Robert Prudhomme

Hi Brad

I hate to be critical all of the time but, I look at the JFK research community sometimes and am reminded of a bunch of dogs chasing their tails, and we both know how far the dog gets on that one. You said it very well a few posts back; this was first and foremost a murder, committed by one or more persons with rifles. Period.

I believe, for the last 50 years, a lot of researchers have relied upon the WC for ballistics information in this case, instead of doing the work and figuring things out for themselves, and have only succeeded in pushing the original lies from the FBI.

I am prepared to be wrong about the shooter's view of JFK at z313 being blocked by the QM but this research is not asking only one question. My model will also include the proposed final shot location, put forth by the FBI (WCD 298), with a trajectory of 307 feet from the 6th floor window; placing the final shot location almost at the concrete steps. If this really was the location of the head shot, there had to be a very good reason for the WC to move it back to z313, and a likely candidate would be the QM blocking the shooter's view.

As you say, even if JFK was visible at z313, the amount of him visible might have been extremely small; to the point that a bullet entrance wound on the lower part of the back of his head might not have been possible while the HSCA's entry wound at the cowlick might have been possible.

With this small of a view of the target, we are told worlds about the last shot. Being barely able to see your target for a car and its occupants behind it, and having that view progressively disappearing, is not conducive to accurate shooting. As Oswald would have already been rushed to make this shot with an inferior scope, this handicap would have only added to the panic.

Once I get my crude wooden model constructed, and am able to show what I am speaking about, I hope someone with good graphic skills can expand on my work, and produce a visual everyone can comprehend. Think Dale Myers might be interested?

Way to go, Brad. Information like this is invaluable. As you say, it will be nice to find the height of the running board and windshield top frame, plus the height of the SS agents.

I may go whole hog on this and actually build a scaled down model of this scene. My shop floor is quite level, and I think I can replicate the TSBD 6th floor window with a vertical wall, if I plumb it carefully. I can make Elm St. out of a straight board, and position it so it runs down from the TSBD at a 3.13° angle. Once we get proper heights for everything in the two cars, I can place two models on "Elm St." and use a laser pointer from the "6th floor" to see if JFK was clear or not.

Hi Jon

The downward slope is an interesting thing. As noted, 3.13° is an average slope for the distance and, according to Brad, there is a flat spot further up the street, meaning that the rest of Elm St. must be steeper, in order for the average to work out to 3.13°.

This gets complicated but please bear with me.

Using the figures Chris obtained from the WC, I have been able to draw a right angle triangle depicting the shooter's trajectory from 2 feet above the sill of the 6th floor SE corner window to the back of JFK's head; 4.39 feet above the pavement. There is a little discrepancy here, as I believe the 4.39 foot measurement was to the top of JFK's head, and Humes reported the entrance wound on the lower back of JFK's head but, there will be plenty of time to address this.

My next step was to establish, on this diagram, where exactly Elm St. was in relation to the shooter and JFK's head. The simplest way to do this was to add the 4.39 feet to the vertical side of the triangle, or 4.39 + 70.25 = 74.64 feet. This number represents the vertical drop from the shooter's rifle, 2 feet above the window sill, to the pavement directly under JFK. I simply extended the vertical side of my triangle by 4.39 feet, and drew a lower base in parallel to the one going to JFK's head.

Knowing that Elm St. drops 11.76 feet, at a 3.13° angle, from the TSBD to the z313 position, I measured this amount upwards on my triangle from the new lower base line and marked it on the vertical side of the triangle. I then drew a sloping line from this point to the point I established on the pavement at z313, directly under JFK. This sloping line becomes Elm St., and JFK can be seen on this "street" with his head 4.39 feet above the "street". It is now a simple matter of marking points backward from the limo of 20, 30 and 40 feet on the "street" as varying positions for the follow up car, establishing heights for the SS agents and the follow up car, and placing them on the "street" to see if they project above the bullet trajectory or not.

So far, I've done everything with a pen, paper and ruler, and the results are a little rough. I have a friend who worked in a drafting office years ago, and he thinks he can produce something a little more polished for me. Once I get that, I'll see about getting it onto this thread.

Hi Ray

Yes, there seem to be rather a lot of indications, including the FBI report of 20/01/64 to the WC that was designated WCD 298, that the head shot occurred almost at the concrete steps.

Considering the difficulty of what I am attempting, that of seeing if the follow up car and its SS agents were blocking Oswald's view at the time of the head shot, I am going to work everything out at z313 first; simply because there is so much more data available for that location. If I am able to prove JFK was not visible at z313, it will almost be a foregone conclusion he would not be visible 45 feet further down Elm St., assuming the lateral alignment of the two cars does not change.

Hi Chris

Just made a post at the DPF where I explained my mistake. You're right, the WCR states the shot at z313 (265 feet from window) to be at an angle of 15.35°, while the FBI's WCD 298 has the second shot at 262 feet from the window, but at an angle of 18°. I confused the two sets of data.

I read your post again, more closely this time, and see now that you have already adjusted for the 4.39 foot elevation of JFK's head above the pavement in the manner I assumed would work. From what I recall, was the 4.39 foot measurement not to the top of JFK's head? As the autopsy placed the entrance wound in the head just to the right of the external occipital protuberance, could this account for the 3.84 inch vertical difference you pointed out?

Okay, I think I am starting to get this now. I see how you made allowance for the height of the curb.

I entered the numbers from the z313 survey into the calculator, and it spat out an angle of 15.4°. Thinking to myself that we are having the bullet striking the pavement in this scenario, and, as you say, JFK's head was 4.39 feet above the pavement, I began to see a problem again. To correct for JFK's head being 4.39 feet above the pavement, would I simply subtract 4.39 from 70.25, and enter this into the calculator, along with 255.8 for the base?

I'm already seeing a problem with the FBI's numbers, as the FBI claimed the downhill angle of the shot to be 18°, and the calculator tells me their numbers work out to 15.4°. If I take away from the vertical side of the triangle by 4.39 feet, this angle decreases to 14.4°.

Hi Chris

There must be something going on here that is throwing the numbers off. I took all the numbers I had, the 265 foot trajectory to z313, the 61.2 foot vertical from the street to the rifle, and the 11.76 foot drop from the corner of Elm and Houston to z313, and calculated a right angle triangle with a base of 255 feet and a vertical of 72.96 feet. This gave me a right angle triangle with an acute angle of 16°. Either I have made a serious error somewhere, or the WCR was wrong in saying the trajectory at z313 was 18°.

But, there is another problem. I went to a handy site with a Rise/Run/Angle/Pitch/Slope calculator and entered all of the figures. One thing I wanted was a 3.13° sloping line inside my triangle, to represent Elm St. ascending to the TSBD from a point on the back of JFK's head. By placing the follow up car on this 3.13° sloping line, it will be possible to see if the standing SS agents are above the trajectory or not.

However, when I entered a run of 255 feet and an angle of 3.13° into the calculator, it told me there was a vertical difference of 14 feet between the bottom of the TSBD and z313. When I entered a run of 255 feet, and a rise of 11.76 feet, it told me the angle was only 2.6°.

The only place I can see where I could be using incorrect data is that the 265 foot trajectory is measured to the back of JFK's head, and the 11.76 foot drop is measured to the pavement beneath JFK at z313. I might have to recalculate, and use a drop that corresponds to JFK's head.

Just to go over it again, Chris, was the 11.76 drop measured all on the pavement, and the 61.2 feet measured from the sidewalk to the rifle? Did you mention something about also adding in the height of the curb, as well?

I think I have worked out a diagram that will tell us if JFK was visible, at the z313 position and also at the position of the 307 foot trajectory first determined by the FBI, from the sill of the SE corner window of the 6th floor of the TSBD.

We know that the height of the shooter's rifle was 61.2 feet above street level. We also know that, from this point to the z313 position, Elm St. drops 11.76 feet. Therefore, it was necessary to add 11.76 plus 61.2 to make a total of 72.96 feet. Using the range of the head shot, as stated by the WC, of 265 feet as the hypotenuse, and the vertical height of 72.96 feet as the altitude, we were able to use Pythagorus's Theorum to determine the base of the triangle as 255 feet.

I drew this triangle on a piece of paper, and measured 11.76 feet up on the altitude to mark where the surface of Elm St. would be, and then drew a line down to the z313 position. This line, however, is not a true indication of the slope of Elm St., for when I entered all of these numbers into a grade calculator, it indicated an angle of 2.6°, not 3.13°. I believe what has happened is, as Brad says, Elm St. is not a steady 3.13° slope all the way from the corner to the Triple Underpass. As he stated, the true drop does not begin until almost to the bent tree on the south side of Elm St. In this case, we must make allowance for another .5° at z313, placing JFK lower than whatever our calculations show. For example, at 2.6°, there is a drop of .6 feet for every 12 feet forward, while at 3.13°, there is a drop of .7 feet for every 12 feet forward.

One simple way to allow for this is to simply calculate a position on our triangle's vertical side for a 3.13° angle, and draw it in; which I did. This gives us an unreasonable figure at the base of the TSBD, but gives us a realistic relationship between the trajectory of the bullet, the tops of the SS agents' heads and the base of JFK's head.

I have only a rough draft so far, and want to plot it all out on a much larger piece of paper but, so far, it is not looking good for the WC. It would be good to know the distance from JFK to the first standing SS agent. At the moment, I have simply marked off distances of 10, 20, 30 and 40 feet. I will keep everyone informed as I go.

P.S.

This is only the shot at z313 so far. If it looks this bad, the FBI's head shot of 307 feet, being roughly 45 feet further down Elm St., will be totally impossible.

And, of course, the simulations all show JFK being wide open, although looking at the first animation, JFK is just barely visible a z313, and becomes almost hidden at the 307 foot range, first claimed for the head shot by the FBI in WCD 298. We can certainly see that the two SS agents standing on the running board of the QM would be lined up with the trajectory of the bullet.

Hi Brad

Yeah, I always had a little trouble with the story about the presidential limo not being available, and they had to use the follow up car as a stand in for it. As you say, the Lincoln dealers likely had lots of '62 Lincoln convertibles on their lots, and they looked a damn sight more like the Presidential limo than the Queen Mary did. I'm surprised they didn't use a Lincoln convertible as a stand in for the Queen Mary! LOL

Does anyone know if there are any specs available for the Queen Mary, such as height of windshield top, height of running boards above pavement, overall length, wheel base, etc.?

I was just watching the Dealey Plaza Cam on my computer. I'd never seen that before.

Can we just get some guys to rent a 1956 Cadillac convertible and a 1962 Lincoln convertible, and get them to park them on Elm St. for a bit, so we can see how they line up?

How bout it, Brad?

The other thing no one seems to take into consideration is the fact that Elm St. is on a down hill grade of 3.13°, or a drop of 1 foot in every 18.3 feet (1:18.3 or a 5.46% grade). The real question is, did Elm St. maintain a uniform slope of 3.13° all the way to the Triple Underpass, or is 3.13° an average of steeper and flatter portions of the road?

It may seem trivial but, think of this. The shooter on the 6th floor is seeing one of the standing SS agents through his scope (or iron sights) and needs to be able to see JFK's head above the SS agent's head in order to shoot him. If there is 18.3 horizontal feet between the SS agent and JFK, JFK will be, from the shooter's perspective, another foot lower than our calculations show us. If there is just over 36 feet between the SS agent and JFK, JFK will be two feet lower in the shooter's perspective than our calculations show. Add to this JFK is not sitting upright at z313, or wherever the head shot actually took place, but is slumped over to his left somewhat, and not at his full erect height.

So, we have a shooter looking downhill at the backs of the heads of the SS agents, lined up with JFK, at a 15-18° angle, with JFK's head downhill from the SS agents at an angle of 3.13°, or whatever the slope of the street happened to be at that spot.

Kind of changes everything, doesn't it.

Hi Brad

And just think, you were at the z313 position, 265 feet from the Sniper's Nest at a downhill angle of 18°. The one that really fascinates me is the FBI's position for the head shot in WCD 298, where there model shows the fatal head shot taking place much further down Elm St., 307 feet from the Sniper's Nest at a greatly reduced angle of only 15°.

I guess you could at that, Larry. Of course, it would require some mathematical adjustment, both laterally and vertically, to the results you obtained. The nice thing about looking from the Sniper's Nest window, or from a corresponding location in the Dal-Tex Building, is it would be obvious to the naked eye whether or not Oswald could have seen JFK at the z313 position, or at the FBI's 20/01/64 (CD 298) position for the head shot, some 307 yards from the SN.

Another thing to think about. By the time we got the Lincoln and the Caddy set up on Elm St. and were making plans to view the whole thing from the second window, I'll bet Gary Mack's security goons would be hustling us out of the building, and something tells me we would not be invited back.

Right, Gary?

Hi Brad

It has been fairly easy to plot the angles and position of the limo so far, as everything we are discussing is static; unless someone moved the TSBD sometime in the last 51 years. The hard part now is going to be determining the elevation of JFK and the limo, the elevation of the follow up car and the agents in it and precisely how far the follow up car was from the limo.

If we can plot these locations, we should be able to draw a trajectory from the 6th floor window, lining everything up laterally, that will also tell us if a shooter could have "shot around" the SS agents, as some WC defenders have claimed is possible.

Sometimes, I do not think this problem is as difficult as it looks. While the SE corner of the 6th floor of the TSBD is blocked off from the public, the Dal-Tex Building (or whatever it is called now) is still open to the public. If one plotted the trajectory from the nipper's Nest window to the limo at z313 backwards it might, with a bit of luck, come out at an upper floor window of the DTB. See what I mean? Rent a couple of cars similar in height to the limo and followup car, and do our own re-enactment, and scope the whole thing from the DTB.

Too homely for TV. Maybe a radio talk show?

LOL Ray! I had to take my shoes and socks off at one point, when I ran out of fingers.

It is very interesting to look at the link Ian posted for CD 298, in which the FBI show their 3-D model on Jan. 20, 1964, depicting their "3 shots, 3 hits" interpretation of the assassination. They put the second shot (Connally back shot) at 262 feet from the Sniper's Nest, and the third and final shot (JFK head shot) 307 feet from the Sniper's Nest. And, just to show how helpful they are, they even tell us the 307 foot shot was at a downward angle of 15°.

So, here is the question. At 307 feet, at a downward angle of 15°, with the follow up car right on the bumper of the limo and uphill from the limo at a 3.13° slope, would a sniper on the 6th floor SE corner of the TSBD be able to see JFK through all the SS agents? How would it look at 265 feet?

LOL Not bad for a dumb logger eh?

Lots of rain there, Ray? Don't feel bad, it's coming down in buckets here in the rain forest, too.

Yup, that's why the right angle is 11.76 feet below the pavement at the SE corner of the TSBD. Only, in this case, I calculated the horizontal leg by subtracting the square of the vertical leg from the square of the hypotenuse.

Jon

That is why I wanted to know how much of a drop there is from the foot of the SE corner of the TSBD to the position at z313, which, as Chris points out, is 11.76 feet. By adding this to the height of the shooter in the 6th floor window from the level of the pavement in front of the SE corner of the TSBD, we have created an imaginary point 11.76 feet below the street where altitude and base meet at a 90° angle.

Thanks, Chris. You are a great help to everyone.

Okay, so if there was a difference in elevation from the SE corner of the TSBD to the z313 position of 11.76 feet, this would mean the total difference in elevation from the window sill of the 6th floor to the z313 position would be 72.96 feet. If the range of the shot at z313 was indeed 265 feet, this would then make a right angle triangle with an altitude of 72.96 feet, and a hypotenuse of 265 feet. To find the base of this triangle, which, as you say, was determined to be 215.3 feet, we can once again use C² - A² = B².

265² - 72.96² = B²

70225 - 5323 = 64902

The square root of 64902 is, by my calculator, 254.76.

254.76 - 215.3 = 39.46

Unless I have made a mistake somewhere, and I would appreciate it if anyone would point it out, the distance the WC determined of 215.3 feet is out by 39.46 feet, and the head shot occurred further down Elm St. than the z313 position. Is this what you have been trying to show us, Chris?

P.S.

Thanks for pointing out that Elm St. was 3.13° (5.46% grade), and not a 3% slope. I recall walking up it to the TSBD, and it seemed steeper to me than a 3% slope.

Okay, the other thing is the 3% downhill grade of Elm St. As I said, a 3% grade means a drop in elevation of 1 foot vertically for every 33 feet forward.

If the shot at z313 was 88 yards, or 265 feet, and the sniper was 61.2 feet above the street, C² - A² = B² should give us a horizontal distance of 258 feet. Dividing 258 by 33 gives us a vertical drop of 7.8 feet, IF Elm St. maintained a 3% downhill grade for all 258 feet.

What was the street elevation at z313 again?