Why the first shot missed

[John Iacoletti]

No need to get defensive. You said “LHO reportedly practiced by dry-firing at moving cars from the screened-in porch in New Orleans”, and all I said is that people should check primary sources (especially for things that Bugliosi “reports”).

[Charles Collins]

No need to get defensive. You said “LHO reportedly practiced by dry-firing at moving cars from the screened-in porch in New Orleans”, and all I said is that people should check primary sources (especially for things that Bugliosi “reports”).

I believe you said “this is why you should check…”. Or something like that. I use words like “reportedly” and terms like “it appears to me” to appease your apparent sensitivity to anyone making any kind of assumption whatsoever. It doesn’t matter how well reasoned the assumption might be, you object (unless, of course, it points away from LHO’s guilt). So when, after I use such language, you still insinuate that I said something that I didn’t, I have a legitimate gripe.

Go waste someone else’s time…

[Joe Elliott]

The distance at z-153 was more like 129 feet, not 75 feet

I am only questioning your calculations of the running deer Olympic shots. Here is why:
 
From your post:

“1908 Running Deer:                           3.2  dps     18.4 fps      330 ft”

Yet the description you posted from Wikipedia clearly states the targets were at 75-feet.

No. the link I provided was:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_meter_running_deer

which states:

1908 was the first time of running deer at the Olympics, and the target was specified to placed at 110 yards[citation needed] (100.584 meters) and made 10 runs of 75 feet (23 meters) for about 4 seconds each.

So the target ran on a course that was 75 feet long, for about 4 seconds. This path was at right angles to the shooter. But the distance to the target, at it's closest, was 110 yards or 330 feet. So the target was 330 feet away from the shooter, not 75 feet, at it's closest.

But the problem is, if the angular velocity is too great, a shooter can't keep the sights lined up on the target. If the shooter can't keep the sights lined up on the target, even one the size of a human, or a deer, I would expect them to miss at 330 feet. Or 129 feet. Or 75 feet. Even at 75 feet you need luck to hit a target of that size when you can't keep the sights lined up on the target as it moves.

Why would you assume that he couldn’t keep the sights lined up on a moving target? I have read that LHO was a member of a shooting club in Russia. And that they could only own shotguns (no rifles). I don’t claim to know what type of shooting they did with their shotguns. But a common and popular type of shooting was at “clay pigeons”. Also called skeet shooting or trap shooting depending on the specifics of how it was set up. Hitting a 110 mm diameter flying target at various and unpredictable angles of flight requires considerable shooting skills and quick reactions. Here is an exerpt regarding LHO’s reaction speed from page 211 of Robert Oswald’s book “Lee” that I find interesting:

I have some idea of the speed of Lee’s reflexes, both from my general observation of him while we were growing up and specifically because of a game we used to play. Sometimes Lee and I would walk up to each other and fake an unexpected punch, to test each other’s reactions. I discovered from this game that Lee had very rapid reflexes.

LHO reportedly delighted in situations where he could “try to prove” his self-perceived “superiority”. I can imagine that his “very rapid reflexes” would have come in handy during any shooting activities he might have had in the shooting club in Russia. Whether they were shooting at birds or rabbits or skeet or whatever, he most likely would have done well shooting at moving targets.

Also, LHO reportedly practiced by dry-firing at moving cars from the screened-in porch in New Orleans during the summer of 1963. There is no doubt that the higher angular velocity of an early shot from the sniper’s nest in Dealey Plaza would have made it a much more challenging shot than the two shots that hit JFK. But, again, I think it would have taken more than just that to cause it to miss the limo entirely.

Oswald did minimum shooting in Russia. We was kicked out of the shooting club. Not due to his poor marksmanship, but to his lack of judgement. He made a quick snap shot with a shotgun at a running rabbit which was in the general direction of another shooter. He missed the rabbit and the other shooter. He was not kicked out because he missed the rabbit. It made no difference whether he hit the rabbit or not. He was kicked out because he fired carelessly in the general direction of another person.

Whether an angular speed of 4.8 degrees per second would be enough to cause Oswald to likely miss JFK by five feet, I don't know. One would need to run some tests with someone of Oswald's experience, very good training at stationary targets, at 200, 300 and 500 yards, little to no experience at shooting at moving targets. I suspect that the angular velocity was high enough that he could well miss by five feet, which could cause him to miss the limousine. He seems to have missed the limousine with the first shot. If the high angular velocity is not the explanation than I don't know what is. But firing tests would need to be made to get a more definitive answer.

[Charles Collins]

No. the link I provided was:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_meter_running_deer

which states:

So the target ran on a course that was 75 feet long, for about 4 seconds. This path was at right angles to the shooter. But the distance to the target, at it's closest, was 110 yards or 330 feet. So the target was 330 feet away from the shooter, not 75 feet, at it's closest.

Oswald did minimum shooting in Russia. We was kicked out of the shooting club. Not due to his poor marksmanship, but to his lack of judgement. He made a quick snap shot with a shotgun at a running rabbit which was in the general direction of another shooter. He missed the rabbit and the other shooter. He was not kicked out because he missed the rabbit. It made no difference whether he hit the rabbit or not. He was kicked out because he fired carelessly in the general direction of another person.

Whether an angular speed of 4.8 degrees per second would be enough to cause Oswald to likely miss JFK by five feet, I don't know. One would need to run some tests with someone of Oswald's experience, very good training at stationary targets, at 200, 300 and 500 yards, little to no experience at shooting at moving targets. I suspect that the angular velocity was high enough that he could well miss by five feet, which could cause him to miss the limousine. He seems to have missed the limousine with the first shot. If the high angular velocity is not the explanation than I don't know what is. But firing tests would need to be made to get a more definitive answer.

It was your wording in this post that confused me:

Running Deer Shooting at the 1908 Olympics.

In years past, they used to have a ‘Running Deer Shooting’ competition at the Olympics. The best thing about this competition was that they did not actually shot at real live deer.

The Wikipedia article on this gives the most complete information on the 1908 Olympics.
The range was 330 feet. The target would appear for only 4 seconds at a distance of 75 feet.
…

Thanks for clarifying this.

As for missing a moving target at a distance of 125-feet or less by 5-feet due to angular speed? I don’t think anyone with the rifle training and capabilities that LHO had would have done that without some other interference.

[Gerry Down]

Yes, the field of view was limited and the speed of the cars would be varied. So the available time to track the cars would be varied also. I think that this would be a challenge that LHO would like. It would be similar to the challenge of skeet or trap shooting. Testing and practicing of LHO’s very fast reflexes (described by Robert Oswald) comes to mind for this challenge. He would have to react quickly to acquire the moving target in his sights and pull the trigger (dry firing) before the car left the field of view. I don’t see how he could have anticipated that this practice would come in handy on 11/22/63. But it sure seems to me that it did.

I hadn't heard this before. What is your source that Robert Oswald said LHO practiced fast reflex times while shooting?

[Charles Collins]

I hadn't heard this before. What is your source that Robert Oswald said LHO practiced fast reflex times while shooting?

I was referring to the passage in Robert Oswald's book "Lee" which I posted earlier in this thread. It was a game they played when they were growing up. And it didn't have anything to do with rifles. It was walking up to each other and sometimes throwing a fake unexpected punch to test and compare each other's reaction times. Robert said he learned from this game that Lee had very fast reflexes. Sorry if my sentence was unclear.

[John Iacoletti]

I believe you said “this is why you should check…”. Or something like that. I use words like “reportedly” and terms like “it appears to me” to appease your apparent sensitivity to anyone making any kind of assumption whatsoever. It doesn’t matter how well reasoned the assumption might be, you object (unless, of course, it points away from LHO’s guilt). So when, after I use such language, you still insinuate that I said something that I didn’t, I have a legitimate gripe.

Go waste someone else’s time…

That was meant as the the generic "you".  But the specific "you" are wasting your own time by treating every comment as a personal affront.

But then some people care whether the things they quote are actually true or not, rather than just worrying about phrasing things with plausible deniability.

Especially when the quote is being used to try to make the case that Oswald was practicing tracking cars.

[Gerry Down]

I was referring to the passage in Robert Oswald's book "Lee" which I posted earlier in this thread. It was a game they played when they were growing up. And it didn't have anything to do with rifles. It was walking up to each other and sometimes throwing a fake unexpected punch to test and compare each other's reaction times. Robert said he learned from this game that Lee had very fast reflexes. Sorry if my sentence was unclear.

Thanks. That's a very interesting point. Fast reflexes would be required to resight the target each time such as in a rapid fire situation.