Inexplicable Wounds made by Special Bullets

[Tracy Riddle]

Tracy: There is a possibility that the MC rifle could be excluded as the assassination weapon, or if specialty ammo for an MC rifle is required to cause the wounds, then Oswald as a lone nut with no money could be excluded as a shooter. Specialty ammo is easier to track. Last I heard, Masen (sole provider of speciality ammo for the MC in the Dallas area in the 1960's) is still alive, and possibly subject to prosecution.

PS: the early evidence and law enforcement conclusions in the case was that the first two shots were too close together to be fired by 1 shooter with a bolt action rifle (as per Epstein in Inquest).

Drew, that's based on watching the Z-film. I'm referring to the earwitnesses in Dealey Plaza that day.

As far as I'm concerned, Oswald can be excluded as a shooter for numerous reasons that have nothing to do with whether a Carcano was used or not.

[Drew Phipps]

More proof means more interested minds.

[Bob Prudhomme]

As I said earlier, the ballistic and forensic evidence in this case isn't reliable enough to be able to draw any definite conclusions about the type of weapons used. It took me many years to realize that.

As you say, though, without reliable ballistic and forensic evidence, we cannot draw any definite conclusions about the SBT, and Dale Myers is allowed to go on thrilling the sheeple with his cartoon; impossible as it is.

No, I did not say we can't draw any conclusions about the SBT. The SBT is crap for many reasons. CE399 was obviously fired into a water tank, probably by the FBI. It wasn't the bullet found at Parkland.

It's pretty well established that a huge number of witnesses heard a popping noise, then a pause, then two loud bangs very close together. From that, we can establish: a) at least two types of weapons were used, b) the two loud bangs could not be produced by one bolt-action Carcano, c) any additional shots were probably fired by weapons using silencers.

A lot of what we can figure out about this case is essentially "negative truth" or "negative knowledge" - we can tell what didn't happen. From that, hopefully we can eliminate enough possibilities to figure out what DID happen, but that's not always possible.

Of course, the "popping" or "firecracker" noise heard at the time of the first shot could have been a Carcano rifle modified to accept a suppressor, or "silencer", as you refer to them.

It is also important to remember that, if there were any additional shots fired by rifles equipped with silencers (suppressors), the same telltale "firecracker" sound should have been heard from them. As rifle bullets have high muzzle velocities they are supersonic (faster than the speed of sound at 1125 ft/second) and silencers only silence the muzzle blast. They do nothing to mask the sound of the bullet breaking the sound barrier, heard by Dealey Plaza witnesses as a firecracker like noise.

It can be argued that subsonic weapons, such as handguns equipped with silencers, were used in the assassination, thus eliminating the sonic boom and totally silencing the handgun, but this also is highly unlikely. These weapons, with their short barrels and subsonic muzzle velocities, are notoriously inaccurate and are meant for shooting targets at close range. While many have argued that the Remington Fireball XP-100 .221 calibre handgun was used for the final shot by a gentleman named James Files, it should be noted that this weapon used a small rifle cartridge that propelled a 50 grain bullet at a muzzle velocity of 2650 ft/second; more than twice the speed of sound. Even if the Fireball was equipped with a silencer, the telltale sound of its bullet breaking the sound barrier would have been audible to bystanders.


It is possible, when accounting for the number of shots fired vs. the number of shots heard, that this assassination was a very well coordinated event, and that the sound of two unsuppressed rifle shots .7 seconds apart masked the sonic boom of other suppressed shots fired at the same moment. This kind of coordinated fire speaks volumes about the qualifications of those doing the shooting, and the coordinators.

[Drew Phipps]

I've never been near the receiving end of a supersonic bullet, but I've heard that its the sort of sound you don't forget once you hear it, like a rattlesnake rattle or a shotgun slide. I've also heard it compared more to a bullwhip crack, than a firecracker noise. I suppose that Connally, or some of the Secret Service guys, might be more familiar with the sound of a supersonic bullet passing nearby (Connally identified the first sound he heard as a rifle shot). I wonder if there are some acoustic particular characteristics of supersonic bullet noise...

[Drew Phipps]

According to this article http://www.coe.montana.edu/ee/rmaher/pub...c_0406.pdf
a supersonic whip crack differs from a muzzle blast by being roughly 1/10th the duration of the noise and, apparently, the "underpressure" (acoustic area under the midline) has nearly the same amplitude and duration as the "overpressure", whereas for a muzzle blast the underpressure is not the same amplitude, though it appears to be longer duration than the overpressure area.

Too bad I cant separate the chart from the paper to go along with my rather poor explanation.

I wonder if a "firecracker" noise is more like a "shock wave" or a "muzzle blast"?

[Bob Prudhomme]

Hi Drew

I'm glad you brought this up. You're right, of course. Think of the muzzle blast of a rifle as a cone encompassing everything beside and forward of the rifle. It is very loud, much louder than standing behind the rifle, and involuntary startle reactions invariably occur. Remove the muzzle blast, and all that is left is the sonic crack. Although it can be heard by people in the same zone of influence as the muzzle blast, it only produces a startle reaction in those close to it; much the same as being beside someone cracking a whip or across the street from it.

NOW, with this in mind, let's take another look at the Altgens 6 photo:



And a closeup:



Who are the only two people in this photo, outside of JFK and JBC, who would appear to be reacting to something out of the ordinary? If you said the two Secret service agents on the starboard side of the followup car, and possibly the two on the port side (plus maybe the motorcycle cop), you'd be correct. An unsuppressed rifle shot six storeys above this crowd and behind them, five seconds before this photo was taken, should have everyone looking around.

Back the limo up a few feet to where the first suppressed shot was fired, likely from one of the lower floors of the Dal-Tex Building, across Houston St. from the TSBD, and I'll bet money the bullet JFK is seen reacting to in Altgens 6 just missed the tops of the heads of the two SS agents seen gawking around and trying to figure out what they just heard.

[Drew Phipps]

Harold Wiesberg always thought there was a guy standing on the Dal-Tex fire escape in that picture, white shirt, black pants, but I can't quite decide if that's a guy or just some clothes hung there. He'd be standing right next to an open window (with no people in it) that corresponds with a utility closet (iirc) on the second floor. Weisberg has always supposed that guy was reacting to a gunshot that passed close by to explain his unusual body posture. Is that a real person?

[Bob Prudhomme]

Hi Drew

As I stated in the PM I just sent you, I have always felt the lower floors of the Dal-Tex Building to be a far more sensible place to put a shooter than the SE corner of the 6th floor of the TSBD. Another great place would have been the roof of the laundry van parked at the corner of Elm and Houston, with a great pile of laundry bags piled on its roof rack. What a great place to hide a shooter lying prone with just the tip of a suppressed rifle barrel poking out of the laundry bags.







To people with no experience hunting in hilly or mountainous country, a shot at a moving target from six storeys up probably looks fairly easy. Believe me, it is not. The bullet will strike just slightly higher of where you aim, and tracking a moving target while looking down at it is far more difficult than tracking a target almost on the same level as you and moving directly away from you. Add to that the fact that a shooter on the 6th floor was blocked by a Texas live elm until the last second, and the so called Sniper's Nest is not a very good place to be shooting from.

[Bob Prudhomme]

Okay, the next thread will be about all the wounds (JFK, Connally and Tague) and what type of bullet could have made such strange wounds. It will be quite long, and I may just divide it up into several posts.

[Bob Prudhomme]

First off, let's list the wounds. The way I describe them, and their causes, has no basis in fact or proven evidence, just like everything else in this case but, for the sake of this thread, I am assigning properties to them that I feel have the highest probability, and are supported by basic logic and the descriptions by witnesses.

1. The back wound on JFK. Popular consensus shows this wound to be 5.75" below JFK's collar line, and 1.5-2" to the right of the spinal midline. This would place the wound at about the level of thoracic vertebra T3. It also lined the bullet up to enter the top of JFK's right lung. Needless to say, I believe this to be an entrance wound.
2. The throat wound on JFK. As described by PH doctors, the wound was in the lower third of the anterior neck, just slightly to the right of midline. The wound involved the right side of JFK's trachea (windpipe). For the sake of argument, an entrance wound.
3. The first head wound on JFK. As described by Bethesda autopsists, this wound was just to the right of the external occipital protuberance, a small bony projection at the base of the rear of the skull. Entrance wound.

4. The second head wound on JFK. Various sources place this wound at the right temple, just inside the hairline. Entrance wound.
5. The third head wound on JFK. As described in early reports from PH doctors and other sources, this was a 3-5" diameter wound located at the right rear of JFK's head. As described by Bethesda autopsists, a skull fragment brought into the autopsy had half a bullet hole in it, with the fragment matching up to the large hole, and the half bullet hole matching a half bullet hole on bone adjacent to the large wound.
6. Back wound on John Connally. According to PH records, this bullet struck JBC's back just to the right of the lower end of JBC's right shoulder blade. It did not enter the chest cavity but, rather, followed the outside of a rib around the chest, shattering the rib in the process. Entrance wound.
7. Chest wound on JBC. This was made by the bullet that struck JBC in the back, and it exited soft tissue just below JBC's right nipple. Exit wound.
8. Wrist wound on JBC. Medical records from PH show a bullet struck the dorsal aspect (back) of the lower third of JBC's right forearm. It struck on the radial side of the dorsal aspect, shattering the radius bone in the process. Entrance wound.
9. Second wrist wound on JBC. This wound was on the volar (palm) side of the lower third of JBC's right forearm, and was supposedly made by the same bullet (or fragment of) that made wound #8. This was a through and through wound through the soft tissue between the radius and ulna bones of the lower third of JBC's right forearm. Exit wound.
10. Thigh wound on JBC, This was a shallow wound on the inside of JBC's left thigh, with no exit. Entrance wound.
11. Cheek wound on James Tague. Tague was standing under the Triple Overpass. This wound was minor and was likely caused by a chip of flying concrete,
dislodged from the curb ahead of Tague by a bullet or fragment of a bullet. Entrance wound, barely.

More tomorrow. G'night.