During the Cuban revolution, escopeteros were essential scouts and pickets from the Sierra Maestra and other mountain ranges to the plains.
[3] It can be argued that Ernesto "Che" Guevara's overseas adventures failed at least in part because of the lack of equivalent escopetero support.
In the series of articles written by the staff of Escambray (circa 1988 to 2007, Che entre nosotros.
Yet the Argentine guerrilla leader never appears to have planned the use of these essential, if poorly armed auxiliaries, in his operations overseas.
[5] The original meaning of Escopeteros (shotgunners in Spanish) was those armed with a smoothbore long barrel firearm, sometimes a trabuco or blunderbuss, and has been used in this general context in histories of Spain and Latin America.