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Comment by cronix | Hacker News Reader

Kind of like the Stuka Siren/Scream[1] sound combined with the doppler effect the German planes used in WW2 to make that wailing sound that increased in frequency as they dive bombed. That sound carried quite a distance and instilled fear in anyone who heard it, which affected more people than those that were bombed. The Tie Fighters in Star Wars used a similar sound.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhJ8HY24Pb8

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I've watched plenty of combat footage on Reddit in Ukraine and noticed artillery shells make a high pitched doppler sounded before they impact, usually 1-2s before. You can always see soldiers hit the ground... even when the impact is really far away. Is this intentional?

Where basically you create suppressive fear over a large area but even if you hear it you rarely have any reasonable reaction time to do anything about it if it hits near you (unless you have a foxhole). But it still scares the shit out of everyone nearby?

Or is this just merely a side effect of the munition traveling through the air at high speeds?

Side effect.

From the shooter’s perspective it would be much easier to cause mass casualties with everyone standing up instead of hugging the contours of the ground. Zero warning is the goal.

> You can always see soldiers hit the ground... even when the impact is really far away.

Better be safe than sorry; with only two seconds of advance warning you don't want to take the risk / be smug about it. Plus, shockwaves and shrapnel can travel far.

This whole time I thought that sound was the engine

Me too, learned about it when reading about Warsaw Uprising.

This makes me furious. Almost every cunt who invented and used it lived longer and richer life than almost every victim they murdered.

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