obliquity and the evidence for a frontal shot.

[Alan Denholm]

Anyone read this, very interesting theory.
Certainly pours a lot of cold water on the TSBD as the source of the head shot.

https://www.academia.edu/5036142/PHYSICS...t_updates_

Any comments, criticism , etc.
It does take a bit of reading and digesting.

[Drew Phipps]

"All these new factors are therefore definitely proving that the fatal bullet was shot from behind the stockade fence of the grassy knoll, and there is no physical possibility that it could have been so hugely fragmented as a result of an almost straight shot by a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle from the 6th Floor of the TSBD."

Or, just more evidence that Bob is right about the specialty ammunition.

Edit: You can basically skip everything to section 6 if you've been more or less keeping up with the state of the research.

Section 6: The reason a boxer imparts a higher percentage of momentum to a target than a bullet is a function of cross section of the force being applied, as well as a longer duration of contact between glove and target, as opposed to bullet and target.

Bullets also lose kinetic energy as heat when they pass thru tissue. Bullets also lose energy through the formation of "shock waves" thru any substance, including air, but especially in tissue.

The author doesn't like comparing skulls to melons because they are different, but doesn't mind comparing skulls to steel plates...

Section 7: It's true that the passage of a bullet through a skull is simply too fast to match by virtue of a nerve impulse. However, the 1963 camera that watches the skull is filming at a far slower rate than the bullet is travelling as well, and is ill-equipped to help us differentiate when bullet forces end and other forces begin. Also, the very first movement of the skull, from Z312-313 (assuming the Zapruder film is more than a work of art), is forward. It isn't until z 313-314 that the skull begins to move backwards, which is more than 100 times longer than it takes the bullet to be finished imparting momentum.

Section 8: I would like to see the author re run these numbers given the fact that the angle that the bullet encounters bone when entering the skull, is going to be different from the angle that the bullet EXITS the skull. For a shot from the front you have a high obliquity in entrance but a lower obliquity of exit as the skull curves inward. It is the converse for a rear shot, low obliquity entry and high obliquity exit. If the author's basic premise is correct, I would expect a rear entry bullet to leave a nice round hole upon entering and yet break up as it is exiting the skull. (Let the howling begin!)

Also in Section 8, DiMao's conclusion is based on the premise that the stretcher bullet is actually one of the bullets fired at the limo, leaving the two other recovered fragments to be from the same bullet. I personally think that the stretcher bullet is a forgery, and therefore the recovered fragments found might have been from different bullets.

It's an important work, adding the effects of oblique bullet strikes to the JFK discussion, but the author definitely needs to account for obliquity in both entrance and exit. The author should also acknowledge and discuss how a soft tip hunting load or some other form of speciality ammo for the MC 91/38 might affect his analysis.

[Herbert Blenner]

Anyone read this, very interesting theory.
Certainly pours a lot of cold water on the TSBD as the source of the head shot.

https://www.academia.edu/5036142/PHYSICS...t_updates_

Any comments, criticism , etc.
It does take a bit of reading and digesting.

The author is not a technologist as evidenced by their misuse of the technical term angle.

I quote him.

"The precise location and angle of wounds to the head: Parkland vs. Bethesda?"

"An accurate reconstruction of the precise locations, sizes and angle of the wounds to the head of President Kennedy is of paramount importance, of course, because it can tell us a lot about the origin of the shot and the weapon of murder."

"Furthermore, a new terminal ballistics equation with a more precise and detailed distribution of kinetic energy of the oblique bullet and its fragmentation (rather than the less reliable and rough physical analysis of the "ballistic pendulum") along with experimental data, provide compelling evidence that highest degree of bullet's fragmentation occurs whenever impact of bullet on target exhibiting obliquity> 20° (with 60° as angle of biggest shattering!) is taking place."

A technologists recognizes that an angle measures the difference between two directions. So specification of any direction by an angle must include the reference direction of the zero-degree angle.