BD1958 – November 24
and don’t you find it odd that the car wasn’t fired upon until it had made the turn onto, what is it, Elm?
IF there was only 1 shooter and he was positioned on the sixth floor, the chance of a success would be dramatically higher when the motorcade was coming directly towards your position. No one ever seems to mentions this fact or try and explain it. To me, that has always screamed a setup, a turkey shoot was planned and carried out. As to who did all the planning, we may never know. Too bad.
As noted on this blog, Stephen Hunter raised this same issue in his novel, The Third Bullet. I’ve imagined an adapted film version of that book in which a nervous Oswald takes aim for the easy shot on Elm Street, only to get completely rattled when, unbeknownst to him, someone else fires on the motorcade.
Photon has a way of twisting a person’s words which I find quite disagreeable.
When I corrected Mr. Whitten about frangible bullets disintegrating on impact, please note that I stated they will only disintegrate on contact with EXTREMELY hard surfaces, such as stone, concrete or steel. Mildly hard surfaces, such as glass or 1/4 inch thick skull bone, will not cause these bullets to disintegrate, and they will pass through these media quite nicely, and with little to no damage to the bullet.
Please prove your statement that any frangible round has been demonstrated to penetrate a human skull.
You do realize that considering its shape,composition and associated connective tissue structures the skull is one of the strongest bones in the human body, don’t you?
Frangible rounds are supposed to break up encountering wallboard-that is one of their supposed benefits in law enforcement. How can a round stopped by wallboard penetrate a much stronger and dense human skull? The simple explanation is that it can’t-and your frangible bullet theory goes down the drain.
“Frangible rounds are supposed to break up encountering wallboard-that is one of their supposed benefits in law enforcement. How can a round stopped by wallboard penetrate a much stronger and dense human skull? The simple explanation is that it can’t-and your frangible bullet theory goes down the drain.”~Photon
There are many types of frangible bullets made for specific purposed. The ones you refer to are self defense pistol rounds meant for use in defending a home from an intruder. So these rounds are designed not to go through the walls and possibly strike someone in another room or apartment.
There are other varieties of frangible bullets designed for high-powered rifles, these bullets travel at supersonic speeds, from 2,000 to 3,400 + fps. It is the kinetic force of such a projectile that give it the power to enter the skull and fragment upon encountering tissues having fluids before causing cavitation through fragmentation.
That such things have to be explained to you over and again, is a sign of your ignorance, OR your duplicitous agenda.
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Frangible bullets do NOT break up when encountering wallboard, if you are referring to what I think you are. In Canada, we call gypsum board “gyproc”, while, in the USA, I believe it is referred to as “sheet rock”.
Regardless of what you call it, it is by no means hard enough to cause a frangible bullet to break up.
This site will answer all of your questions, and deliver you from your ignorance.
http://www.drtammo.com
Of course DRT ammo was not available in the 1960s so your reference is as immaterial as claiming that JFK was hit by a depleted uranium round
Whether or not a frangible bullet can actually penetrate wall board is not the point; initial marketing particularly Glaser “safety” rounds involved claims that the round would not penetrate walls and as such would have the advantage of not hitting unintended targets. Sometimes they may not penetrate wallboard, perhaps more often they do. But that illustrates the unpredictability of the round and why no assassin would use it. A few years ago a Houston police office was nearly killed when the frangible round he fired at a suspect broke up harmlessly on the drivers side window; that ended the Houston police experience with frangible rounds.I know of no law enforcement agency in the United States that uses frangible ammunition outside of range shooting.
You have produced no evidence that any of these rounds have penetrated a human skull
Photon, again your whole argument against frangible bullets involves pistols.
High-powered rifles firing bullets at supersonic speeds from 2,000 to 3,400 + fps would without a shadow of a doubt penetrate a human skull.
It is simple physics and kinetics. Whether you believe it or not is of little matter. Anyone with a lick of sense would recognize these simple principles of physics.
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Sounds like you’re back pedalling here, Photon. You sounded pretty cocksure about frangible rifle bullets not going through wallboard a while ago, but suddenly that issue is no longer important. “Not the point” as you say.
So, what’s it going to be? Will a frangible bullet designed for a rifle go through wallboard or not?
Frangible bullets for rifles have been around for decades. How do you know what the CIA was experimenting wit in the early 1960’s?
It is an utter waste of space to deal with your brand of evidence and reasoning. Even FMJ rounds could deflect off auto glass depending on the power and caliber of the round and on the angle. Ask any cop. As for frangibles penetrating skulls, I will believe you when you volunteer as a test subject and survive.
While i am agnostic on their use in this instance, I would think assassins, especially in teams, would prefer at least some to have frangibles to confuse the forensics.
What is interesting is that none of the three posters can give any evidence that frangible rounds can penetrate human skulls- even the modern hunting rounds recently developed cannot be proven to actually penetrate a skull. None of these rounds were even invented until years after the assassination. It is conceivable that a frangible round impacting a skull could drive a piece of bone into the brain, ala the blank shot that killed Jon-Erik Hexum, but there is no evidence that any of them would produce a wound even remotely resembling JFK’s head wound.
Photon, everyone here is getting fed up with your refusal to explain your nonsense about Kennedy’s “abnormal neck”.
I get the distinct feeling that you have no rational answer.
Which isn’t unusual for you, very little of what you say here is in any way rational.
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If the skull bone is so strong, why do relatively low velocity handgun rounds have so little trouble penetrating it? Even a .22 round will penetrate the thick skull of a horse or steer, and those skull are definitely thicker than a human skull.
Very true Bob. I’ve put several cows out of their misery with a little Ruger .22 pistol. No problem going through the skull and entering the brain.
I don’t know who come up with this skull being too hard for a bullet to penetrate but it simply isn’t so.
A frangible round, Bob.We know the effects of a .22 LR round at close range- RFK being one victim ( unless you believe Sirhan was a graduate of Patsy University). But we are talking apples and watermelons here. That is why I brought up the Hexum example
It is ludicrous to claim that JFK’s head wound was caused by a frangible bullet without any documented evidence ( forensic or experimental) that such a round would penetrate a human skull at the distances involved and in the manner seen.
Robert Kennedy was killed by Ace security guard, Thane Eugene Cesar.The fatal shot entered Kennedy’s head near his right ear from a distance of not more than an inch or two, as evidenced by the powder burns found there.
* * * * *
However, there is no controversy whatsoever that a frangible bullet fired from a high-powered rifle can penetrate a human skull. That is in other than Photon’s fevered imagination-caused most likely by his weird neck
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Photon, I find it very very telling that you can’t prove and have not provided any evidence that I wear a size 13 shoe.
You are demanding things of a hypothetical nature regarding the performance of an object can could be manufactuted or field improvised in myriad ways to produce different outcomes. Start with just a swiss army knife and cut a small X into the nose of a fmj rifle round and fire it into anything you like.
After you have modified facory ammunition in every way you can think of, try casting your own bullets out of all kinds of materials and loading the cartridge with all kinds of different powders in different amounts.
Then try modifying just the bullet cores with different materials like mercury fulminate or even water and then repeat all of the above. Consult all experts you can across the globe and then, and only then, report back to us that it is impossible that a bullet can penetrate a skull and still ultimately disintegrate.
Engineering is an amazing field, you should try it.
But all you do is argue in bad faith and I don’t respect you for it.
Photon wrote:
“As far as I can tell neither you nor Mr. Prodhomme have ever fired a FMJ round nor seen their effects on targets.”
As far as you can tell???? Name your sources.
You have said it yourself.
Really? Where?
Photon
If you are going to make claims about others on here, shouldn’t you be prepared to back those claims up with actual evidence? Or is that not how you operate?
Photon has NO answers.
I havent always realized that the Sixth Floor Windows had low window sills. It would be a pretty awkward place to shoot.
This is in addition to the fact that Oswald had a very tight to impossible time frame to do any shooting.
There had to have been others involved if the Dealey Plaza shooter and
or shooters missed.
Think of what reasonable people now know…………22/11/63 was the day planned for the Assassination. Not succeeding was not an option.
[Tom S.]:
“No one ever seems to mentions this fact or try and explain it.”
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Actually, Tom, there have been explanations. As usual, each one is more absurd and risible than the next.
The shooter had a soft little heart and could not endure looking at Kennedy’s eyes. Faucet-like tears streaming down the murderer’s face would have blurred the required accurate aim. The severe trembling of the hands, too. You know how people condemned to being executed have their heads covered by a cloth sack? Out of respect? Well, that sort of deal.
I am serious. That excuse has been offered. With a straight face.
Ramon,
BD1958 is the author of that quote, I am only the messenger.
Kennedy63, no comment exceeding 500 words will be approved. Your recent comment displays 870 words.
Plus the LNers will note that Oswald apparently had no problem shooting Officer Tibbet while facing him and just a few feet away. And applying a coup de grace to the head while he was on the ground.
Perhaps relevant to this comment is the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942 in Prague. Heydrich was the Nazi overlord of Czechoslovakia and former head of the Reich Main Security Office. Heydrich rode each day in an open car from an estate outside Prague to his headquarters in the city. Partisans selected a sharp turn on the motor route for the assassination attempt, because the car had to slow to make the turn and thus made an easier target. Despite a misfire of one of the weapons, Heydrich was wounded in the assassination attempt and later died in the hospital.
He was killed by a bomb.
He was not shot at all.
The attack on Heydrich was made with a Sten machine gun and a bomb. The Sten gun jammed. The following link is to a CIA white paper on the Heydrich assassination explaining the choice of a sharp turn for the assassination site so the car will have slowed:
Link: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol4no1/html/v04i1a01p_0001.htm
Classic Sten gun jam. The problem was with how the magazine fed rounds into the receiver of the Sten gun. After the war, a careful look was taken at the Sten gun, and it was realized that a simple modification to the original design was all that was needed to rectify the problem.
It seems not irrelevant to point out that he actually died in hospital of sepsis, 11 days after he was wounded by shrapnel in the assassination attempt.
Great point, Jim R. I’d never thought of that before. Even though it was near noon-time, the sun wasn’t very high in the sky because it was only a month before winter solstice. I estimate about 40* since the shadows on level ground were a little longer than the person was tall. A sniper in TSBD would be looking down at the limo about 25* at Z190 and about 20* at Z313, WAGs. So that hypothetical sniper would be looking straight in the DIRECTION of the sun, but 60-65* down from looking directly INTO the sun. So these hypothetical snipers would need a ball-cap, some kind of brim shading their eyes. That is, if they wanted to shoot with any accuracy. For two of the three shooters in TSBD, that was not a concern.
— TSBD crew: Mac Wallace in the ‘sniper nest’ (SE window), LHO in the 4th or 5th window west from MW (to have a better angle to plaster JBC if the fascist ba***rds actually took the opportunity to shoot this rare good president JFK), and Loy Factor in the SW window.
— Jim Braden/Eugene Hale Brading in 2nd or 3rd floor of Dal-Tex.
— Harry Weatherford on Dallas County Records Bldg. with his brand-new, customized hunting rifle with sound suppressor.
— the SOUTH Grassy Knoll crew: French Corsicans Lucien Sarti and Jean Souetre with helpers, not Michel Mertz who’d gone straight. These international assassins had the sun at their back, their target’s face with maximum lighting, just the way they liked it.
— then the North GK, THE Grassy Knoll, many likely snipers, lookouts, and distractors.
— there actually could have been just-in-case shooters in the storm drains. There were just-in-case snipers on both sides of Stemmons Freeway, seen by many, on Cobb Stadium and what’s that big bldg across the road?
The TSBD and Dal-Tex shooters most had this problem you bring up, Jim R, facing the sun so that they needed something to shade their eyes. Jim Braden, seen in many photos milling around in Dealey after the shooting, was wearing his distinctive fancy broad-brim leather hat with white Xs on the band.
Dallas, Texas was on Daylight Savings time on 22/11/63. Plus, the TSBD does not face due South. It actually faces within a few degrees of SSE. A shooter on the SE corner of the 6th floor of the TSBD also would not be looking directly down Houston St. at JFK but, rather, would be looking in a slight southeasterly direction.
All of these factors add up to the sun being a fair ways to the right of a shooter’s perspective from the 6th floor SN, and most definitely NOT in a shooter’s eyes if he wanted to shoot JFK on Houston St.
The shot on Houston St. would have been the easiest shot. JFK was coming straight toward him, and getting larger by the second. Aim at the solar plexus, and even a miss on this approach will hit him in the chest or head.
As proof of the above claim, I offer the front steps of the TSBD. Note that only the west side of the entrance (left side from our view) is in shadow, indicating the sun to be well to the right of a shooter’s perspective.
Sorry, Bob. Available evidence indicates Texas was on Standard Time. 12:30 pm cst was 1:30 pm est.:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19631026&id=xclOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=g0kDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5046,5927067&hl=en
The Deseret News – Oct 26, 1963 “….standard time returns at 2:00 a.m. Sunday.”
I haven’t remarked on this issue of the position of the sun as of yet: So I will at this time.
It was NOON hour, the shadows cast can easily show the angle the sunlight was hitting at. There was a shadow cast slightly to the rear of Kennedy and the car.
More to the point on the problems with the shot is to do with glare. There is bounce light to consider, the albedo of which is fairly substantial on Earth.
Also is the matter of reflective surfaces, the chrome and glass on the cars. This is going to compromise a shooter’s vision adversely to at least some extent.
But I think the main point of this article is of the essence – the car was moving the target directly towards the sniper on the S.W. corner of Dealey Plaza; a more opportune situation for a shooter.
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You have proven my point, Tom, even if I mistakenly called it Daylight Savings Time, as opposed to Standard Time. I should know this, but sometimes I slip up.
We spend all summer here on the West Coast, adding an hour to tidal predictions. Once the clocks fall back an hour in the fall, and we are again on Standard Time, we read the tidal predictions directly out of the chart.
The point of the matter is that the sun was well advanced in the sky at 12:30 P.M. Dallas time, on 22/11/63. There is just no way Oswald would be looking directly at the sun if he was tracking JFK on Houston St.
Bob,
No, of course not. A sniper in TSBD tracking JFK would not “be looking directly AT the sun” because the president was not flying in the sky. But that hypothetical sniper was looking directly TOWARD the sun. If you dropped a plumb-bob from the sun’s position, it lined up with the line from TSBD to the limo.
When we’re outside facing the sun, we need a hat to shade our eyes, even though we’re not looking directly into the sun.
Along with not firing until the car turned on Elm Street, I find it strange that if Oswald fired from the 6th floor of the School Depository, he fired with sun in his eyes.
[Jim:]
“he fired with sun in his eyes”
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Hi Jim:
I apologize in advance for being such a geek, but I beg to differ. I used two Internet tools to verify your claim.
While the first shot was indeed aligned with the sun, its altitude at 12:30 pm was 37 degrees and the shooter was looking DOWN.
http://suncalc.net/#/32.7796,-96.8083,18/1963.11.22/12:35
http://goo.gl/WxjDlr
http://patriot.net/~ramon/jfk/Sun-Position-Dealey-Plaza-11-22-1963.png
You just gave me a great idea: we are going to add the sun to the Open Source 3D Model of Dealey Plaza that we are preparing.
This is for those folks who wants to have a better visual perception of the angle between the sun and the shooter’s glance direction.
Just go to this site:
Open Source 3D Model of Dealey Plaza
https://goo.gl/jTy69B
and click once into the folder “Support Files”
There is a photo titled “Supporting Boxes”. The sun was 37° above the top of the window.
It is quite debatable that a shot before the turn onto Elm Street would be more easy than the shots taken while the limo was traveling toward the Underpass-the shooter would have to lead his target from a superior to inferior position -more awkward than it appears to the layman. But even if you accept that a shot into JFK’s face was easier than those taken later, it would probably be the ONLY shot-as the shooter would be more exposed and more likely to be identified and draw fire from the S.S. or even DPD.
Lastly, perhaps the assassin simply didn’t want to look at the face of his victim.
“the Underpass-the shooter would have to lead his target from a superior to inferior position -more awkward than it appears to the layman.”~Photon
Talk about a “layman”…Lol…Photon, you don’t know ANYTHING about shooting.
Who are you trying to kid here? Your commentary is preposterous.
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I totally believe that Oswald acted in league with other conspirators. I also believe that Photon’s point holds true: why would a shooter draw attention to himself in this way? Far better to let the limousine retreat to the plaza area where the location of the shooter/s would be more ambiguous? Which raises the more important issue; why does debate about the Kennedy assassination have to be so simplistic and name-calling? We need every photon-of-light available.
opinionator,
I am curious as to how you might call another’s opinion that someone’s position is preposterous, “name calling”.
It is not as if the opinion isn’t backed up by reasoning. Even if you may not agree with said reasoning, it has been offered.
The fact is, in mine and several other’s inquiry as to Photon’s knowledge of guns and ammo and shooting, including knowledge of ballistics; Photon has shown a remarkable degree of unfamiliarity with the subject.
I have put a lot of study into those issues, as have others here. Photon seems to merely nit-pick, and this shows his ignorance in quite a few instances.
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Willy, what is preposterous is accepting that any assassin would use a round that breaks up on encountering a hard surface to shoot somebody in the head. Your comment previously posted claiming that frangible rounds did NOT break up upon contacting a hard surface was shot down by your frangible source expert, Mr. Prodhomme . That certainly proves that your forearm expertise is questionable. As far as I can tell neither you nor Mr. Prodhomme have ever fired a FMJ round nor seen their effects on targets. Having fired hundreds of 5.56 and 7.62 FMJ rounds I would say that I am certainly more qualified to comment on FMJ properties than either you or Mr. Prudhomme .
“what is preposterous is accepting that any assassin would use a round that breaks up on encountering a hard surface to shoot somebody in the head.”~Photon
A frangible bullet does NOT “break up on encountering a hard surface” Photon, it is a matter of kinetic energy, and supersonic speed, not the material the projectile is made of.
These bullets were NOT fired from an old fashioned relic. The were fired by modern high powered weapons. This is proven by the ballistics you hand-wave. This is why you will not address the ballistic analysis of Sherry Fiester. You merely attempt to dismiss her credibility. Her credibility is proven by her obvious knowledge displayed in her analysis.
Her Curriculum Vitae is available right here:
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/sherry-fiester-on-enemy-of-the-truth/#comment-5687
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“As far as I can tell neither you nor Mr. Prodhomme have ever fired a FMJ round nor seen their effects on targets.”~Photon
Just to be absolutely clear here; Of course I have fired FMJ rounds, hundreds of rounds of them. I don’t know of ANYBODY that doesn’t use primarily FMJ rounds for standard target practice, unless shooting a 22.
But I certainly don’t use FMJ for my carry weapon. I use various brands and styles of hollow points, for both 9mm, 38 special, 380 auto, and 32 auto.
I use these rounds for stopping power, not because they may not pass through walls. The first concern in self-defense is stopping power, all other issues are secondary.
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“why would a shooter draw attention to himself in this way?”
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You just stated that there were 500-700 hundred people riding with the president.
The only people who turned around the sharp turn and exposed their backs to the sniper’s nest were those in the caravan. Everybody else had their feet on the ground and freedom of neck to look up.
If the shooter had fired to Houston, he would have exposed himself to the people on Houston.
If the shooter had fired to Elm, he would have exposed himself to people on Elm.
BD1958 makes a highly perceptive point here. Since the forensic evidence indicates shots from several directions, a single shooter in the TBDB is eliminated. The second point being that the shots at the limousine were clearly a triangulated ambush. The two shots that were potential kill shots both came from the front – throat and head shot. As BD1958 points out, shots taken with the target coming towards the shooter[s].
For the trajectory of the frontal shots that hit Kennedy; Again see the analysis of Sherry Fiester CSI, outlined on this page:
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/sherry-fiester-on-enemy-of-the-truth/
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Thanks for posting that link. I admit, when I first read Fiester’s book, I was a little put off by her continual usage of the term “conclusively proved” and the like. This is the hallmark of a lot of the worst JFK books. I have no real way of evaluating her work. But if her possible trajectories for the head shot are accurate, I find something in the Zapruder film pretty interesting. Right after the fatal head shot, in the background you can see a truck hurriedly driving up Commerce Street. It looks similar to the standard UHaul type moving truck and it is right in her cone of probability for the shot. I’ve always thought this truck going by was kind of curious, as all other traffic is parked and everyone is watching the motorcade. And it moves off at a pretty good clip – not too fast, not too slow.
Don’t you also find it odd that LHO, assuming he smuggled a 6.5 mm rifle into the TSBD, with the intention of shooting the president of the United States in broad daylight, didn’t bother to bring his .38 revolver? Much easier to smuggle; everybody in Texas was carrying.
More to the point, why didn’t LHO just stand on the street corner of Elm and Houston with that revolver in his pocket, and shoot JFK with that? With the limo having to slow down so much to make the hairpin turn, he’d have had an excellent opportunity to kill the President there. Also, in planning the crime, I think most people would think their chances of escape would have been less bad if they were outside where they could run into the crowd, as opposed to being isolated in that corner of the 6th floor in the TSBD, with the stairway on the other side of the huge room, and that maze of full book cartons to negotiate. A pistol is also a lot easier to dispose of than a rifle.
The essence of sniping is concealment. You have to conclude that the JFK assassination was conceived in a manner to conceal the identity of the shooter or shooters. Firing at a moving target is discouraged as it risks revealing the location of the shooter without hitting the target. The shooting in Dealey Plaza was very proficient.