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Serjeant Buzfuz
Dec 5, 2009

As someone who has played Oregon Trail for at least 400 hours let me explain what the settlers were like......

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zharmad
Feb 9, 2010

Terrifying Effigies posted:

So pretty much 160 acres was the floor for what you could homestead in the west, and from my understanding you only had to 'improve' the land over time versus actually cultivate the entire claim.

Generally back then improving was pretty much synonymous with cultivating; clearing trees, putting in flood control like dams, etc. would count as improving the land (in order to be cultivated.)

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Cyrano4747 posted:


Meanwhile Imperial Russia is just a complete loving poo poo show with a stark urban/rual divide that actually manages to make some of the hosed up poo poo you see in black vs. white education in the US look good by comparison. In 1897 the census shows 13% living in urban centers. Of the 13% of urbanites, 45% were literate. Literacy rates in rural areas were averaging about 17%, with the asian territories ranging form 1.6% on the high end to 0.6% on the low end. Basically, the literacy rate of the worst areas of Russia matched the illiteracy rate of the worst areas of Germany right before WW1.

Now, the Soviets made un-loving education a massive priority (and, as an aside, Lenin did a lot better with this than Stalin, who rolled back a lot of reforms). The improvements are dramatic, with the percentage of children enrolled in some kind of education going from 51 to 97% in the first five-year plan alone. Now, there is a lot of room to pick at some of these statistics since reporting in the early USSR could be wonky and politically motivated, but the results were pretty apparent. There's a clear anecdotal explosion in literacy, and the internally reported figures show some strong improvement while still recognizing areas that needed fixing. In the 1939 census they recorded a general literacy rate of 81.2%, with people between 9 and 49 years old having a literacy rate of 89.1%. Again, this might be due to charitable definitions of literacy and what degree of mastery constitutes it, but at the very least you're talking about tens of millions of people gaining at least rudimentary abilities to engage with printed instructions and culture.

It's worth keeping in mind that this jump in literacy required massive changes in language policy and language standardization that started out bad in the early 20th century and then got outright evil as time went on. I'd want to talk to specialists before I told stories outside of school, but it's famously one of the most brutal acts of linguistic genocide ever committed, comparable to what happened in North America with Native Americans/First Nations peoples.

It's also worth keeping in mind that "literate" is a loaded term for several reasons :

1) Literate in what. Many people classed as "illiterate" could read, they just couldn't read a given language or a specific standardized variety. This is a major thing I'm constantly beating out of people when they talk about "illiterate medievals" : a lot more people in the Middle Ages could read than you think, they just couldn't read in Latin and Greek.

2) How literate do you have to be to count as "literate"? Do you have to understand everything written? Obviously not, because then no one is fully literate : can anyone in this thread say that they could read and understand an astrophysics monograph, a nice thorny linguistics article of my choosing and a copy of Ulysses? Is there a minimum then? What is that and how are you going to control for someone who might be totally fluent but ignorant about a given topic?

3) Who is deciding what "counts" as "literate"? Are they going to be someone who is trying their best at dealing with the above, or are they an open bigot? (N.B. the people who want do this are almost perfectly a proper subset of racist shitbirds.)

Don't get me wrong, I like literacy and think having a standard written form is both cool and good. But it's not a simple process and even when it's done with good intentions it can cause horrific suffering.

FishFood
Apr 1, 2012

Now with brine shrimp!

Xiahou Dun posted:

1) Literate in what. Many people classed as "illiterate" could read, they just couldn't read a given language or a specific standardized variety. This is a major thing I'm constantly beating out of people when they talk about "illiterate medievals" : a lot more people in the Middle Ages could read than you think, they just couldn't read in Latin and Greek.


I have a question about this, if most medieval folks were literate in the vernacular, what were they reading? My understanding is that books, laws, and other official texts were largely written in Latin or Koine, depending on where you were. Was literacy in the vernacular useful only for correspondence? Was there a lot of written signage in the middle ages?

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



FishFood posted:

I have a question about this, if most medieval folks were literate in the vernacular, what were they reading? My understanding is that books, laws, and other official texts were largely written in Latin or Koine, depending on where you were. Was literacy in the vernacular useful only for correspondence? Was there a lot of written signage in the middle ages?

First, you're adding the word "most". I said "more than you think" because I'm disagreeing with the common lay notion that functionally almost no one could read outside of dedicated minority. You can be way higher than 1% while still being a lot lower than "most".

Second yeah, we have strong evidence of a lot of functional vernacular literacy in things like signage and even just basic accounting. But also, no, a lot of poo poo was just written in the vernacular. Like, that's what The Canterbury Tales is.

We're not talking about 95+% of people being capable of reading technical manuals or even a light novel, but it seems like basic knowledge of the alphabet was common and at least some people used it to try to write how they talked.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Xiahou Dun posted:

It's worth keeping in mind that this jump in literacy required massive changes in language policy and language standardization that started out bad in the early 20th century and then got outright evil as time went on. I'd want to talk to specialists before I told stories outside of school, but it's famously one of the most brutal acts of linguistic genocide ever committed, comparable to what happened in North America with Native Americans/First Nations peoples.


It should be noted that this is a really, really common effect of linguistic standardization and public schooling all through the 19th century. France is another good example of wholesale destruction of cultural identities on the altar of linguistic standardization and speaking/writing “proper” (read: what they do in the capital). See also: Wales, Ireland, Cornwall. Plus pretty much any colonial educational venture you care to name.

That isn’t to minimize what the Soviets did, and they could be uniquely heavy handed with if, but it’s an ugly component of pretty much all public education.

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Cyrano4747 posted:

It should be noted that this is a really, really common effect of linguistic standardization and public schooling all through the 19th century. France is another good example of wholesale destruction of cultural identities on the altar of linguistic standardization and speaking/writing “proper” (read: what they do in the capital). See also: Wales, Ireland, Cornwall. Plus pretty much any colonial educational venture you care to name.

That isn’t to minimize what the Soviets did, and they could be uniquely heavy handed with if, but it’s an ugly component of pretty much all public education.

Yyyyyyyyyyyup.

Good bye, whole sub-branches of Romance languages.

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice

Cyrano4747 posted:

France is another good example of wholesale destruction of cultural identities on the altar of linguistic standardization and speaking/writing “proper” (read: what they do in the capital).

See, for instance, the book "Peasants into Frenchmen" about the Third Republic and its attempt to suppress regional identities and create a unified French state.

Chamale
Jul 11, 2010

I'm helping!



Fangz posted:

I think focusing on this car ownership stat is just too "neat". Owning a car does not imply you know how to maintain a car, it doesn't somehow shortcut the equivalent of years of training. I can maybe take a tyre off but that's going to help me precisely zero on operating a battleship. Frankly my "years of experience" operating a car hasn't taught me anything you couldn't put on a 2 page leaflet. Depending on the application, also, the numbers are pretty small so I think an actual problem of "not enough general purpose technical people to crew your ships" is not likely to be a real bottleneck.

(Also for instance, the Soviets never seemed to have much trouble training up tank mechanics in a hurry)

The Soviets prioritized making tankers out of people who had experience with tractors. IIRC, the Nazis tried to make tankers out of the soldiers with the best Nazi ideals without considering whether they had relevant experience, which didn't go well.

Thomamelas
Mar 11, 2009

Tomn posted:

You know, that's actually an interesting question - who actually WERE the settlers of the American West? Where did they come from, and what kind of backgrounds did they have? Dispossessed third and fourth children of overcrowded farmer families in the East? City-dwellers hoping to find fresh opportunity? Did they tend to be very poor and hoping to improve their lot, or did the costs of buying even cheap land and moving raise the bar - and if so, how high was the bar raised? Were homesteads handed out to lone families only, or were there ever commune-type setups where people who couldn't individually afford to buy the land and make the trip got together to be able to communally do so? Did they tend to come from the North or the South, inland or coastal regions? In short, were there any particular notable demographic patterns to who ended up settling the West?

It's not really one group, settling the West. It happens in various waves for various reasons. Wisconsin for instance starts it's settlement not due to farming but because their were lead mines in the area. Then trade, and then farming. For the farming waves, the early groups settling it are farmers from New England. By the 1850's it's going to be 2/3rds people from the East, mostly the Northeast and 1/3 are foreign immigrants mostly German, replacing the people of Cornwall is the major group of foreign immigrants. But a lot of the Scandinavians end up there because the local politics appealed to them, because it had some very strong human rights things in it's constitution.

I pick on Wisconsin because it was part of the Westward expansion but we don't tend to think of it as such. But the waves of settlement are pretty diverse in the whys they went out there. Which is true for lots of the waves of Western immigration. The Mormons have very different reasons for settling Utah than the people settling Texas. Which is my way of saying all of the groups you mentioned were part of settlement waves. Just in different times and places.

In terms of cost, Oregon gave away huge plots of land that the US honored when it became a state. The Homestead Act did the same. During the settlement of Texas by Americans, land could be had at 1.5 cents an acre with six years to pay it off. In some cases you could buy land from a railroad and have it included in the price of your ticket. Generally the land wasn't expensive but the stuff you need is. It's one of the reasons that lots of immigration waves weren't ranchers or farmers but miners. Some people went West, got a mining job and hoped it payed enough that they could set aside money to homestead.

And yeah, the West had a bunch of Utopian communities with various goals. Some were for religious freedom, some were testing out various social ideas, etc. The Nashoba Community even did the whole free love thing.

It's one of those subjects where there is a lot of room to talk.

Gnoman
Feb 12, 2014

Come, all you fair and tender maids
Who flourish in your pri-ime
Beware, take care, keep your garden fair
Let Gnoman steal your thy-y-me
Le-et Gnoman steal your thyme




TooMuchAbstraction posted:

I can't imagine a very poor person making it out west. Moving is pretty capital-intensive even today, let alone 200+ years ago. Let alone when you need to clear land and build your house when you arrive.
The biggest capital investment would be the land itself. After that would be supplies to get started (food for a year, tools, seeds, etc), followed by transport. Having to build your own house cost you more labor, but way less capital.

The land cost was heavily subsidized when it wasn't outright given (it very much served the interests of the government to get that land into productive use), and the other costs and labor were often communally shared. It wouldn't generally be one random guy staking a claim and heading out (though that did happen), but would be a group going out to grab several plots and create a new town ex nihilo.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

The capital costs were also frequently made up by selling previous assets. It's a gross oversimplification, but the old saw is that one of the reasons the Ohio Valley gets settled by Germans in the 1840s while the Irish stick to the port cities is that the Germans had just sold off farms and belongings in Europe and had enough money to travel inland and set up shop, while the Irish were flat rear end broke after the passage and needed to get a dwelling and job ASAP.

One of the random tidbits I remember is that in the big 1848-1858 wave of German immigration about 2% of the total population of Germany came over, roughly 1 million people, and that on average every person had about $200 worth of assets when they left. That's enough to get you to Ohio with a bit left over to buy some land and initial equipment. A work horse cost about $125, for example.

That's all hand-wavy averages but what it boils down to is the German immigrants coming over in that period had a lot more in the way of starting assets than the Irish.

Cessna
Feb 20, 2013

KHABAHBLOOOM

Fangz posted:

I think focusing on this car ownership stat is just too "neat". Owning a car does not imply you know how to maintain a car,

2023 =/= 1940

In 2023 there is a massive specialized infrastructure set up to maintain cars; this was far less developed than it was pre-WWII. For example, if you want to change your oil you can go to an oil change place. They'll do it as fast or faster than you can do it at home, including disposing the oil, for roughly the same cost that you could do it for by buying the oil and filter yourself. In 1940 if you lived in a rural area - as half of the population did - this simply wasn't an option. If you wanted to change the oil on your car (or tractor) you had to do it yourself, or drive to a city or large town to seek out a perhaps prohibitively expensive mechanic. As such, a lot more people knew basic auto repair skills.

Cars today also requires much more specialized tools and equipment, including pricey software, to do the more complex work. The vast majority of car owners do not have the ability to do a lot of the work. They can't plug their car into their laptop and read error codes like a repair shop can - so they go to a repair shop when something goes seriously wrong. Cars are relatively "black box" today. This just wasn't the case with pre-WWII cars, most of the work was done with basic hand tools, and people did this themselves out of necessity. Also, car repairs were expensive and, during the Depression, people did it themselves, often improvising, because they had no choice but to do so.

Fangz posted:

(Also for instance, the Soviets never seemed to have much trouble training up tank mechanics in a hurry)

As has been noted, people with prior experience maintaining tractors were prioritized to be armor mechanics.

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


Cessna posted:

2023 =/= 1940

In 2023 there is a massive specialized infrastructure set up to maintain cars; this was far less developed than it was pre-WWII. For example, if you want to change your oil you can go to an oil change place. They'll do it as fast or faster than you can do it at home, including disposing the oil, for roughly the same cost that you could do it for by buying the oil and filter yourself. In 1940 if you lived in a rural area - as half of the population did - this simply wasn't an option. If you wanted to change the oil on your car (or tractor) you had to do it yourself, or drive to a city or large town to seek out a perhaps prohibitively expensive mechanic. As such, a lot more people knew basic auto repair skills.

Cars today also requires much more specialized tools and equipment, including pricey software, to do the more complex work. The vast majority of car owners do not have the ability to do a lot of the work. They can't plug their car into their laptop and read error codes like a repair shop can - so they go to a repair shop when something goes seriously wrong. Cars are relatively "black box" today. This just wasn't the case with pre-WWII cars, most of the work was done with basic hand tools, and people did this themselves out of necessity. Also, car repairs were expensive and, during the Depression, people did it themselves, often improvising, because they had no choice but to do so.

As has been noted, people with prior experience maintaining tractors were prioritized to be armor mechanics.

And this change is very recent. My dad and grandpa spent a lot of time teaching me car maintenance stuff that seemed timeless circa the year 2000 and by 2023 I can't imagine I will ever have a practical use for any of it past like, tire pressure. A skillset that was genuinely useful for my father, grandfather, and great grandfather is now obsolete in a way that sewing or baking just haven't become.

Mr. Grapes!
Feb 12, 2007
Mr. who?

Chamale posted:

The Soviets prioritized making tankers out of people who had experience with tractors. IIRC, the Nazis tried to make tankers out of the soldiers with the best Nazi ideals without considering whether they had relevant experience, which didn't go well.

Is this true? Were German tankers notoriously bad or something? I've always heard the opposite and that they were generally superior to Soviet tank crews.

I know that German tanks weren't always what the propaganda made them out to be and could be unreliable and complicated to repair, but I never heard much about the crews being unskilled because they are just fanatics.

SeanBeansShako
Nov 20, 2009

Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.
The problem being like always the longer you war the faster you will burn through the majority of experienced soldiery.

When things go bad for tank crew, they go really bad.

samcarsten
Sep 13, 2022

by vyelkin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7bbd-ckiHc

Wow. If this is true, this guy is a legend. The Civil War and WWI?

Thomamelas
Mar 11, 2009

Cyrano4747 posted:

The capital costs were also frequently made up by selling previous assets. It's a gross oversimplification, but the old saw is that one of the reasons the Ohio Valley gets settled by Germans in the 1840s while the Irish stick to the port cities is that the Germans had just sold off farms and belongings in Europe and had enough money to travel inland and set up shop, while the Irish were flat rear end broke after the passage and needed to get a dwelling and job ASAP.

One of the random tidbits I remember is that in the big 1848-1858 wave of German immigration about 2% of the total population of Germany came over, roughly 1 million people, and that on average every person had about $200 worth of assets when they left. That's enough to get you to Ohio with a bit left over to buy some land and initial equipment. A work horse cost about $125, for example.

That's all hand-wavy averages but what it boils down to is the German immigrants coming over in that period had a lot more in the way of starting assets than the Irish.

The Irish Westward wave comes out of the first wave of Irish immigration. Mostly of Irish Protestants and Presbyterians who end up in the US for various reasons. The ones who went west settled in the Appalachian region and made up about 50% of the white population when they got there. One of the reasons we don't tend to think of them is that the group settling in the Appalachia start calling themselves Scots--Irish partly because they tended to be from Ulster, and partly to avoid the discrimination against Irish Catholics.

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

I've been wanting to learn about the weirder parts of early settlement and colonization of America and all the mixing of international groups. Could I get any book recommendations to help?

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

SlothfulCobra posted:

I've been wanting to learn about the weirder parts of early settlement and colonization of America and all the mixing of international groups. Could I get any book recommendations to help?

https://www.amazon.com/Albions-Seed-British-Folkways-cultural/dp/0195069056

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

SlothfulCobra posted:

I've been wanting to learn about the weirder parts of early settlement and colonization of America and all the mixing of international groups. Could I get any book recommendations to help?

Not quite what you're asking for, but when people ask for books on early colonization I'll never miss an opportunity to plug Facing East from Indian Country

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



I'd be interested on my end for referrals about the Dutch colonization in the general area of New York, if only because the Scots-Irish seem amply covered

Mr. Fall Down Terror
Jan 24, 2018

by Fluffdaddy

Nessus posted:

I'd be interested on my end for referrals about the Dutch colonization in the general area of New York, if only because the Scots-Irish seem amply covered

Gotham is a ridiculously extensive history of new york city and like the first 250 pages are all about the lenape and early settlement of manhattan by the dutch. it doesn't cover the extent of dutch colonization in the midatlantic but you get a sense of the core of it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotham:_A_History_of_New_York_City_to_1898

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




Time for another of my periodic posts about cheap Norman Friedman warship books on Kindle.

This is a PDF scan, not a true ebook, but c'mon, it's six bucks for a big ol' book on early British battleships. It's also the most expensive title I'm linking, the rest are $3 or $5. Most or all of the rest are properly formatted ebooks.
https://smile.amazon.com/British-Battleships-Victorian-Norman-Friedman-ebook/dp/B0B19795T3?ref_=ast_author_dp

https://smile.amazon.com/British-Destroyers-Earliest-Second-World-ebook/dp/B00LWF60EM?ref_=ast_author_dp

https://smile.amazon.com/British-Cruisers-World-Wars-After-ebook/dp/B019EJVJS4?ref_=ast_author_dp

https://smile.amazon.com/Naval-Weapons-World-War-One-ebook/dp/B00KYVDR28?ref_=ast_author_dp

https://smile.amazon.com/British-Naval-Weapons-World-War-ebook/dp/B08BS5J2GC?ref_=ast_author_dp

https://smile.amazon.com/British-Submarines-Two-World-Wars-ebook/dp/B07RY22WLJ?ref_=ast_author_dp

This is the treatise on fire control and gunnery computers in the dreadnought era, all navies.
https://smile.amazon.com/Naval-Firepower-Battleship-Gunnery-Dreadnought-ebook/dp/B00KTI0T0E?ref_=ast_author_dp

https://smile.amazon.com/Fighters-Over-Fleet-Defence-Biplanes-ebook/dp/B01MR4G2EZ?ref_=ast_author_dp

This one is interesting, he goes through the Naval War College wargaming in some good detail.
https://smile.amazon.com/Winning-Future-War-Victory-Pacific-ebook/dp/B07RV3NJJY?ref_=ast_author_dp

Even more than the battleships, the Victorian era cruisers are a fascinating topic, and this is a steal at $2.99
https://smile.amazon.com/British-Cruisers-Victorian-Norman-Friedman-ebook/dp/B00TGBP8SI?ref_=ast_author_dp

e.

John Jordon writes definitive guides to French warships.
These are cheap
https://smile.amazon.com/French-Cruisers-1922-1956-Jean-Moulin-ebook/dp/B00L6Z9AEU/

https://smile.amazon.com/French-Battleships-1922-1956-John-Jordan-ebook/dp/B00KTI0SZU/

$15 is still cheap-ish, the French armored cruisers are some of the most intersting designs to ever hit the water,

https://smile.amazon.com/French-Armoured-Cruisers-John-Jordan-ebook/dp/B09GPYQGH5

e2.
Who doesn't love the fast boats? Plywood versus machine guns ? Four dollar military history ebooks ?
https://smile.amazon.com/Schnellboote-Complete-Operational-Lawrence-Paterson-ebook/dp/B0189PTWZ6/

mllaneza fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Jan 28, 2023

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
Question regarding youtube videos. Is Epic History TV generally well regarded? I watched their video on Napoleon's battles in France following Leipzig and found it very entertaining, but I'll always be more inclined to watch someone who does proper research.

Baron Porkface
Jan 22, 2007


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNi6B3V-RRY

Is the figure at 1:06 representative of a particular nazi?

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Baron Porkface posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNi6B3V-RRY

Is the figure at 1:06 representative of a particular nazi?

I'm pretty sure thta's supposed to be one of the "gremlins from the kremlin" so I'd start looking at Soviet ministers etc.

Fuschia tude
Dec 26, 2004

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Cyrano4747 posted:

I'm pretty sure thta's supposed to be one of the "gremlins from the kremlin" so I'd start looking at Soviet ministers etc.

Apparently they're caricatures of Warner Brothers producers Ray Katz and Leon Schlesinger.

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

I can see it.



Kinda weird, but it's sort of a very unusual cartoon in general so far as the wartime cartoons go. No established characters, just Hitler and the gremlins ripping apart his plane.

zoux
Apr 28, 2006

Speaking of cartoons, I wonder how much this exact short contributed to the misconception that all planes make the stukka siren sound when they dive. It's certainly where I got it from, I wonder if there are earlier examples. This is from 1943 so the stukka hadn't even been flying for 10 years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJrwOXgOKxg&t=429s

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

?

The Stuka saw active service until the end of the war.

Also fwiw it became iconic with the screaming in 39-40. So using it as short hand for a dive bomber in 4e is pretty understandable.

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



zoux posted:

Speaking of cartoons, I wonder how much this exact short contributed to the misconception that all planes make the stukka siren sound when they dive. It's certainly where I got it from, I wonder if there are earlier examples. This is from 1943 so the stukka hadn't even been flying for 10 years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJrwOXgOKxg&t=429s

I mean, you'd have to work against my hypothesis : the stukka siren is loving terrifying, being attacked by planes in general is loving terrifying, people who are actively making GBS threads their pants aren't very good at remembering things clearly. Then throw in that people are learning about a lot of poo poo from rumors.

You'd need pretty good evidence of the timing between this belief and the short to even get in the ring with that.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Here’s a news reel from ~1940 featuring Stuka sirens.

Stukas at 3:30

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-N31DlIjhas

It’s German but I know I’ve seen similar stuff from American news reels of the era. This was just easily googleable

zoux
Apr 28, 2006

No there's a widespread misconception that all planes make that sound when they go into a dive due to aerodynamic effects.

PittTheElder
Feb 13, 2012

:geno: Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Oh I think that's very much just the effect of Hollywood sound mixing inserting WW2 era effects into everything. Self reinforcing because movie/tv audiences (at least the ones who aren't huge nerds) expect planes/bombs to make that sound, so they keep adding it in, etc.

And it probably originates from the WW2 newsreels people used to go to the theatres to watch rather than one particular film.

Chamale
Jul 11, 2010

I'm helping!



Another sound effect pet peeve is that fake "kapwing!" bullet ricochet. I've read that Saving Private Ryan helped reduce its popularity. Some older movies sound ridiculous when a character is being shot at and every bullet sounds like it's bouncing off a piano wire.

Chamale fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Feb 1, 2023

ilmucche
Mar 16, 2016

I find it strange that when people are getting shot at in movies there's loads of bullets landing around their feet

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.
Don't forget bullets striking sparks off pretty much any surface they hit.

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


ilmucche posted:

I find it strange that when people are getting shot at in movies there's loads of bullets landing around their feet

I mean you're not going to see the bullets that land 50 feet behind them!

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Rocko Bonaparte
Mar 12, 2002

Every day is Friday!
All those bullets going around might just be a side effect of setting all the bolt-action rifles to fully automatic. It siphons off some of the gas to cycle the action, which causes the slower bullets to land low and erratically.

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