shoot down drones and they're semi successful sometimes. But I
would definitely have a hard like one area shot shotgun
person dedicated to at least carrying it that anyone else
can just grab it from their back and and try
and get the drone.
Speaker 3: Makes sense, that'd be a sweet job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like, hey, you're on drone anti aircraft watch,
although from what I've seen from the Ukraine.
Speaker 1: It's not a sweet job. From what I've seen, it's
just you see a drone hover over you as you die.
Speaker 2: Uh So, what's funny too, is so like there's all
those crazy drone videas in Ukraine where they're dropping fucking
h it's grenades. But what I've read and seen from
like YouTube videos of like people who are posting their
shit from Ukraine is like, it's really most of the
drones aren't really dropping ordinance so much as if you
see a drone, you're fuck because artillery's coming immediately, like
if like if they hear like they have to like hide.
And actually I've also heard that the day is better
to operate in now.
Speaker 3: Than the night because of thermals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so but they yeah, it's it's they're just like,
yeah that what really fucks you with the drones is
as soon as one sees you, artillery is coming like immediately.
Speaker 4: And then the hard thing too, is they don't it's
hard to tell if it's a friendly drone or not,
right like, like a friendly drone could be past your
front line scouting the enemy, or it could be behind
you kind of watching your back. There's like multiple things
to think about, and so a lot of these people
are like, you you know, just hey, if we see
a drone and we don't know for sure, our dudes
have one up. We're just gonna shoot it down no
matter what, and like, no, that was our drone, but fine,
order another one off Amazon. And they have they have
like three types drones. They have the fbvs, which are
just the ones that run into you and explode. They
have what they call them droppers, which drop their grenades,
and then the recon one, which is just way in
the background watching what you do. Yeah, so the recon
is calling in fpvs and droppers, and you got to
know which one's doing what. And you have to listen
to the sound of that drone to know, oh, that's
a fast mover that's gonna explode on impacts, or hey
it's dropping something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's terrifying. That's fucking crazy.
Speaker 2: Although I feel like a lot of the artillery, the
Spotterer drones that are for artillery are really mostly only
relevant in this type of conflict because nobody has air superiority, right,
because artillery is not going to exist in a as
much of a meaningful way if like the US is involved,
and where are you gonna set up artillery? Yeah, eight
different levels of aircraft are going to fuck whatever your
artillery position. Yeah, exactly, Like there's no artillery exists because
of a lack of air superiority on the Russian partly
or Ukrainian part two for that matter. Yeah, so it's
interesting to see how they do it because I see
that and I'm like, oh, we'll call on artillery. I'm like, well,
ain't no such thing as an I mean artillery strike
if from the other guys. If you have fucking planes everywhere, yeah,
and they can't do anything about your planes.
Speaker 4: And artillery is terrifying because you might have you might
be on like a three or a four hour mission,
going through churches, doing your whole thing, and then artillery
when that hits you just have to run.
Speaker 3: So you're you're just gassed. You're tired of selling.
Speaker 4: You're like, that's why you see people kind of jogging
or like even walking because they're so tired. They're like
if I get him, cool dude, Like yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fuck dude. Now.
Speaker 2: There is one other reason that these shotguns gained so
much notoriety and have so much alariety to this day,
and that is American propaganda. Yep, there's a little bit
of exaggeration with these things, which were badass as fuck. However,
the Americans were looking for something to celebrate in the war,
and not just a victory, but uh truly like American.
Speaker 1: Victory, history is written by the winner's man.
Speaker 2: One one in an American way, you know what I mean.
Like if we won the World Cup, we'd want to
do it all scrappy and Jim Ratty and tough and Americans.
So yeah, we don't want to play some beautiful game
right like some fucking brazil We don't want to be
a dance fighting Brazilian soccer team, like we want to
fuck gut some We've always been that way. Every country's
kind of a hard Jim rats man. So well yeah,
uh so the American newspapers after the Battle of sheppera, Uh,
I'm sorry, Sessia pre This is one of the first
big engagements between the Germans and the Americans. It was
ultimately one two where both sides could claim victory. Basically,
the Germans attacked the Americans, uh got into our trench lines,
and the Americans counterattacked and uh pushed them back out right.
The Germans claimed there they did it because they wanted
to test the Americans see how they were at fighting,
and also to get into their trenches and steal intelligence
and then fuck off, which I suppose they succeeded it
on all counts so they could call it a dub.
The Americans were like, they attacked us, we beat them back. Yeah,
it's a dub for us. The newspapers looking for a
reason to celebrate a victory, and you know, with Wilson's
little propaganda machine, and also way to make it a
very American wrote the following headlines Pershing's men use sawed
off shotguns to mow down stormtroopers. Americans put up desperate
resistance of the village of Shepara Losses put two hundred
at toll enemy Suffolk. Americans use sawed off shotguns to
mow down stormtroopers. Every single one of these stories all
just like, yeah, dude, they came at us and we
got our badass American fucking shotguns farmer stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't know Hawth was in World War One?
Who hath Hawth?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Do you know the Germans called their guys stormtroopers? Now
George Lucas steals everything.
Speaker 1: He steals everything everything, not a goddamn original thought man's head.
Speaker 2: Like truly, though I'll never it still makes me laugh
at Courtney was like, Wow, Dune ripped a lot off
of Star Wars.
Speaker 1: It's like funny thing.
Speaker 4: Well, in World War Two, weren't they still called stormtroopers
because the the STG forty four it was like the
first like assault rifle if you want to call it.
That was like the storm GAVET forty four. Yeah, the
storm rifle storm STU. Yeah, all right, it was like
it was they called the storm rifle. Yeah, so they
storm rifle. But I've always been there.
Speaker 3: So you went about the Nazis, but they got the
names down.
Speaker 2: Good name, that's a good name, storm rifles.
Speaker 3: Their uniforms.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, one's going after them for their their style.
Speaker 3: Something else maybe yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, other stuff blank more than substance than the styles.
What what we get them on.
Speaker 1: It's pretty good wrapping.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's funny to be because today this is like
you got to remember at the time too, the United
States of America was not our version of the United
States of America. We were an up and coming power.
We had to show out right, we really had to, like,
this is our first chance on a global stage to
show off.
Speaker 1: Since literally hmm, I think we kind of did that
in the Spanish American war a little.
Speaker 2: But it was like, I'm trying to think of an example.
Speaker 3: We haven't gone like another country and done cool shit.
Speaker 2: Here's what beating Spain is like.
Speaker 1: I mean, even the Mexican American War, We're just like, yeah, we're.
Speaker 3: Here now, we ain't played.
Speaker 2: They were like, yeah, you ain't play nobody, Paul, And
beating Spain is like beating current day. Beating Spain in
eighth ninety eighth, like beating current day Nebraska. Oh great,
you beat the shit out of Nebraska.
Speaker 1: Still good, solid win. It's a quality conference.
Speaker 2: Not as good as it used to be. You aren't
beating Scott Frost Nebraska team. Well you are. You're beating
Scott Frost Nebraska team that he coaches, not that he
played on Listen.
Speaker 1: There will be no Scott frostlander on this podcast moving forward.
Speaker 2: But we had to get it done. This is our
first real big test, our first real big like show
out on the world stage. No one had any respect
for Mexico. Everyone knew Spain was a fucking shell of itself.
The last war we fought against a real, last real
team we played was Britain in eighteen twelve, and even
though we won.
Speaker 1: That war handed to us.
Speaker 2: So I mean we really hadn't shown off and like,
like our best win was against ourselves.
Speaker 1: It's a big dub.
Speaker 3: Like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I'm sorry, Like the our B squad is
still better than most of the world, right, yeah, it's
like I mean our best win was our spring game.
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: So, I mean we this was our first chance to
show off, and I kind of so we wanted to
be like, hey, not only are we winning, but we're
winning in a real fucking American way. We're not taking
style from these French pussies, like we're doing it Americans.
Speaker 3: And it's kind of the.
Speaker 2: Equivalent of like if we had to prove that today
or maybe like in the nineties, Like imagine if like
Desert Storm was our first like sweet fight and everyone
was like, yeah, dude, the fucking Compton Unit just gat sideways,
fucking mowing down like fucking USA style dog like just
fucking black, black black doing dry buys. That that is
kind of the equivalent of what they're going for, Like
we did it, and we did it in a fucking
American ass way.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah.
Speaker 2: And that was sort of the propaganda aspect of why
the shotgun usage became such a uh interest to the
American public and is uh to this day. So there's
a propaganda element uh to it as well. But I
think it's impossible not to say that this shotgun, when used,
wasn't devastatingly effective.
Speaker 1: Also, to be fair, Ouday probably fucking mowed down some hostess.
He did it sideways. Yeah, with like Tupac in the corner.
Speaker 2: I have to imagine, I mean we he did die
in a shootout with American forces at some point point.
Ouda and Kusse took gold handguns, put it out a
window and.
Speaker 3: Shot it sideways.
Speaker 2: Pretty cool, you one would have to imagine.
Speaker 1: But they had a bunch of parties with American rappers.
They're just pay him millions of dollars to come over perform.
Speaker 2: Are we gonna get like a Hussein brother on the
Diddy list?
Speaker 1: Ouda is definitely the kind of guy that would be
at a Diddy party.
Speaker 2: We did an episode on that was that Patreon remin.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's Patroon, Okay, Patroon comps.
Speaker 1: It's a little graphic.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, that's that's a paywalled episode for sure. Uh
that is all I got for today. What what did
you guys learn today.
Speaker 4: I learned that you can shoot grenades out of the
sky with a shotgun. That's the coolest thing on the planet.
Speaker 3: You didn't train for that in the army?
Speaker 4: No, yeah, crazy, right, you just kind of I guess
if a grenade came like a fuck that that doesn't
look fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. You get trained to throw a grenade once. Really, Yeah,
that's it. Throw one. No, you throw one grenade, all right.
Speaker 1: We know how to throw things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so.
Speaker 4: As far as grenade defense, you're like, oh, maybe just
like roll away, put your feet towards the grenade, not
your head. Yeah, that's essentially it cover your neck with
your hands and hope for the best.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised other countries don't kind of go into their
skill set with their feet, right, Like, so we grow
up throwing a football or baseball. I mean they're dribbling
the soccer ball the entire time. So I'm there's they
should honestly kick their grenades.
Speaker 3: Bicycle kicking a grenade.
Speaker 4: And you definitely kick it farther than you can throw it. Yeah,
if you're skilled enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you need to wear a special shoe though, because
that don't break your foot. I mean grendes are heavy, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: Maybe you like launch it from your foot.
Speaker 2: That is my favorite story from Band of Brothers. I
don't know if you've ever heard this, but you've seen
men brother Yeah, yeah, you know Lieutenant Compton. Yeah, so
he played catcher for UCLA, so I do use a
D one baseball catcher. He was on the same team
as Jackie robinsoning whoa okay it fucking good ass baseball
player at a good baseball.
Speaker 3: School rip pack eight.
Speaker 2: Anyway, when they were fighting at break cormanor on D
Day or whatever. He takes a grenade and throws it
as the Germans are running away, and he throws it
basically like like a fucking baseball.
Speaker 1: Like he's thrown out a runner at second.
Speaker 2: At second, yeah, like he's running a running a second
and this thing explodes next to a German's head at
about the distance second base would be from home plate.
Nailed a runner with a grenade.
Speaker 3: That's crazy, That's awesome.
Speaker 2: Fucking sweet as fuck.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Would you learn today? Did you say? I don't remember?
Speaker 1: No? I learned that, Uh, America's just always the best.
We're is the best fucking rad Yeah, I ain't learned
much I just knew this. I just knew America is
the best. Yeah, who's today's hit I get reinformed that
we're just with the goats.
Speaker 2: We are no quote, no questions asked. Who's today's Hitler.
Speaker 4: It has to be the Germans for trying to say
the shotguns war crime, you know, stup it and if
you take anything home today, it's it's that it's not
a war crime.
Speaker 3: Fit's the first time I'm not saying Willhelm, that's how
it should be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not only did he really kind of stoke the
flames of this fucking war, but then he beefed with
Hitler but then offered up congratulations to Hitler.
Speaker 2: So dap Hitler up.
Speaker 1: He's a he's a flip flopper. He's not consistent, he's
a bitch.
Speaker 3: He is a bit Willhelm.
Speaker 2: I would like to do I probably will at some
point to an episode on Willhelm and his relations with
Nazi Germany because it's funny because he really does try
to be like he really does try once the Nazis
start like rolling, he does try to be like, yeah, dude,
we tried that when I was in the house and
fucking sick. See you guys following my legacy, you know,
like fucking crushing it. And then like he's a poser.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they were all like, dude, who the fuck
is this guy? Like asshole.
Speaker 1: It's like a thirty year old man returning back to
the fraternity house. Get him out of a party.
Speaker 2: I would never bring him in.
Speaker 1: God, there's just so many signs at Rob's old fraternity house.
It's like, please do not let this man in.
Speaker 3: Uh. Well, they used to be probably for having too
much fun.
Speaker 2: Of a sad life, but now I'm a father who
ens for Dan Regester.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Scott Lopez.
Speaker 1: Make sure to leave a review of five stars please
and thank you Apple and Spotify. Apple really helps us move.
Speaker 3: Up the charts.
Speaker 1: Check out YouTube dot Com, slash software History, watch our prey,
pretty little Faces, Scott's little costumes, little BUCkies one. We
do have some reviews to read. Actually, we do have reviews.
We have You're always trying to end the show. It's
just like we have to handle business.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, let's read the last three because
those are recent. This will and I actually thought it
was going to be a bad review till I saw
the five stars. I said, Lepper King Root Canal and
I was like, oh, is this he's saying this listening
to the show is like getting a fucking root canal.
Speaker 1: Whatever, dude, I had a friend that told me it
was a good episode.
Speaker 2: Well he said so too, he said, listen to the
leper king episode while getting four fillings refilled and a
crown that ended up needing to be a root canal.
Thankfully the softies were there to soften the blow. That's
from Phone Bone twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: I also probably should have factored in that I had
king in the title of the last two of the
last three episodes.
Speaker 2: We do that a lot, we get on Little Runs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it happens.
Speaker 2: Next one is from Alex Kern. Alex, what a name
came here? Because they made me I will subscribe to
your Patreon if you read this on the show and
say I am crowning, Well, I am crowning right now.
That is the inn made me need to poop. You
better pay your debts. We just read that, yeah, Alex Kern, Alex,
I mean, don't do it.
Speaker 3: On the app. Do it on the web browser. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't subscribe on the app. The Apple will steal
money from us money told us.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh, And then dude, J eighty three swing by a
bunch of college idiots putting their spin on history. I'm
down now, where did the swingers start?
Speaker 3: Ah? What a nice guy? Yeah, I didn't go to college.
Take that, dude.
Speaker 2: It's just two college idiots now. But i'd say, but
there's about one hundred some episodes with three Yeah, exactly
close to two hundred, I don't even know anymore.
Speaker 1: And then you include the Patreon it's probably closer to
fifty three hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fair enough, but yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: I actually listened to an a little episode with Jake
the other day. We had such magic. We really did
what could have what could have been?
Speaker 2: He had to ruin it.
Speaker 3: For his oysters.
Speaker 1: Now I'm stuck with you did oh fucking did?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: Yeah that's all we got for today.
Speaker 1: Yeh, Scott dude, thanks for coming man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for the invite, Thanks for.
Speaker 2: An expertise.
Speaker 1: Do you want to pimp anything now? Ah, it's fair
go uh.
Speaker 4: Actually, if you see flowing water anywhere, stop it, That's
all I'll say.
Speaker 3: But I'm a beaver dude. Oh yeah, I'm doing beaver
quest now.
Speaker 1: And then it's awesome.
Speaker 4: I see water flowing anywhere I go. Absolutely fucking nic
It's perfect for home defense. Yeah, exactly, damn it up.
Put it in your walls living there if it's big enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, just living an aquarium and all of your
problems are gone.
Speaker 3: Smart that's all I got.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just got saw serve.
Speaker 3: Nice one.