The "Wound Ballistics Of 6.5-mm. Mannlicher-Carcano Ammunition" Report

[Kenneth Drew]

Prudhomme,

Go gripe to Sturdivan. I'm not the "wound ballistics expert/researcher". He is. And he said it on Page 118 of his book.

If you think you know more than a ballistics expert, great. CTers ALWAYS think they "know better" than every expert ever connected to this case. Big effing deal. What else is new? But I'll stick with Larry, thanks.

Oh, well, if he said it on page 118 then that must make it official. or something.

[Pat Speer]

This was one of the topics covered in my presentation at the Bethesda Conference last year. I may have been discussing this when Warren Commission counsel Burt Griffin jumped up and left the room.

In any event, David is right. The tests were significant. Not because they supported the single-bullet theory, but because they showed how desperate Specter and the commission were to prop up the theory.

From chapter 11 at patspeer.com:

Olivier testified that 1) the average striking velocity of the bullet on the seven wrist shots he measured was 1858 fps; 2) the average exit velocity of the bullet on these seven shots was 1776 fps; 3) there was "considerably more" damage to the wrist bones he'd fired upon than on Connally's wrist bones; 4) there was "a greater flattening of the bullet" in his experiments than there was on CE 399, the bullet purported to have struck Connally's wrist, "which might indicate that it struck the rib which did the flattening at a lower velocity;" 5) these differences had led him to conclude that the bullet striking Connally's wrist was "characterized by an extreme amount of yaw and reduced velocity. How much reduced, I don't know, but considerably reduced;" and 6) this bullet "had so little velocity after coming out of the wrist that it barely penetrated the thigh."

Olivier was thereby telling Specter that the bullet striking Connally was not a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet traveling at full-velocity that had previously struck but soft tissue in Kennedy and a rib in Connally. He was telling him, in so many words, that his single-bullet theory was nonsense.

Of course, he failed to actually say such a thing.

With the help of that master spinner of tall tales, Arlen Specter, he'd found a way out.

See if you can spot it.

From the 5-13-64 testimony of Dr. Olivier before the Warren Commission:

Dr. OLIVIER. The loss in velocity passing through the goat was 265 feet per second.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, would that be the approximate loss in velocity of a pristine bullet passing through the Governor?
Dr. OLIVIER. The loss would be somewhat greater.
Mr. SPECTER. How much greater in your opinion?
Dr. OLIVIER. Do you have that figure, Dr. Dziemian?
Dr. DZIEMIAN. I would say...the Governor was about half again thicker. It would be about half again as great velocity, somewhere around 400.

(Note: Dziemian was the Chief of the Biophysics Division, U.S. Army Chemical Research and Development Laboratories, Edgewood Arsenal, Md. He was both Olivier's and Sturdivan's superior.)

Mr. SPECTER. Had the bullet passed through only the Governor, losing velocity of 400 feet per second, would you have expected that the damage inflicted on the Governor's wrist would have been about the same as that inflicted on Governor Connally or greater?
Dr. OLIVIER. My feeling is it would have been greater.

(Note that the bullet's traveling at a velocity lower than that of Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition was not to be considered. To Olivier's and Specter's minds, if the bullet was traveling too slow, well, then, it must have hit something first.)

So there it is. Olivier had previously testified that a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet fired from the sniper's nest would lose about 100 fps before reaching Kennedy and Connally and that a bullet traversing Kennedy's neck would lose about 125 fps. He then testified that a bullet traversing Connally's chest would lose about 400 fps. And he then testified that a bullet piercing Connally's wrist would lose about 82 fps.

Such a bullet would still be traveling at a supersonic rate upon exit from Kennedy's wrist. Well, this doesn't jibe with the small size of the wrist wound and the barely existent wound in the thigh. And, holy smokes...this suggests instead that the bullet creating these wounds was NOT a high-velocity round fired from Oswald's rifle...and that...dare I say it...this bullet may very well have been a low-velocity subsonic round fired from a sniper rifle.

I mean, let's do the math. If the bullet lost 100 fps in the air before striking anything, 125 fps in Kennedy's neck, 400 fps in Connally's chest, and 82 in Connally's wrist, it had lost a little over 700 fps before striking Connally's thigh. A subsonic rifle round is fired with a muzzle velocity around 1,000 fps. The 300 fps left over would be more than enough to damage Connally's thigh.

But no one wanted to hear this. So what did Specter do?

Mr. SPECTER Had the bullet passed through the President and then struck Governor Connally, would it have lost velocity of 400 feet per second in passing through Governor Connally or more?

Dr. OLIVIER. It would have lost more.
Mr. SPECTER. What is the reason for that?
Dr. OLIVIER. The bullet after passing through, say a dense medium, then through air and then through another dense medium tends to be more unstable, based on our past work. It appears to be that it would have tumbled more readily and lost energy more rapidly. How much velocity it would have lost, I couldn't say, but it would have lost more.

He gets Olivier to say the bullet lost more velocity than 400 fps in Connally's chest. Olivier fails to put a number to this presumption, mind you. And not only that, he fails to tell us how much velocity it would need to lose for the single-bullet theory to make sense. Yikes. This is a huge gaping hole in Specter's presentation of the evidence. In effect, he has told the commission "We don't know if Kennedy's and Connally's wounds could have been caused by this bullet if it was traveling at the presumed velocity, and we have no reason to believe this bullet could have caused their wounds if it was traveling at the presumed velocity."

And yet, look how Specter covers this in Appendix X of the Warren Report: (Olivier and Dziemian were of the) "opinion that the wound on the Governor's wrist would have been more extensive had the bullet which inflicted that injury merely passed through the Governor's chest exiting at a velocity of approximately 1,500 feet per second. Thus, the Governor's wrist wound indicated that the bullet passed through the President's neck, began to yaw in the air between the President and the Governor, and then lost substantially more velocity than 400 feet per second in passing through the Governor's chest.314 A bullet which was yawing on entering into the Governor's back would lose substantially more velocity in passing through his body than a pristine bullet.315 In addition, the greater flattening of the bullet. that struck the animal's rib (Commission Exhibit No. 853) than the bullet which presumably struck the Governor's rib (Commission Exhibit No. 399) indicates that the animal bullet was traveling at a greater velocity.316 That suggests that the bullet which entered the Governor's chest had already lost velocity by passing through the President's neck.317 Moreover, the large wound on the Governor's back would be explained by a bullet which was yawing although that type of wound might also be accounted for by a tangential striking.318"

The numbers didn't add up, so Specter added a "substantially" into Olivier's words and presto! change-o! the single-bullet theory was revived.

Edited June 19, 2015 by Pat Speer

[Robert Prudhomme]

This was one of the topics covered in my presentation at the Bethesda Conference last year. I may have been discussing this when Warren Commission counsel Burt Griffin jumped up and left the room.

In any event, David is right. The tests were significant. Not because they supported the single-bullet theory, but because they showed how desperate Specter and the commission were to prop up the theory.

From chapter 11 at patspeer.com:

Olivier testified that 1) the average striking velocity of the bullet on the seven wrist shots he measured was 1858 fps; 2) the average exit velocity of the bullet on these seven shots was 1776 fps; 3) there was "considerably more" damage to the wrist bones he'd fired upon than on Connally's wrist bones; 4) there was "a greater flattening of the bullet" in his experiments than there was on CE 399, the bullet purported to have struck Connally's wrist, "which might indicate that it struck the rib which did the flattening at a lower velocity;" 5) these differences had led him to conclude that the bullet striking Connally's wrist was "characterized by an extreme amount of yaw and reduced velocity. How much reduced, I don't know, but considerably reduced;" and 6) this bullet "had so little velocity after coming out of the wrist that it barely penetrated the thigh."

Olivier was thereby telling Specter that the bullet striking Connally was not a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet traveling at full-velocity that had previously struck but soft tissue in Kennedy and a rib in Connally. He was telling him, in so many words, that his single-bullet theory was nonsense.

Of course, he failed to actually say such a thing.

With the help of that master spinner of tall tales, Arlen Specter, he'd found a way out.

See if you can spot it.

From the 5-13-64 testimony of Dr. Olivier before the Warren Commission:

Dr. OLIVIER. The loss in velocity passing through the goat was 265 feet per second.

Mr. SPECTER. Now, would that be the approximate loss in velocity of a pristine bullet passing through the Governor?

Dr. OLIVIER. The loss would be somewhat greater.

Mr. SPECTER. How much greater in your opinion?

Dr. OLIVIER. Do you have that figure, Dr. Dziemian?

Dr. DZIEMIAN. I would say...the Governor was about half again thicker. It would be about half again as great velocity, somewhere around 400.

(Note: Dziemian was the Chief of the Biophysics Division, U.S. Army Chemical Research and Development Laboratories, Edgewood Arsenal, Md. He was both Olivier's and Sturdivan's superior.)

Mr. SPECTER. Had the bullet passed through only the Governor, losing velocity of 400 feet per second, would you have expected that the damage inflicted on the Governor's wrist would have been about the same as that inflicted on Governor Connally or greater?

Dr. OLIVIER. My feeling is it would have been greater.

(Note that the bullet's traveling at a velocity lower than that of Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition was not to be considered. To Olivier's and Specter's minds, if the bullet was traveling too slow, well, then, it must have hit something first.)

So there it is. Olivier had previously testified that a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet fired from the sniper's nest would lose about 100 fps before reaching Kennedy and Connally and that a bullet traversing Kennedy's neck would lose about 125 fps. He then testified that a bullet traversing Connally's chest would lose about 400 fps. And he then testified that a bullet piercing Connally's wrist would lose about 82 fps.

Such a bullet would still be traveling at a supersonic rate upon exit from Kennedy's wrist. Well, this doesn't jibe with the small size of the wrist wound and the barely existent wound in the thigh. And, holy smokes...this suggests instead that the bullet creating these wounds was NOT a high-velocity round fired from Oswald's rifle...and that...dare I say it...this bullet may very well have been a low-velocity subsonic round fired from a sniper rifle.

I mean, let's do the math. If the bullet lost 100 fps in the air before striking anything, 125 fps in Kennedy's neck, 400 fps in Connally's chest, and 82 in Connally's wrist, it had lost a little over 700 fps before striking Connally's thigh. A subsonic rifle round is fired with a muzzle velocity around 1,000 fps. The 300 fps left over would be more than enough to damage Connally's thigh.

But no one wanted to hear this. So what did Specter do?

Mr. SPECTER Had the bullet passed through the President and then struck Governor Connally, would it have lost velocity of 400 feet per second in passing through Governor Connally or more?

Dr. OLIVIER. It would have lost more.

Mr. SPECTER. What is the reason for that?

Dr. OLIVIER. The bullet after passing through, say a dense medium, then through air and then through another dense medium tends to be more unstable, based on our past work. It appears to be that it would have tumbled more readily and lost energy more rapidly. How much velocity it would have lost, I couldn't say, but it would have lost more.

He gets Olivier to say the bullet lost more velocity than 400 fps in Connally's chest. Olivier fails to put a number to this presumption, mind you. And not only that, he fails to tell us how much velocity it would need to lose for the single-bullet theory to make sense. Yikes. This is a huge gaping hole in Specter's presentation of the evidence. In effect, he has told the commission "We don't know if Kennedy's and Connally's wounds could have been caused by this bullet if it was traveling at the presumed velocity, and we have no reason to believe this bullet could have caused their wounds if it was traveling at the presumed velocity."

And yet, look how Specter covers this in Appendix X of the Warren Report: (Olivier and Dziemian were of the) "opinion that the wound on the Governor's wrist would have been more extensive had the bullet which inflicted that injury merely passed through the Governor's chest exiting at a velocity of approximately 1,500 feet per second. Thus, the Governor's wrist wound indicated that the bullet passed through the President's neck, began to yaw in the air between the President and the Governor, and then lost substantially more velocity than 400 feet per second in passing through the Governor's chest.314 A bullet which was yawing on entering into the Governor's back would lose substantially more velocity in passing through his body than a pristine bullet.315 In addition, the greater flattening of the bullet. that struck the animal's rib (Commission Exhibit No. 853) than the bullet which presumably struck the Governor's rib (Commission Exhibit No. 399) indicates that the animal bullet was traveling at a greater velocity.316 That suggests that the bullet which entered the Governor's chest had already lost velocity by passing through the President's neck.317 Moreover, the large wound on the Governor's back would be explained by a bullet which was yawing although that type of wound might also be accounted for by a tangential striking.318"

The numbers didn't add up, so Specter added a "substantially" into Olivier's words and presto! change-o! the single-bullet theory was revived.

Specter made two assumptions that were not supported by the medical report or the WC testimony of Dr. Robert Shaw.

The first assumption was that the bullet actually passed through Connally's chest, inflicting a through and through wound of the right lung. The second assumption is that the bullet was tumbling as it travelled between JFK and Connally.

The back wound suffered by Connally is perhaps the least understood of any of the wounds that day. It was, in actuality, not really a back wound. It struck Connally a tangential blow at the extreme right outside edge of his chest, at a point called the mid axillary line. If Connally had been facing forward when shot, as he clearly is at z224, this would have been a minor wound that would have travelled through a couple of inches of muscle before exiting the side of Connally's chest. What it actually did was enter at the mid axillary line, follow the OUTSIDE of Connally's wrist downward for 10 cm. (4 inches) and exit just below and slightly to the LEFT of Connally's right nipple. Anatomically, this describes a right to left bullet path of roughly 40° across the front of Connally's chest. Knowing this as stated fact by Dr. Shaw, Connally was either turned halfway to the rear when shot, eliminating z224 as a possible time of him being shot, or the shot originated from the west end of the TSBD.

The important thing about this wound is that at no point does Dr. Shaw state that the bullet ever penetrates the chest cavity but, rather, it followed the course of the outside of the 5th rib, stripping out much of it for the 4 inches it was in contact with it. He states that the open pneumothorax (sucking chest wound) suffered by Connally was caused by shattered fragments of the 5th rib.

The possibility of this bullet tumbling when it hit the side of Connally's chest is ruled out by something Dr. Shaw stated in his WC testimony:

"Mr. McCLOY - Is it possible that it could have not, the actual bullet could not have hit the rib at all but it might have been the expanding flesh that would cause the wound or the proper contusion, I guess you would call it on the rib itself?

Dr. SHAW - I think we would have to postulate that the bullet hit the rib itself by the neat way in which it stripped the rib out without doing much damage to the muscles that lay on either side of it."

The ribs are fairly narrow, and if this bullet stripped out the 5th rib, and left the intercostal muscles above and below it relatively undamaged, the bullet could not have been tumbling in order to have inflicted such a confined amount of damage. It must have been travelling straight and true. My experience in hunting has shown me that tumbling bullets tend to make large messes, and tear up great amounts of flesh. Many military bullets, such as the .303 British Mk. VII bullet, are purposely designed to tumble, once in a wound, to maximize damage.

Further evidence of a non-tumbling bullet is provided by SA Robert Frazier of the FBI, who examined Connally's suit coat. He described to the WC a perfectly round bullet exit hole on the front of Connally's suit coat that measured a mere 3/8" in diameter; less than 1/8" larger in diameter than a 6.5mm Carcano bullet.

How could an extremely long bullet, such as the 6.5mm Carcano, make a 3/8" diameter exit hole in the suit coat if it were tumbling?

Edited June 20, 2015 by Robert Prudhomme

[Glenn Nall]

Prudhomme,

Go gripe to Sturdivan. I'm not the "wound ballistics expert/researcher". He is. And he said it on Page 118 of his book.

If you think you know more than a ballistics expert, great. CTers ALWAYS think they "know better" than every expert ever connected to this case. Big effing deal. What else is new? But I'll stick with Larry, thanks.

Oh, well, if he said it on page 118 then that must make it official. or something.

yes, using page 118 in any book of secrets is "code" for "you can take THIS to the bank." u didn't no that? if you don't believe me, see pg 118 in my next book.

[Glenn Nall]

This was one of the topics covered in my presentation at the Bethesda Conference last year. I may have been discussing this when Warren Commission counsel Burt Griffin jumped up and left the room.

In any event, David is right. The tests were significant. Not because they supported the single-bullet theory, but because they showed how desperate Specter and the commission were to prop up the theory.

From chapter 11 at patspeer.com:

Olivier testified that 1) the average striking velocity of the bullet on the seven wrist shots he measured was 1858 fps; 2) the average exit velocity of the bullet on these seven shots was 1776 fps; 3) there was "considerably more" damage to the wrist bones he'd fired upon than on Connally's wrist bones; 4) there was "a greater flattening of the bullet" in his experiments than there was on CE 399, the bullet purported to have struck Connally's wrist, "which might indicate that it struck the rib which did the flattening at a lower velocity;" 5) these differences had led him to conclude that the bullet striking Connally's wrist was "characterized by an extreme amount of yaw and reduced velocity. How much reduced, I don't know, but considerably reduced;" and 6) this bullet "had so little velocity after coming out of the wrist that it barely penetrated the thigh."

Olivier was thereby telling Specter that the bullet striking Connally was not a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet traveling at full-velocity that had previously struck but soft tissue in Kennedy and a rib in Connally. He was telling him, in so many words, that his single-bullet theory was nonsense.

Of course, he failed to actually say such a thing.

With the help of that master spinner of tall tales, Arlen Specter, he'd found a way out.

See if you can spot it.

From the 5-13-64 testimony of Dr. Olivier before the Warren Commission:

Dr. OLIVIER. The loss in velocity passing through the goat was 265 feet per second.

Mr. SPECTER. Now, would that be the approximate loss in velocity of a pristine bullet passing through the Governor?

Dr. OLIVIER. The loss would be somewhat greater.

Mr. SPECTER. How much greater in your opinion?

Dr. OLIVIER. Do you have that figure, Dr. Dziemian?

Dr. DZIEMIAN. I would say...the Governor was about half again thicker. It would be about half again as great velocity, somewhere around 400.

(Note: Dziemian was the Chief of the Biophysics Division, U.S. Army Chemical Research and Development Laboratories, Edgewood Arsenal, Md. He was both Olivier's and Sturdivan's superior.)

Mr. SPECTER. Had the bullet passed through only the Governor, losing velocity of 400 feet per second, would you have expected that the damage inflicted on the Governor's wrist would have been about the same as that inflicted on Governor Connally or greater?

Dr. OLIVIER. My feeling is it would have been greater.

(Note that the bullet's traveling at a velocity lower than that of Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition was not to be considered. To Olivier's and Specter's minds, if the bullet was traveling too slow, well, then, it must have hit something first.)

So there it is. Olivier had previously testified that a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet fired from the sniper's nest would lose about 100 fps before reaching Kennedy and Connally and that a bullet traversing Kennedy's neck would lose about 125 fps. He then testified that a bullet traversing Connally's chest would lose about 400 fps. And he then testified that a bullet piercing Connally's wrist would lose about 82 fps.

Such a bullet would still be traveling at a supersonic rate upon exit from Kennedy's wrist. Well, this doesn't jibe with the small size of the wrist wound and the barely existent wound in the thigh. And, holy smokes...this suggests instead that the bullet creating these wounds was NOT a high-velocity round fired from Oswald's rifle...and that...dare I say it...this bullet may very well have been a low-velocity subsonic round fired from a sniper rifle.

I mean, let's do the math. If the bullet lost 100 fps in the air before striking anything, 125 fps in Kennedy's neck, 400 fps in Connally's chest, and 82 in Connally's wrist, it had lost a little over 700 fps before striking Connally's thigh. A subsonic rifle round is fired with a muzzle velocity around 1,000 fps. The 300 fps left over would be more than enough to damage Connally's thigh.

But no one wanted to hear this. So what did Specter do?

Mr. SPECTER Had the bullet passed through the President and then struck Governor Connally, would it have lost velocity of 400 feet per second in passing through Governor Connally or more?

Dr. OLIVIER. It would have lost more.

Mr. SPECTER. What is the reason for that?

Dr. OLIVIER. The bullet after passing through, say a dense medium, then through air and then through another dense medium tends to be more unstable, based on our past work. It appears to be that it would have tumbled more readily and lost energy more rapidly. How much velocity it would have lost, I couldn't say, but it would have lost more.

He gets Olivier to say the bullet lost more velocity than 400 fps in Connally's chest. Olivier fails to put a number to this presumption, mind you. And not only that, he fails to tell us how much velocity it would need to lose for the single-bullet theory to make sense. Yikes. This is a huge gaping hole in Specter's presentation of the evidence. In effect, he has told the commission "We don't know if Kennedy's and Connally's wounds could have been caused by this bullet if it was traveling at the presumed velocity, and we have no reason to believe this bullet could have caused their wounds if it was traveling at the presumed velocity."

And yet, look how Specter covers this in Appendix X of the Warren Report: (Olivier and Dziemian were of the) "opinion that the wound on the Governor's wrist would have been more extensive had the bullet which inflicted that injury merely passed through the Governor's chest exiting at a velocity of approximately 1,500 feet per second. Thus, the Governor's wrist wound indicated that the bullet passed through the President's neck, began to yaw in the air between the President and the Governor, and then lost substantially more velocity than 400 feet per second in passing through the Governor's chest.314 A bullet which was yawing on entering into the Governor's back would lose substantially more velocity in passing through his body than a pristine bullet.315 In addition, the greater flattening of the bullet. that struck the animal's rib (Commission Exhibit No. 853) than the bullet which presumably struck the Governor's rib (Commission Exhibit No. 399) indicates that the animal bullet was traveling at a greater velocity.316 That suggests that the bullet which entered the Governor's chest had already lost velocity by passing through the President's neck.317 Moreover, the large wound on the Governor's back would be explained by a bullet which was yawing although that type of wound might also be accounted for by a tangential striking.318"

The numbers didn't add up, so Specter added a "substantially" into Olivier's words and presto! change-o! the single-bullet theory was revived.

Specter made two assumptions that were not supported by the medical report or the WC testimony of Dr. Robert Shaw.

The first assumption was that the bullet actually passed through Connally's chest, inflicting a through and through wound of the right lung. The second assumption is that the bullet was tumbling as it travelled between JFK and Connally.

The back wound suffered by Connally is perhaps the least understood of any of the wounds that day. It was, in actuality, not really a back wound. It struck Connally a tangential blow at the extreme right outside edge of his chest, at a point called the mid axillary line. If Connally had been facing forward when shot, as he clearly is at z224, this would have been a minor wound that would have travelled through a couple of inches of muscle before exiting the side of Connally's chest. What it actually did was enter at the mid axillary line, follow the OUTSIDE of Connally's wrist downward for 10 cm. (4 inches) and exit just below and slightly to the LEFT of Connally's right nipple. Anatomically, this describes a right to left bullet path of roughly 40° across the front of Connally's chest. Knowing this as stated fact by Dr. Shaw, Connally was either turned halfway to the rear when shot, eliminating z224 as a possible time of him being shot, or the shot originated from the west end of the TSBD.

The important thing about this wound is that at no point does Dr. Shaw state that the bullet ever penetrates the chest cavity but, rather, it followed the course of the outside of the 5th rib, stripping out much of it for the 4 inches it was in contact with it. He states that the open pneumothorax (sucking chest wound) suffered by Connally was caused by shattered fragments of the 5th rib.

The possibility of this bullet tumbling when it hit the side of Connally's chest is ruled out by something Dr. Shaw stated in his WC testimony:

"Mr. McCLOY - Is it possible that it could have not, the actual bullet could not have hit the rib at all but it might have been the expanding flesh that would cause the wound or the proper contusion, I guess you would call it on the rib itself?

Dr. SHAW - I think we would have to postulate that the bullet hit the rib itself by the neat way in which it stripped the rib out without doing much damage to the muscles that lay on either side of it."

The ribs are fairly narrow, and if this bullet stripped out the 5th rib, and left the intercostal muscles above and below it relatively undamaged, the bullet could not have been tumbling in order to have inflicted such a confined amount of damage. It must have been travelling straight and true. My experience in hunting has shown me that tumbling bullets tend to make large messes, and tear up great amounts of flesh. Many military bullets, such as the .303 British Mk. VII bullet, are purposely designed to tumble, once in a wound, to maximize damage.

Further evidence of a non-tumbling bullet is provided by SA Robert Frazier of the FBI, who examined Connally's suit coat. He described to the WC a perfectly round bullet exit hole on the front of Connally's suit coat that measured a mere 3/8" in diameter; less than 1/8" larger in diameter than a 6.5mm Carcano bullet.

How could an extremely long bullet, such as the 6.5mm Carcano, make a 3/8" diameter exit hole in the suit coat if it were tumbling?

great reading, guys - i've not read much on Connally's wounds in such detail, and am only now beginning to open up to multiple shooter options (like TSBD west window, etc...).

What's your take on all of that? aside from that the bullet wasn't magic. more than one bullet? didn't Menck's (is that his name?) particle analysis show that the bullet fragments weren't all represented by one bullet?

[Robert Prudhomme]

The most important thing to know about Connally's back wound is that it travelled from right to left across the front of his chest, and not straight through from back to front, as the WC supporters would like us to believe.

Was there a shooter at the west end of the TSBD? No one knows. I do know, though, that at z222-z224, Connally is not turned far enough to his right for a bullet exiting JFK's neck to have inlicted the chest wound described by Dr. Shaw in his medical report.

His report can be read in Appendix VIII of the Warren Commission Report, which can be found here:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo/app8.htm

[Robert Prudhomme]

I would also recommend the reading of Dr. Robert Shaw's testimony to the Warren Commission, which can be found here:

http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/shaw1.htm

That site also has the testimonies and statements taken from many other witnesses and involved persons related to the assassination.

I trust you have, by now, read Dr. Shaw's medical report. Did you understand everything? Do you have any questions? The question that first came to my mind was, how could a bullet follow, for four inches, the outside of a severely curved rib, without losing contact with it? There is a perfectly logical explanation for how it did just that, and it can be found in Shaw's testimony and medical report.

P.S.

Notice how Von Pein is now avoiding this thread?

Edited June 20, 2015 by Robert Prudhomme

[Glenn Nall]

Dr. SHAW - All right. As far as the wounds of the chest are concerned, I feel that this bullet could have inflicted those wounds. But the examination of the wrist both by X-ray and at the time of surgery showed some fragments of metal that make it difficult to believe that the same missile could have caused these two wounds. There seems to be more than three grains of metal missing as far as the I mean in the wrist.
Mr. SPECTER - Your answer there, though, depends upon the assumption that the bullet which we have identified as Exhibit 399 is the bullet which did the damage to the Governor. Aside from whether or not that is the bullet which inflicted the Governor's wounds.

?? Was Specter opening up the possibility, this early in the investigation, of another bullet? Or was he just maintaining complete objectivity?

Dr. SHAW - I see.
Mr. SPECTER - Could a bullet traveling in the path which I have described in the prior hypothetical question, have inflicted nil of the wounds on the Governor?
Dr. SHAW - Yes.
Mr. SPECTER - And so far as the velocity and the dimension of the bullet are concerned, is it possible that the same bullet could have gone through the President in the way that I have described and proceed through the Governor causing all of his wounds without regard to whether or not it was bullet 399?

Here it looks like he's separating Energy expended from the consequent Material expended - so as to be able to contravene one at a time - divide and conquer, so to speak. He gets a "For" in the Energy possibility of 399, whereas he can then attack JUST the "Against" testimony in the Material loss problem.

Maybe... just trying to wonder what he's thinking here... realistically, it's a proper way of getting accurate testimony, it seems to me. defining the possibilities one factor at a time...?

Dr. SHAW - Yes.
Mr. SPECTER - When you started to comment about it not being possible, was that in reference to the existing mass and shape of bullet 399?
Dr. SHAW - I thought you were referring directly to the bullet shown as Exhibit 399.
Mr. SPECTER - What is your opinion as to whether bullet 399 could have inflicted all of the wounds on the Governor, then, without respect at this point to the wound of the President's neck?
Dr. SHAW - I feel that there would be some difficulty in explaining all of the wounds as being inflicted by bullet Exhibit 399 without causing more in the way of loss of substance to the bullet or deformation of the bullet.
(Discussion off the record.)

[Kenneth Drew]

I would also recommend the reading of Dr. Robert Shaw's testimony to the Warren Commission, which can be found here:

http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/shaw1.htm

That site also has the testimonies and statements taken from many other witnesses and involved persons related to the assassination.

I trust you have, by now, read Dr. Shaw's medical report. Did you understand everything? Do you have any questions? The question that first came to my mind was, how could a bullet follow, for four inches, the outside of a severely curved rib, without losing contact with it? There is a perfectly logical explanation for how it did just that, and it can be found in Shaw's testimony and medical report.

P.S.

Notice how Von Pein is now avoiding this thread?

yes

[Glenn Nall]

on the subject of rifles and balistics - i've read some of Fistzer's theory (it IS exciting, whether realistic or not) and kinda like it, but wonder: about noise suppressors, is it that possible that they could have been employed that day in multiple locations? has there been much talk of them besides Fitzer?

[Robert Prudhomme]

Yes, it is quite likely suppressors or "silencers", as they are more popularly known, were employed in Dealey Plaza that day; on at least some of the rifles. However, as the name "suppressor" tells us, these devices cannot totally silence a rifle with a supersonic muzzle velocity. This includes all weapons with a muzzle velocity greater than about 1035 feet per second. The 6.5 Carcano short rifle, for example, had a muzzle velocity of about 2165 fps, as tested by the FBI.

The suppressor will silence the muzzle blast of a rifle but, as the bullet travels through the air and breaks the sound barrier, a tiny sonic boom, similar to the crack of a bull whip, will be heard as it passes by. Even with this limitation, the suppressor will serve two very useful functions. With no muzzle blast, the location of the shooter is much more difficult to locate. With no muzzle blast, the startle reaction is greatly reduced, giving the shooter greater time to withdraw following his shot.

To give you an example of just how useful a suppressor can be, look carefully at the Altgens 6 photo below.

This photo corresponds with frame z255 of the Zapruder film. According to the Warren Commission, two shots have been fired at this point; the earliest possibly being around z160. If Zapruder's camera was running at 18.3 frames per second, this means that 95 frames or 5.2 seconds have elapsed since the first shot and the shooting of this photo.

If the sniper was in the SE corner of the 6th floor of the TSBD, he would have been pointing his rifle downward at the limo, and every bystander in this photo would have received the full muzzle blast of the rifle. As startle reactions to very loud noises are instantaneous and involuntary, why is it none of the bystanders are showing the least indication they have heard two rifle shots in the last 5.2 seconds?

I should point out that there are two people in this photo showing a reaction, those being the two SS agents standing on the starboard side of the Queen Mary and looking behind themselves in some bewilderment. They most likely just heard the "crack" of a suppressed bullet going past their ears on its way to JFK.

Edited June 21, 2015 by Robert Prudhomme

[Glenn Nall]

neato. i'm familiar with suppressors in theory and the speed of sound. gotcha. there's even been talk of subsonic rifles being used - the idea of noise suppressed fire in conjunction with a normal rifle works fine in considering setting up a patsy. you can get an idiot (or not an idiot) to think he's about to shoot the Pres and have Pres shot from elsewhere, set up the fall guy and saunter on down the sidewalk at your leisure...

two things:

1) i came across that video of some cat, "Do The Math pt 6", that was showing that Altgens6 couldn't coincide with z255 - Greer's hand movements, etc. Sounded pretty convincing - he wasn't a LNer, i don't think - just an alternate theory, or something.

so, is it a given that Altgens6 = z255?

2) i happen to read - it's funny how often something i JUST happened to read comes up soon afterward, when it's something i've never before seen in 30 years... - about another agent/person, on Houston I think, say he heard a "suppressed" gunshot.

[Robert Prudhomme]

There were quite a few witnesses who described the first shot as a strange "crack" or firecracker sound. The second I read that, I immediately though about a supersonic bullet fired from a rifle equipped with a suppressor.

I have seen some research that concludes the Altgens 6 photo was not shot precisely at z255. However, for our purposes, this photo was taken well after the point at which the WC claimed the first two rifle shots occurred, and the lack of startle reactions on the faces of the bystanders still tells us there is something drastically wrong with the official story.

[Robert Prudhomme]

"I trust you have, by now, read Dr. Shaw's medical report. Did you understand everything? Do you have any questions? The question that first came to my mind was, how could a bullet follow, for four inches, the outside of a severely curved rib, without losing contact with it? There is a perfectly logical explanation for how it did just that, and it can be found in Shaw's testimony and medical report."

My question has not seemed to arouse any curiosity, which is not surprising. This is a complex medical issue, and few seem to want to delve into it, despite the fact we can completely disprove the Single Bullet Theory simply by examining Dr. Robert Shaw's medical report and Warren Commission testimony.

The problem again is this. Connally was hit by a bullet at the extreme lateral point of the right side of his chest, at a point referred to medically as the "mid axillary line", as described by Connally's thoracic surgeon, Dr. Robert Shaw. The persistent description of this wound as a "back" wound is quite misleading, and not the least bit accidental, in my opinion. Looking at these diagrams, it is also easy to understand why the entrance wound at the mid axillary line was oblong, measuring 1.5 cm. at its greatest point. It was not due to the bullet tumbling, as SBT supporters maintain. It was due to the fact that the bullet struck the chest at a point where the surface of the chest was almost parallel to the path of the bullet, making what is known as a "tangential" strike

Medically speaking, the bullet entered Connally through the outside edge of a muscle known as the "latissimus dorsi", at a point where the flesh overlying this muscle makes contact with the right arm to create what we call the armpit.

It should be painfully obvious to almost everyone, at this point, that if Connally was facing forward at the time this bullet hit him, and if the bullet originated from the SE corner of the 6th floor of the TSBD, this bullet would have passed straight through the latissimus dorsi muscle, and likely not have hit his 5th rib at all. I contend the wound he received required him to be turned to his right about 45°, or required the bullet that struck him to originate much further west in the TSBD.

Anyways, there is yet the other problem I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Below is a cross section of the human chest, at about the level of the lower part of the heart. Coincidentally, this diagram is also about the same level at which the bullet exited Connally's chest, just below and medial (toward the centre of his chest) to his right nipple. As can be seen, the spinal cord is at the top of the diagram, with the heart at the bottom.

To help you understand things better, here is the anterior view of what we are looking at above. It is very important to remember that Dr. Shaw testified that the bullet exited MEDIAL to Connally's right nipple. In other words, the exit wound was between Connally's right nipple and the centre of his chest.

Going back to the cross sectional diagram, we can trace the path of the bullet, as described by Dr. Shaw. It would have entered the latissimus dorsi muscle, at the upper left of the diagram, and gone on to contact the 5th rib, travelling at a downward angle of over 20°. This downward angle just happened to match the downward angle of the 5th rib, and the bullet stayed in contact with outside surface of the rib until it left Connally's body.

The bullet did NOT, contrary to popular belief, enter Connally's chest cavity but, rather, stayed on the outside of the 5th rib for roughly 10 cm. (4 inches). As the rib is not that dense at this point, this bullet was able to strip out much of this rib as it travelled through it. It is entirely possible this bullet would have suffered minimal damage as it inflicted this wound.

Now, this all looks good in theory but, when I first began to understand the nature of the wound described by Dr. Shaw, I was immediately puzzled by one thing. As seen in the cross sectional diagram, the chest has a very sharp curve to it at the point this bullet contacted the 5th rib. With such a sharp curve, how could a bullet, striking a tangential blow on the 5th rib, stay in contact with that rib for 4 inches, if the rib is curving away from the path of the bullet?

The answer lies in Dr. Shaw's testimony to the WC. Here is a short excerpt from that testimony.

" Dr. SHAW - Yes; going from the lower chest up to the region near the angle of the shoulder blade.

The honey framework of the chest, it is obvious that the fifth rib, we count ribs from above downward, this is the first rib, second rib, third rib, fourth rib, fifth rib, that a portion of this rib has been shattered, and we can see a few fragments that have been left behind.
Also the rib has because of being broken and losing some of its substance, has taken a rather inward position in relation to the fourth and the sixth ribs on either side.
Mr. SPECTER - What effect was there, if any, on the upper portion of that rib?
Dr. SHAW - This was not noticed at the time of this examination, Mr. Specter. However, in subsequent examinations we can tell that there was a fracture across the rib at this point due to the rib being struck and bent.

Mr. SPECTER - When you say this point, will you describe where that point exists on the X-ray?
Dr. SHAW - This is a point approximately 4 centimeters from its connection with the transverse process of the spine.
Mr. SPECTER - And is the fracture, which is located there, caused by a striking there or by the striking at the end of the rib?
Dr. SHAW - It is caused by the striking at the end of the rib."

This may seem a bit complicated but I will try to clarify it for you. What Dr. Shaw is saying is that bullet actually depressed the 5th rib inward into the chest cavity, as it travelled along the rib, and that, compared to the 4th and 6th rib on either side of it, the 5th rib was still visibly depressed when Shaw observed it at Parkland. With the rib possessing a certain amount of elasticity, it can be assumed the 5th rib was depressed into the chest cavity a great deal more at the moment the bullet passed through. However, the elasticity was also limited, as Dr. Shaw then describes how this stress then caused a fracture of the 5th rib approximately 4 cm. (1.5 inches) from the point where the 5th rib attaches to the spine.

More simply put, the bullet struck the 5th rib a glancing blow at about the mid axillary line and followed the 5th rib for about 4 inches. In doing so, it almost managed to straighten out the curve of the rib by depressing the rib inwards into the chest. This pressure was so great, it broke the base of the 5th rib just out from where it joined the spine.

Edited June 21, 2015 by Robert Prudhomme

[Glenn Nall]

"My question has not seemed to arouse any curiosity, which is not surprising. This is a complex medical issue, and few seem to want to delve into it, despite the fact we can completely disprove the Single Bullet Theory simply by examining Dr. Robert Shaw's medical report and Warren Commission testimony."

for me it's kinda the opposite, Robert - I am quite fascinated with medical and physiological interests (more psychological than physical, but still), and will read more about this when i have time. But in my mind, the SBT is already fairly moot - this info will be necessary for some still on the fence, perhaps - but there's plenty of other stuff that's already convinced me...