Robert Prudhomme

*YAWN*

I tend to agree with some of what Blair is saying, and it is for this reason I nominated the thread "Oswald Leaving TSBD?" for Pinned status. I noticed not a single member responded to this. Strange.

I have never read such unmitigated bull crap in my life. Mr. Purvis either makes all of this up as he goes, or he is one seriously confused individual.

Simply put, the cartridge base is held in the face of the 6.5 Carcano bolt. This bolt is quite a bit bigger in diameter than the cartridge. As you draw the bolt back to eject an empty cartridge, the bolt (not the empty cartridge) is riding on the next loaded cartridge in the magazine which is being pushed up by the magazine follower spring. If you do not pull the bolt back far enough to eject the cartridge and attempt to move the bolt forward, thinking you have ejected the empty and are chambering the next round, the bottom of the bolt face, riding on the cartridge in the magazine, pushes the cartridge nose back down into the magazine. The neck of the empty cartridge comes NOWHERE NEAR the next cartridge in the magazine. It is a physical impossibility and if you believe Mr. Purvis's nonsense, you are a gullible individual and you have been HAD.

If you place an empty cartridge into the magazine of a bolt action rifle and forcefully attempt to chamber this empty cartridge, for whatever bizarre reason you would choose to do such a thing, you will often catch the neck of the cartridge on the shoulder inside of the chamber. Normally, the sloped shape of the bullet will guide the cartridge past this shoulder. If done with enough force, this will put a dent in the neck of the cartridge.

This, of course, complicates things greatly, insofar as matching the three empty cartridges found in the SN to the assassination of JFK. While LHO was wiping his fingerprints from the rifle, did he put one of his empty cartridges back into the magazine of the rifle, just for a joke, and attempt to chamber it?

*bump*

I nominate this thread for "PINNED" status. Do I hear a seconder?

Did this doctor see Rose Cheramie prior to or after the assassination?

LOL or, I could be right off the deep end. Tis a fine line between genius and insanity.

thinking outside the box is never a bad thing..

True. It's sad, though, that my keepers only let me out of the box for 30 minutes each day.

LOL or, I could be right off the deep end. Tis a fine line between genius and insanity.

Okay, so, here is what bothers me about JFK's and JBC's wounds. If we assume the SBT to be wrong, this leaves us with five wounds that are difficult to explain. What I mean by this is the wound JFK received in the back at the level of the T3 vertebra, JFK's throat wound, JBC's back wound, JBC's wrist wound and JBC's thigh wound should all have resulted in greater damage than what is shown in the medical evidence. One at a time, let us look at them.

1. The back wound has pretty much been established as being 1.5-2" to the right of JFK's spine at the level of the 3rd thoracic vertebra (T3). A 162 grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2200 fps, at a range of under 50 yards, should have, at this location, penetrated his chest cavity and exited the other side, likely breaking a few ribs along the way. Yet, according to the autopsist, Dr. Humes, the bullet only penetrated an inch or so into JFK's back. Contradicting this, one witness present at the autopsy recalls, once JFK's abdominal and pleural organs had been eviscerated, seeing, from the inside of the pleural cavity, a probe from this wound actually coming as far as the pleural lining. Further evidence of damage to JFK's right lung can be found in Dr. Malcolm Perry's description of the emergency procedures they performed on JFK. He describes JFK as having his trachea deviated to the left side of his body. A deviated trachea is a symptom of only one thing, and that is a tension pneumothorax or "collapsed lung" on the side of the body away from the trachea's deviation. If the lung is damaged from, say, the shock of a bullet's impact, it can get a small hole in it. When the person attempts to breathe, the incoming air escapes through this hole into a space between the lung and the pleural lining, collapsing the lung as the volume trapped increases. Unable to escape, the air volume increases until it pushes the trachea, heart and unaffected lung to the far side of the pleural cavity. This is a medical emergency and, if left untreated, can quickly be fatal. The treatment is to insert a chest tube(s) into the pleural cavity to vent and relieve this air volume, and this is exactly what Dr. Perry describes. Chest tubes were either inserted or were on the verge of being inserted into JFK when resuscitation efforts were ceased. Later, it would be explained that the chest tubes were to relieve a condition known as "subcutaneous emphysema". This is a non-life threatening condition and it is unlikely it would have been attended to at this time, considering JFK's other mortal wounds. Dr. Perry also later claimed the chest tubes were inserted when he realized there was blood in the throat wound, doing so to deal with any chest wounds. This does not make a lot of sense, either, since they were unaware of the back wound and there were no other chest wounds. I submit the chest tubes were inserted immediately after the deviated trachea was spotted to relieve an obvious tension pneumothorax that was about to be made worse by positive ventilation. If Dr. Perry had been allowed to say this, though, it would have pointed to the back wound being at the level of T3 and the proponents of the SBT could not allow this.

2. The throat wound. Once again, a 162 grain bullet, at under 100 yards, with a muzzle velocity of 2200 fps, should have easily entered JFK's throat, penetrated the trachea and strap muscles and smashed its way through JFK's vertebrae, exiting the other side. While James Gordon's research has shown us obvious damage to JFK's vertebrae, the extensive damage one would expect just is not there. This is assuming, of course, that everything we are shown in the way of JFK's medical evidence is genuine.

3.JBC's back wound. Once again, James Gordon has shown us that the bullet that struck JBC's back did not actually penetrate JBC's thoracic cavity but, rather, wandered around it. What stopped it from simply going through the ribs? Lack of power?

4.JBC's wrist wound. The long hole in JBC's shirt cuff and the medical evidence presented by Dr. Gregory, in which he describes a 2.5 cm x .5 cm entrance wound to the dorsal surface of JBC's right wrist, clearly points to a de-stabilized bullet that had begun to tumble prior to striking JBC's wrist. It can be argued that this bullet was from a shot early in the assassination, intended for JFK, that struck a tree branch; deflecting it as well as destabilizing it. It can also be argued, though, that this bullet struck nothing between the muzzle and JBC and that it began tumbling for other reasons. What is more interesting is the relatively small amount of damage to JBC's wrist. Dr. Gregory himself testifies that, normally, an unimpeded rifle bullet striking the radius bone in the vicinity of the wrist would result in far more extensive bone damage, to the point of requiring amputation.

5.JBC's thigh wound. Once again, we have a bullet penetrating the skin and muscle layers of JBC's left inner thigh but doing no damage to the bone.

The only exception to all of these wounds is JFK's head wound.

I submit that the reason the five wounds described did not do as much damage as would be expected is that they were travelling at velocities far below the 2200 fps that is the typical muzzle velocity for a 6.5x52 Model 38/91 Carcano. There are several possible reasons for this.

1.Deteriorated ammunition. While it is assumed the 6.5 Carcano ammunition used in the assassination was all copper jacketed Western Cartridge Co. ammunition, it must be remembered that standard Italian military issue SMI 6.5x52 Carcano cartridges had been available since the end of the Second World War. One only has to think back to the Walker shooting, in which one DPD detective describes the recovered 6.5 Carcano bullet as "steel jacketed". While SMI did not produce any steel jacketed bullets, and these are typically covered in a light copper jacket to prevent rusting, SMI did make cupro-nickel jacketed bullets with a silvery appearance that could be mistaken for a steel jacket.

SMI ammunition was equipped with primers that had a corrosive compound in them that often led to primer failure and powder deterioration. For many decades, firearms experts have advised against shooting surplus SMI ammunition for this very reason.

Is it possible that the real shooters were shooting copper jacketed SMI surplus ammunition in their 6.5 mm Carcanos, not being aware they were in possession of substandard ammo that fell far short of the 2200 fps muzzle velocity needed to stabilize these bullets? Would this explain the bullet that entered JFK's back instead of his head?

2.Reduced powder loads. Blair Dobson put this seed in my mind the other day when he began wondering what could be done by the assassins to reduce collateral damage, if they were so inclined to worry about such a thing. The first thing I thought of was reducing the muzzle velocity of the bullets they were shooting to minimize damage to other limo occupants (such as LBJ's campaign manager, seated in front of JFK), should the FMJ bullets pass through JFK. This could easily be done by extracting the bullets from the cartridges, removing the powder, weighing it and only putting back as much powder as one thought necessary to make a head shot on JFK and reseating the bullets. As the intended kill shots were all under 50 yards, a bullet with drastically reduced muzzle velocity would still have killing power in that distance. However, as I explained to Blair, my experience in handloading rifle cartridges has shown that over OR under loading cartridges with powder can lead to destabilization and tumbling bullets.

Not that I've seen Bob.... if so, he did an disappearing act with his hand and fingers.....

Also curious the distinction between Lovelady's pants and the man in the suit...

Download the image and try out a few options... I've tried, I've blown this up to 10 times the size to see if there are any clues...

Here is the same image without Lovelady colorized... sure LOOKS like his arm... but that's not possible

I think I am mistaken, Dave. I wish I could find the thread that talked about this. My memory tells me it was not the arm of the black guy but the guy just to the left of him. He is grey in your photo and you can just see his head. As you say, though, where are the fingertips?

Didn't someone point out, a while back, that the arm actually belongs to the black man?

Thanks, Ron.

The really sad thing is that Rydberg and a goodly portion of the public seem to be unaware that the neck is not composed solely of flesh. Believe it or not, there are actually bones in the neck called "vertebrae" that have these lateral projections called "transverse processes". As the transverse processes of the lower cervical vertebrae and the top thoracic vertebra (T1) fit too tightly together to allow a bullet to pass between them, the Magic Bullet had no choice but to enter JFK at a location far to the right of the vertebrae, JUST to clear the transverse processes.

As the Magic Bullet also had to penetrate the right side of JFK's trachea (windpipe), I have calculated it had to travel at an angle of 26° right to left, from entrance to exit, as measured from a line drawn parallel to the long axis of the limo and centering through JFK's vertebrae, back to front. Allowing for a 5° turn to the right by JFK, this still leaves us with 21°. On such an angle, it would have been more likely to hit the driver Greer than JBC.

in regards to Greer and others in the car:

It's pretty amazing that no one else was hit.

It makes a good case for missed shots that the limo was redone and they didn't let anyone get close to it at parkland.

what I would have given to be there that day with a good camera and a telephoto lens....

Robert, what do you know about ar-15's and M-16's?

The reason I ask is that shooters from the front, if they miss, could hit background whereas shooters from the rear are mostly going to hit the car, SS men or open road.

My thinking is (not that the shooters may have even cared) that if they were using smaller ammo ( ar-15/m-16 ammo ) does this reduce the follow through of the bullet? are those shells more likely to stop and not go all the way through to say, hit a bystander or hit a SS guy in the front seat?

If the throat wound is an entry wound, I've always thought that the way it was described, it was small. those bullets are not much bigger than a 22 round are they not?

your thoughts are appreciated.

The AR15 (introduced in 1958) was a very new weapon in 1963, as was the .223 (5.56 mm) cartridge designed for it which is, as you point out, not much bigger in diameter than a .22 calibre bullet. In the same note, the 6.5 mm Carcano, at .257 calibre, is not much bigger in diameter than a .22, either. However, that is where the similarities end.

The .22 LR (long rifle) 40 grain round nosed bullet is loaded into a tiny rimfire cartridge, almost the same diameter as the bullet, and will leave the rifle at a muzzle velocity of about 1140 fps. The standard NATO 5.56x45 mm round (derived from the Remington .223 cartridge though not identical to it), used in the M16 and in service since 1962, fires a 62 grain spire pointed bullet at a muzzle velocity of around 3200 fps. The 6.5x52 mm Carcano round shoots a round nosed bullet that is 162 grains in weight and, when fired from the Carcano Model 91/38 (LHO alleged rifle), achieves a muzzle velocity of around 2200 fps. As you can see, we are comparing apples to oranges.

To understand why the Italians desired to rid themselves of the 6.5x52 mm cartridge in 1938, a close look at the 5.56x45 cartridge will be helpful.

The success or failure of a military cartridge can be summed up in two words: stopping power. Designers of military rounds have to work within the constraints of conventions governing war, and one of those is that bullets be made with "full metal jackets" to minimize their expansion within an enemy's body and thus the amount of damage. Without these rules, soldiers would all shoot soft tipped or hollow point bullets, wounds would be horrifying and the medical corps could be largely replaced with a corps of gravediggers. The trick is to work within these constraints and still come up with an ingenious design that will give a tiny light cartridge like the 5.56x45 mm, which allows troops to carry a greater number of rounds on their person, the stopping power of a very large cartridge, such as the 30-06.

The 5.56x45 mm is the very epitomization of this lightweight stopping power technology, and achieves this through three things; bullet shape, bullet construction and muzzle velocity. FMJ bullets have a habit of going right through whatever they shoot, without causing a lot of damage, and the round nosed bullets were the best at this. This is why Italian troops dubbed the 6.5x52 mm Carcano, a very long roundnosed bullet that stabilized well in flight, the "humanitarian rifle"; although reasonably accurate, enemy soldiers often received through and through clean wounds and just kept on coming. According to Italian soldiers, the one good feature of the Carcano is that it was possible to shoot more than one soldier with the same bullet. The 5.56 mm, on the other hand, was designed to inflict a LOT of damage. Its pointed tip, at the incredible muzzle velocity of 3200 fps, causes the bullet to tumble when it comes in contact with a hard surface, such as bone. As if this were not enough, the light construction of the 5.56 mm copper bullet jacket (as opposed to the extremely thick jacket wall of the 6.5 mm bullet) causes the bullet to break up and fragment. Suffice it to say, you do not want to get shot with a 5.56 mm bullet. There are anecdotal tales from Viet Nam of enemy soldiers being shot in the lower abdomen and fragments of 5.56 mm bullets exiting the upper abdomen. The Italians unsuccessfully went this route in 1938, replacing the roundnosed 162 grain 6.5x52 mm cartridge with a spire point 128 grain 7.35x51 mm cartridge. It was essentially the same brass cartridge and rifle as the 6.5 mm Carcano; only the barrel and bullet changed. To enhance the tumbling properties of the 7.35 mm spire pointed bullet, the inner tip of the bullet was made of aluminum instead of lead, encased in a copper jacket. This made the base of the spire pointed bullet that much more heavier than the tip, making it even more prone to tumble. The 7.35x51 mm was a good design but supply problems forced them to abandon it and go back to the 6.5x52 mm.

I know this has been a somewhat long winded answer to your question but, it is a complicated subject. To answer your question, I do not believe the 6.5x52 mm FMJ bullet to be a good choice to avoid collateral damage, for the above reasons, or a good choice for effective stopping power. The AR 15, also for reasons above, has excellent stopping power and, potentially, the capability to avoid collateral damage. This last is similar to why so many police forces have chosen hollow point pistol rounds. The rapid expansion of hollow points do great damage inside of a person accomplishing two things: stopping power and the prevention of that bullet from exiting the person you are shooting and carrying on to hit an innocent bystander. The 5.56 mm bullet, upon breaking up in a victim's body, loses its energy as it causes damage and, thus, tends to remain in the body of the victim.

All that being said, there is, to me, a peculiar pattern about all of the wounds suffered by JFK and JBC, save for the head wound JFK suffered. I hinted at this in a previous post and would like to discuss it further. I have some business to attend to, at the moment, but I will post about it tonight.

James

I have to admit that I am a little vague as to the exact locations of the wounds to the trachea. I had assumed, without investigating, that a bullet had made a single tear along the right side of the trachea, compromising its thickness, but it appears I am wrong.

Are you saying there was an actual entrance and exit wound to the trachea? I would be grateful if you would share all of the information you have on the wounding of JFK's trachea.

going left to right, and I am totally guessing here,

Pepi Roni, Carlos " Lint Magnet " Chavez and Robert Urich from the show VEGAS with a phony mustache selling his last box of chocolates

in his brief stint as the first male girl guide ever.

now what did i win?

is it chocolate?

my second guess is that the guy on the right is Alex Trebeks brother with a copy of " for whom the bell tolls"...or a lightsaber...

maybe it's a lightsaber...

A simple, "I have no idea, Robert" will suffice.

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

look at this one here..this is professionalism at it's best...

Rydberg even draws in some totally incorrect muscle anatomy....This looks like a bad advert for a steakhouse.

"Just because he was cut down in his prime, doesn't mean you can't have a prime cut...

Oswalds Steak and Salad Bonanza in lovely West Texas..."

The really sad thing is that Rydberg and a goodly portion of the public seem to be unaware that the neck is not composed solely of flesh. Believe it or not, there are actually bones in the neck called "vertebrae" that have these lateral projections called "transverse processes". As the transverse processes of the lower cervical vertebrae and the top thoracic vertebra (T1) fit too tightly together to allow a bullet to pass between them, the Magic Bullet had no choice but to enter JFK at a location far to the right of the vertebrae, JUST to clear the transverse processes.

As the Magic Bullet also had to penetrate the right side of JFK's trachea (windpipe), I have calculated it had to travel at an angle of 26° right to left, from entrance to exit, as measured from a line drawn parallel to the long axis of the limo and centering through JFK's vertebrae, back to front. Allowing for a 5° turn to the right by JFK, this still leaves us with 21°. On such an angle, it would have been more likely to hit the driver Greer than JBC.

I'm probably way off but, look at the man on the far left side of this photo taken on Houston St. and compare him to the man identified as Michael Hand.

http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee363/Traveller111/untitled_zpse87d7978.png

What did these men do for a living?

Can anyone identify the three men in this photo, in particular, the man in the middle?

http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee363/Traveller111/images.jpg

Wow. Thanks for the post Vince.

This news actually fits right in with what we have been debating on other threads concerning the path of CE399 and Gov. Connolly's injuries. So the fragment that lodged in his thigh was definitely from another bullet (possibly from the chest wound). This round may be the one that struck his wrist and then spent itself to eventually fall into the limo?

PS Sometimes I like Dr. Fetzer but can't he let someone reveal their own story without interjecting his sabot theory?

Hi Chris

The sabot thing keeps popping up from time to time, doesn't it. While I know that, in your experience with tanks, you have likely fired the armour piercing dart encased in a 105 mm sabot, I too have had some small experience with sabots in hunting bullets. A few years back, ammunition manufacturers brought out sabot jacketed hunting ammunition to increase the versatility of a given calibre. In my case, with my .308 deer rifle (7.62 mm), it was possible to buy cartridges with .243 calibre slugs encased in a .308 sabot, effectively making a .243 out of a .308. When fired, of course, the sabot would peel away in four segments, allowing the slug to continue on its way. One school of thought actually believed the ballistics of the slug would be improved, as the .243 would have no rifling grooves on it to create drag, but this was never proven.

However, I have never quite grasped the reasoning behind the theory that 6.5 Carcano slugs were fired, encased in sabots, from larger calibre rifles in Dealey Plaza. Unlike my .243/.308 sabot slugs, the 6.5 mm slugs would have to first be fired from a 6.5 Carcano to establish rifling marks on them, or they would look somewhat suspicious when recovered. I know it sounds simple to "fire them into a tank of water" or "fire them into cotton wadding" but, I would be a bit concerned that even the impact with these media would distort the slug somewhat; much like CE 399.

And, even if you could recover a pristine bullet and encase it in a sabot, firing that saboted 6.5 mm slug from a rifle with a higher ballistic co-efficient is NOT going to impart that higher ballistic co-efficient to the 6.5 mm slug even with a higher muzzle velocity. Although muzzle velocity is a factor in calculating ballistic co-efficients, the primary reason the 6.5 Carcano has such a low b.c. is the slug itself. It is long, heavy (for its calibre), has a round nose and a flat bottom. You might gain a few hundred feet per second in muzzle velocity but, at a range of 100 yards, is this really an advantage? Worth going to all of the trouble of encasing a fired Carcano slug in a sabot?

Here is one for you. The word "sabot" in French means "wooden shoe" and the word "sabotage" is derived from it. During the Industrial Revolution, disgruntled French workers, wearing their sabots, often looked for ways to disable the machines they worked on in factories, without being caught. One way was to let one of your sabots "slip" into the gearworks which were often made from wood, breaking them. This became so common, it was eventually referred to as "sabotage".

To quote an old adage, "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's difficult to remember your original intention was to drain the swamp."

Precisely. The chest wound bled copious amounts of blood, and I'm certain there would have been blood flowing from the wrist wound, as well. If he had the hat up against (I've been searching everywhere but can't find the quote by Nellie about him being a good son of Texas and never letting go of his hat) the hat should have been soaked in blood.

P.S. If JBC was unconscious for most of the trip to PMH, as he has claimed several times, how did he go about "closing up that wound that would've killed him"?

Something to think about, just as a point of interest. I have spent some time handloading rifle cartridges for hunting and have experimented with varying bullet weights and gunpowder charges. It does not take much variation in the gunpowder charge to throw things off and, when shooting at a paper target at 100 yards, the results are quite obvious. We call it "keyholing" and, when viewed on a paper target, you can actually see how the bullet went through the target sideways (or any other way besides straight on, which makes a neat little round hole). I have a few theories as to how the WCC 6.5 Carcano ammunition might have done this.

i had given thought to regular and "hot loads" . good thinking.. changing the grain...

I have a fair bit of experience with firearms...and you are entirely correct here..

not trying to be a dick...

keep in mind, I have one part of my brain that says " what if " in regards to a shooter from that location , with that rifle as well.

but I do not for one second, nor will I ever buy the SBT.

i will entertain any well thought out idea as a possibilty...but my intellectual charity stops at bullets doing flying walenda moves, causing multiple wounds and then showing up essentially unscathed when the sole purpose of that is to meet the Katzenbacher Criteria"..

I wasn't thinking so much about "hot" loads as I was about deteriorated primers and gunpowder.

And trust me when I say I have never been able to swallow the SBT fairy tale, either. It is an insult to the intelligence of anyone with more than six functioning brain cells.

Something to think about, just as a point of interest. I have spent some time handloading rifle cartridges for hunting and have experimented with varying bullet weights and gunpowder charges. It does not take much variation in the gunpowder charge to throw things off and, when shooting at a paper target at 100 yards, the results are quite obvious. We call it "keyholing" and, when viewed on a paper target, you can actually see how the bullet went through the target sideways (or any other way besides straight on, which makes a neat little round hole). I have a few theories as to how the WCC 6.5 Carcano ammunition might have done this.

Nellie Connally's claim.

Mr. Dobson

I am not trying to account for the on again/off again tumbling characteristics of the bullet(s) that struck JBC; I am only offering conclusions based on medical evidence and the photographs you posted.

According to the medical evidence, and these photos, the bullet that struck JBC's forearm had to be travelling sideways in order to make a wound 2.5 cm. long. Coincidentally, the 6.5x54 Carcano slug also measures 2.5 cm. long. As bullets do not exit the barrel of a rifle in this fashion, we can only assume that something (tree branch?) caused this bullet to tumble before it reached his forearm.

Of course, this is not to say that Dr. Gregory did not falsify the medical evidence, and that the hole in the shirt cuff was not enlarged later but, the question is, why would someone do this?