Were all three shots fired in 5.6 seconds?

[Tom Graves]

LP--

Nice post.

That has always troubled me also, the "bang....bang-bang" cadence.

Ever heard of echoes?

[Royell Storing]

You certainly have a rather Curious propensity for Capitalizing words in the Middle of sentences without apparent rhyme or Reason. Is this some sort of nervous typing tic?

Does not every early-missed-shot scenario have a missing bullet? Do you have one that doesn't? What I suggested is no more "based on" a missing bullet than any theory except the reasonably plausible one that Oswald fired only two shots, which does not require a missing bullet.

What you call Revisionist History is simply Pat Speer's reasonable, evidence-based assessment of what occurred, with the missed shot coming at the end rather than the beginning: Oswald's first shot being the back wound and his second being the one that missed immediately after the head shot, with the head shot presumably being fired by Someone Else if it and Oswald's second shot were almost simultaneous as witnesses described. In this scenario, Oswald simply fired two shots, which even the WC recognized was a possibility, which Jack Nessan has written a well-reasoned book about, and which eliminates any timing problems. I don't say it's what happened, but it is more plausible and evidence-based than the assorted missed-early-shot scenarios.

"Revisionist History," indeed. CT speculation is virtually nothing but revisionist history. Getaway cars in front of the TSBD, anyone?  (As I recall, when I joined here a year ago you were promising to embarrass old-fart researchers with some stunning bombshell that would pretty much wrap up the case. Was the mysterious - indeed, revisionist - getaway car said bombshell, or are we still awaiting it?)

    Have YOU an explanation for the "getaway" car being absent from the Wiegman Film and roughly 15 seconds later being on the Couch/Darnell Films? Nobody caught this over the last 62+ years. This all began with my proving that the Huge Gates were "wide open" and therefore provided clandestine entry/exit from the TSBD. Those "wide open" Huge Gates are within a stone's throw of this "getaway" car. And, there is more to this. We know extremely little about the Elm St Ext. We also know extremely little about the train yard, which the Elm St Ext provides the only means of entry/exit.  (Hint, Hint).   

[Lance Payette]

Given the fact that former Marine sharpshooter Oswald fired all three shots in 10.2 seconds (with his first shot missing everything at "Z-124") in the echo chamber known as Dealey Plaza, deliberating whether or not he could have done it in 5.6 seconds is like arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a needle to "Enter Sandman" and/or "Hell's Bells."

Ergo the "LOL!" in my OP.

LOL!

"Former Marine sharpshooter" ... "missing everything" at Z-124. Do we see a troubling disconnect here?

There seems to me scant evidentiary basis for thinking the back shot was not, in fact, the first shot. Tree limbs, traffic poles, dud bullets, whatever - all rather tortured and, well, troubling attempts to manufacture a missed shot. LNers push the missed shot back to give the LN more time, while the CT folks want to keep things manageable so we don't have two shots too close together.

Two shots by Oswald seems to me the most plausible scenario. Those could have been the back shot and the head shot, as the WC suggested was possible, and all is well in LN Land.

But if there were two shots after the back shot, and if those shots were virtually simultaneous, then there is an obvious LN problem. Hence the mania for an early missed shot. One plausible CT scenario is what Ben seems to favor - the second shot being the one that hit JBC.

For this to be plausible, the second shot would have to be sufficiently long after the back shot for Oswald to have fired it. Otherwise, the second shooter is no better shot than Oswald. The head shot would then be Mafia Guy.

A theory that seems at least reasonably plausible to me is: (1) Oswald's first shot hits JFK in the back and does its SBT thing (with the possibilty, suggested by Orr, that some of JBC's wounds were from a head shot fragment); (2) as Oswald is preparing to fire a second time, Mafia Guy in the Dal-Tex or County Records building gets the job done; and (3) JFK's head explodes in Oswald's scope (or sight) just as he's about to pull the trigger, causing him to - yep - miss everything.

I haven't really analyzed the extent to which this might be plausible in terms of bullet fragments and whatnot (Orr favors Mafia Guy with a 6.5 sabot, although in my Mafia scenario it wouldn't really matter if Mafia Guy was using a 30.06 or .308 or whatever).

At least as worth thinking about, it seems to me, as efforts to keep trying to give our "former Marine sharpshooter" ever more time to ... "miss everything." If we insisit on eliminating Mafia Guy from the scenario, then I think two shots are more plausible than any "missed everything" scenario.

[Tom Graves]

"Former Marine sharpshooter" ... "missing everything" at Z-124. Do we see a troubling disconnect here?

Dear FPL,

Ever heard of angular velocity?

ChatGPT:

While the traffic mast hypothesis is indeed often tied to "Z-107" in specific forensic models (such as Dale Myers'), your focus on "Z-124" highlights the peak tracking difficulty for the sniper. At "Z-124," the angular velocity was actually at its highest for the entire sequence, making it physically the most difficult shot for the shooter to coordinate.

1. Angular Velocity Peak

As the limousine moved away from the Depository, the required tracking motion for the sniper did not decrease linearly; it started fast and then "slowed down" as the distance increased:

At "Z-124": The pivoting required to track the target was approximately 8 degrees per second. While this seems slow on paper, for a sniper using a 4x scope with a limited field of view, this represents a significant and complex anatomical motion involving both horizontal and vertical adjustment.

At Z-224 and Z-313: By the time of the second and third shots, the required tracking movement had decreased by half. The target was moving more directly away from the sniper’s line of sight, meaning the rifle barely had to pivot at all to keep the crosshairs on JFK.

2. Why the Miss is "Strange" at "Z-124"

If the traffic mast was no longer an obstruction by "Z-124," the miss becomes more attributable to the dynamic geometry of the shot:

The "Lead" Problem: Although the car was moving nearly [straight] away [from Oswald], it still had a slight horizontal drift. At "Z-124," the target was at its closest point (approx. 100 feet), where any slight error in tracking speed is magnified.

Scope Parallax/Alignment:

Oswald’s 4x scope was notoriously misaligned, striking high and to the left. At the close range of "Z-124," this mechanical error is more pronounced than at 80 yards, where the bullet’s trajectory has more time to "settle" relative to the point of aim.

Trigger Jerk: Many marksmen suggest that the first shot of a high-stress event is the most likely to be "jerked." Given that this shot had the highest angular velocity of the three, a jerked trigger combined with the need to pivot the rifle at 8°/s makes a complete miss more plausible.

Summary of Difficulty

Shot Location    Distance (approx.)   Angular Velocity (Tracking)   Tracking Difficulty

"Z-124"   100–105 feet   ~8 degrees/sec   Highest

Z-224   190 feet   ~4 degrees/sec   Medium

Z-313   265 feet   ~2 degrees/sec   Lowest


By "Z-124," JFK’s head was moving faster relative to the sniper's field of view than it would be for the rest of the motorcade route, which likely contributed to the total miss.

. . . . . . .

-- Tom

[Lance Payette]

Dear FPL,

Ever heard of angular velocity?

ChatGPT:

While the traffic mast hypothesis is indeed often tied to "Z-107" in specific forensic models (such as Dale Myers'), your focus on "Z-124" highlights the peak tracking difficulty for the sniper. At "Z-124," the angular velocity was actually at its highest for the entire sequence, making it physically the most difficult shot for the shooter to coordinate.

1. Angular Velocity Peak

As the limousine moved away from the Depository, the required tracking motion for the sniper did not decrease linearly; it started fast and then "slowed down" as the distance increased:

At "Z-124": The pivoting required to track the target was approximately 8 degrees per second. While this seems slow on paper, for a sniper using a 4x scope with a limited field of view, this represents a significant and complex anatomical motion involving both horizontal and vertical adjustment.

At Z-224 and Z-313: By the time of the second and third shots, the required tracking movement had decreased by half. The target was moving more directly away from the sniper’s line of sight, meaning the rifle barely had to pivot at all to keep the crosshairs on JFK.

2. Why the Miss is "Strange" at "Z-124"

If the traffic mast was no longer an obstruction by "Z-124," the miss becomes more attributable to the dynamic geometry of the shot:

The "Lead" Problem: Although the car was moving nearly away, it still had a slight horizontal drift. At "Z-124," the target was at its closest point (approx. 100 feet), where any slight error in tracking speed is magnified.

Scope Parallax/Alignment:

Oswald’s 4x scope was notoriously misaligned, striking high and to the left. At the close range of "Z-124," this mechanical error is more pronounced than at 80 yards, where the bullet’s trajectory has more time to "settle" relative to the point of aim.

Trigger Jerk: Many marksmen suggest that the first shot of a high-stress event is the most likely to be "jerked." Given that this shot had the highest angular velocity of the three, a jerked trigger combined with the need to pivot the rifle at 8°/s makes a complete miss more plausible.

Summary of Difficulty

Shot Location    Distance (approx.)   Angular Velocity (Tracking)   Tracking Difficulty

"Z-124"   100–105 feet   ~8 degrees/sec   Highest

Z-224   190 feet   ~4 degrees/sec   Medium

Z-313   265 feet   ~2 degrees/sec   Lowest

By "Z-124," JFK’s head was moving faster relative to the sniper's field of view than it would be for the rest of the motorcade route, which likely contributed to the total miss.

. . . . . . .

-- Tom

The issue remains: Why does our "former Marine sharpshooter" TAKE this "highest difficulty" shot that requires him to contort himself and exposes him to the greatest risk of being seen? Is this because he is a "stupid former Marine sharpshooter," sort of the Wile E. Coyote of former Marine sharpshooters? Yes, we understand a Z-124 shot would have had obvious difficulties. That's why I don't think Oswald took it. Surely he had time and brains enough to know that being comfortably in place and waiting for the limo to emerge from the tree would be an easy shot and the way a prudent former Marine sharpshooter would do it.

[Tom Graves]

The issue remains: Why does our "former Marine sharpshooter" TAKE this "highest difficulty" shot that requires him to contort himself and exposes him to the greatest risk of being seen? Is this because he is a "stupid former Marine sharpshooter," sort of the Wile E. Coyote of former Marine sharpshooters? Yes, we understand a Z-124 shot would have had obvious difficulties. That's why I don't think Oswald took it. Surely he had time and brains enough to know that being comfortably in place and waiting for the limo to emerge from the tree would be an easy shot and the way a prudent former Marine sharpshooter would do it.

Dear FPL,

1. Maybe Oswald didn't realize how difficult a shot it would be.

2) Since the Secret Service follow-up car had just turned onto Elm Street at "Z-124," the agents in said car, "hung over" or not, would have had to break their necks to look up at Oswald's sixth-floor Sniper's Nest window.

-- Tom

[Lance Payette]

    Have YOU an explanation for the "getaway" car being absent from the Wiegman Film and roughly 15 seconds later being on the Couch/Darnell Films? Nobody caught this over the last 62+ years. This all began with my proving that the Huge Gates were "wide open" and therefore provided clandestine entry/exit from the TSBD. Those "wide open" Huge Gates are within a stone's throw of this "getaway" car. And, there is more to this. We know extremely little about the Elm St Ext. We also know extremely little about the train yard, which the Elm St Ext provides the only means of entry/exit.  (Hint, Hint).   

Well, yes, I do have an explanation: There is no reason to think it's a getaway car. If the conspiracy required a getaway car, then "in front of the TSBD on Elm Street" strikes me as about the least likely place within a 1.5 mile radius of the TSBD for said getaway car to be. One would think the vast open area behind the TSBD or down the block on Houston might be at least somewhat less Stooge-like. Have you perhaps seen "Bonnie & Clyde" one too many times?

One problem with the CT community is this absolute mania to be someone who Discovers Something New That No One Has Ever Noticed Before!!! This goes back to the earliest days of CT theorizing, with the scenarios becoming ever-more Three Stooges-like. Now we've reached the nadir of CT luminary Bart Kamp supposedly faking photos for reasons that don't help his Prayer Man theory at all but throw a monkey wrench into someone else's even wackier CT theory! The Huge Gates! The Getaway Car! The Fake Shelley and Fake Lovelady! Yee-ha! 

How the JFKA went down, more or less ...

[Tom Graves]

The issue remains: Why does our "former Marine sharpshooter" TAKE this "highest difficulty" shot that requires him to contort himself and exposes him to the greatest risk of being seen? Is this because he is a "stupid former Marine sharpshooter," sort of the Wile E. Coyote of former Marine sharpshooters? Yes, we understand a Z-124 shot would have had obvious difficulties. That's why I don't think Oswald took it. Surely he had time and brains enough to know that being comfortably in place and waiting for the limo to emerge from the tree would be an easy shot and the way a prudent former Marine sharpshooter would do it.

Dear FPL,

From your previous post:

"'Former Marine sharpshooter' ... 'missing everything' at Z-124. Do we see a troubling disconnect here?"

Compare that lame statement with what you said, above, regarding the now-obvious difficulty of the shot.

Do we see a disconnect, here, Counselor?

-- Tom