Oswald's Marine Corp Rifle Scorebook

[John Mytton]

In the last testing Oswald scored one point above the minimum for the lowest grade
(May 06,1959 MCAS El Toro CA )

Marksman Qualification = 190
Oswald Score = 191

“To become qualified as a sharpshooter the Marine Corps is of the opinion that most Marines
with a reasonable amount of adaptability to weapons firing can be, so qualified. Consequently a low marksman
qualification indicates a “rather poor shot” (Vol 19 pages 16-18)

https://jfk.boards.net/post/4438/thread

Let's put this "191" performance into context, shall we.

Oswald was 17 when he scored "212" and then at 19 he scored "191", so Oswald was older and more experienced yet scored less, what changed between these two events?

1. Oswald brings joy and happiness to the Marines and scores "212"
2. Oswald was court-martialed for illegal possession of a firearm.
3. Oswald was court-martialed for a second time for assaulting a superior officer.
4. Oswald spends time in the Brig and seemingly becomes disillusioned with this whole Marines thing.
5. Oswald's unit arrives in Taiwan, where he suffers a nervous breakdown and is sent back to Japan.
6. Delgado a fellow Marine describes Oswald on the firing range as not "giving a darn", seeing this as a "joke" and not being very "enthusiastic".
7. Oswald scores "191"
8. Just a few months after his "191", Oswald makes up a Bogus story about his injured Mother and is soon after released from active Duty.
9. Oswald defects to the enemy.
10. The enemy rejects Oswald, so Oswald in a rage of self harm, rips open his wrist which bleeds excessively and the wound requires a number of stitches. Oswald in his Historic Diary" describes his suicide attempt, "watch my life whirl away. I think to myself. "how easy to die" and "a sweet death""
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What do some Marine Officers say about Oswald's Marine shooting abilities.

Mr. SPECTER. Based on the tests of Mr. Oswald shown by those documents, how would you characterize his ability as a marksman?
Sergeant ZAHM. I would say in the Marine Corps he is a good shot, slightly above average, and as compared to the average male of his age throughout the civilian, throughout the United States, that he is an excellent shot.

How about the question of Oswald's capabilities to take the head shot?

Mr. SPECTER - I now show you a document marked as Commission Exhibit No. 902, which characterizes what was believed to have been the shot which struck President Kennedy in the head at a distance from rifle in window to the President of 265.3 feet, with the photograph through rifle scope identified on the document being the view which the marksman had of the President at the time the President was struck in the head, and I ask you again for an opinion as to the ease or difficulty of that shot, taking into consideration the capabilities of Mr. Oswald as a marksman, evidenced by the Marine Corps documents on him.
Major ANDERSON - I consider it to be not a particularly difficult shot at this short range, and that Oswald had full capabilities to make such a shot.

Then lastly, what was the difficulties of Oswald with his equipment of taking the Dealey Plaza shot?

Mr. SPECTER. How would you characterize that, as a difficult, not too difficult, easy, or how would you characterize that shot?
Sergeant ZAHM. With the equipment he had and with his ability, I consider it a very easy shot.



JohnM

[Michael Capasse]

"...Consequently a low marksman qualification indicates a “rather poor shot”
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/html/WH_Vol19_0018a.htm

[Steve M. Galbraith]

I've pointed this out before, but once again...

The MC marksmanship qualification shooting test requires a shooter to fire 50 rounds at targets ranging out to 500 yards. Hitting the center of the target earns 5 points. Rounds that fall further away from center merit progressively fewer points, and no points are scored if the target it completely missed. In light of this, the fewest number of hits to a target to get a specific score is to divide the score by 5.

So, the way to score 191 points with the fewest hits is to hit the center 191/5 = 38.2, or hit the center 38 times and anywhere else on the target once. That's 29 hits out of 50 shots, or Oswald hitting the target 80% of the time. And that's the *minimum possible* number of hits. Oswald almost certainly scored at least 40 hits at El Toro. A 212 would require an absolute minimum of 42.2 hits, hitting the target 86% of the time.

The WC/HSCA scenario only requires two out of three hits.

As you explain: What does that Oswald test score mean? What did it measure? Or any test score for that matter? Without the details these are essentially meaningless numbers. If you told someone from France that you scored 1000 on a SAT test they would probably ask, "What's that mean? What did it test?" For them it's just a number.

This is like saying person "A" scored X points on a test that placed him just above the middle of three standards or categories. Swell, what does that mean about his or her aptitude? It's meaningless unless you know what "X" means and what the standards meant and what the test entailed.

So you explain in detail what the test entailed, what the scores meant. That's what one would want.

Many - not all - conspiracists simply don't like to go into those details. They grab one "data point", one "Gotcha!", and think that's sufficient. It's not. It's like the "Oswald double" story. They cite the phone call from Hoover and the photo and ignore everything else we've learned over the past 60+ years.

[Zeon Mason]

But Oswald was using a semi auto 7.62 mm M1 Garand  rifle when he was doing that “rapid fire” USMC target shooting test that was NOT shooting from 72 ft height.

Operating an old bolt action MC rifle with fixed fsights zero of 200m from a  72ft height and shooting down at a target less than 100 meters away moving at 15mph ,  with a cross wind of 15-20 mph , and a tree in the way , may not not be quite the same thing?

The CBS trial shooters seem to have had quite a lot of problems and they didn’t even have a tree in the way or were required to sit on a box and then lean forward to place the rifle to rest on top of the box resting on the window ledge.

And even with the added advantage of having a white painted track clearly visible and the target itself being a red shape on a black square, there were 33 attempts required of which only one old guy was supposedly able to have made 3 shots and scored 3 hits ( but missed the head) in approx 5.1 secs.

I do not know if that one old guy who APPEARS to be shooting the rifle actually hit the target or not because there was not a secondary camera zoomed in on the target to verify holes appearing simultaneous with movement of the old guys trigger finger.

And I don’t think that old guy ever was tested again and if he did some other test by other independent media to verify he could replicate what CBS and Dan Rather CLAIM he did.

(Not sure this guy was ever interviewed or had to make statement under oath that he actually did accomplish the feat).

The theoretical position of sitting on the box by the pipes so as to remain out of LOS of Hughes film camera , was actually tested by one of this forums members, (Mr. Collins) who actually built a scale model in his garage. and posted some photos showing how the shooter leans forward holding his rifle while still  sitting on the box.

It would be not so much a question if all 3 shots could definitively be established  to be spread out over at least an 7 second period but because the closest ear witness right beneath the 6th floor TSBD shooter , Harold Norman replicated the 3 shots completed in only about 4 secs max ( via his boom click sequence in the video recordings) then there is still reasonable doubt.

And it’s even more in doubt because so many witness vast majority heard the last 2 shots so close together that it’s improbable that the head shot at Z313 could be the 3rd shot 4.8 seconds after the 2nd shot at Z224.

[Charles Collins]

But Oswald was using a semi auto 7.62 mm M1 Garand  rifle when he was doing that “rapid fire” USMC target shooting test that was NOT shooting from 72 ft height.

Operating an old bolt action MC rifle with fixed fsights zero of 200m from a  72ft height and shooting down at a target less than 100 meters away moving at 15mph ,  with a cross wind of 15-20 mph , and a tree in the way , may not not be quite the same thing?

The CBS trial shooters seem to have had quite a lot of problems and they didn’t even have a tree in the way or were required to sit on a box and then lean forward to place the rifle to rest on top of the box resting on the window ledge.

And even with the added advantage of having a white painted track clearly visible and the target itself being a red shape on a black square, there were 33 attempts required of which only one old guy was supposedly able to have made 3 shots and scored 3 hits ( but missed the head) in approx 5.1 secs.

I do not know if that one old guy who APPEARS to be shooting the rifle actually hit the target or not because there was not a secondary camera zoomed in on the target to verify holes appearing simultaneous with movement of the old guys trigger finger.

And I don’t think that old guy ever was tested again and if he did some other test by other independent media to verify he could replicate what CBS and Dan Rather CLAIM he did.

(Not sure this guy was ever interviewed or had to make statement under oath that he actually did accomplish the feat).

The theoretical position of sitting on the box by the pipes so as to remain out of LOS of Hughes film camera , was actually tested by one of this forums members, (Mr. Collins) who actually built a scale model in his garage. and posted some photos showing how the shooter leans forward holding his rifle while still  sitting on the box.

It would be not so much a question if all 3 shots could definitively be established  to be spread out over at least an 7 second period but because the closest ear witness right beneath the 6th floor TSBD shooter , Harold Norman replicated the 3 shots completed in only about 4 secs max ( via his boom click sequence in the video recordings) then there is still reasonable doubt.

And it’s even more in doubt because so many witness vast majority heard the last 2 shots so close together that it’s improbable that the head shot at Z313 could be the 3rd shot 4.8 seconds after the 2nd shot at Z224.

It would be not so much a question if all 3 shots could definitively be established  to be spread out over at least an 7 second period …

The photographic record appears to indicate an early missed shot around the mid to late Z150s. When Jerry Organ recently posted his clip of the lady’s extremely fast head snap (see the thread “A Closer Look”) combined with the other photographic evidence, it became enough to convince me. Combine that with the apparent shot around Z224 and the last shot hitting at Z313, and there is approximately 8.6 seconds for the three shots to take place.
We can all see the photographic evidence and interpret it for ourselves. We do not have to rely on witness accounts (and all of their inconsistencies) and all the various interpretations of them. The “he said, she said” arguments will continue to take place here with no end in sight. It has been over sixty years and people still choose to argue about what so and so meant when he/she said such and such. There are so many witness accounts that anyone with any kind of nutty idea can find something that they think supports their ideas.
I suggest that you look and think for yourself Zeon.

[Mitch Todd]

"...Consequently a low marksman qualification indicates a “rather poor shot”
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/html/WH_Vol19_0018a.htm

A "poor shot" as compared to what? Also, Folsom was the officer who was "head, records branch, personnel department" and as such may not have been the best arbiter of all things marksmanship.

Again, if you look at what the "191" score actually means, Oswald was more than capable of hitting a human being consistently with a rifle. But you don't want to look at that, do you?

[Michael Capasse]

A "poor shot" as compared to what? Also, Folsom was the officer who was "head, records branch, personnel department" and as such may not have been the best arbiter of all things marksmanship.

Again, if you look at what the "191" score actually means, Oswald was more than capable of hitting a human being consistently with a rifle. But you don't want to look at that, do you?

what are you babbling now?  - Like you know better than this LT Colonel that actually used the guideline every day?
It is not my opinion nor the opinion of the WC or HSCA. (like u said it was) It was set by the USMC.  You just make stuff up.
I'll look at something else that documents what exactly the Marines accept - otherwise your opinion just doesn't mean that much.