Lame LN excuses

[Mitch Todd]

bullets often do not travel in a straight line once they've hit something

What does that mean.... "hit something"?

Are you saying that a bullet going through a body without hitting anything other than soft tissue will not travel in a straight line?

Do you really need someone to tell you what "hit something" means? It should be self-evident, as an Illinois rail splitter might say.

What I'm saying is that you can't count on a bullet taking a straight path through a body.  See this:



and this:


for example.

Note that these examples, like yours, are in ideal conditions for a straight-line path: the bullets hit the target normal to the surface and the targets are composed of a homogeneous and monolithic block of material. The structure of the human body is far from being either homogeneous or monolithic, and there's no guarantee the bullet will be travelling normal to the target's surface at impact.

[Martin Weidmann]

This is a 3D model from Render People. They claim their models are photorealistic by virtue of a 250-camera scan system. I added a high-poly skeleton scaled to the figure's height.

I had to articulate the skeleton's neck bones above T1 to match the figure's neck posture and orient the skull. All bones are connected to articulation points fixed on the original skeleton model. The SBT missile track entered at the model's C7 level and exited T1 level. It passed the spine without striking it or the first rib, but encountered the T1 vertebra's external process. So on a model that isn't replicating Kennedy's neck posture, the neck transit did come close in some regards to the proposed SBT transit.

BTW, it is possible for the SBT missile track to pass by the skeleton model at C7/T1 without striking any bone; I have seen this on the skeleton model alone.

If the bullet, coming downwards from left of the car, went through Kennedy in a straight line, as depicted in the photo on the top left of your gif, there is IMO no way that it could have struck Connally where he was hit. That bullet path would have resulted in the bullet ending up somewhere between the two jump seats.

[Martin Weidmann]

These rough sketches show that in order for the bullet to go between the seats, it would require an approx. 30° right-to-left angle.

Depending on the exact position of the car and assuming the jump seats were where the sketches put them.

Having seen the interior of the actual car, I doubt that the sketches are correct.

[John Iacoletti]

Any good reason to think that Connally had half his body hanging off the edge of the seat?  Other than that it makes things sort of line up?

[Charles Collins]

Any good reason to think that Connally had half his body hanging off the edge of the seat?  Other than that it make things sort of line up?

The reason is that he (as he stated) had just turned around to his right in an attempt to see JFK. And had started to turn back the other way. I do something similar every time I turn around to see behind me when I back up in my old pickup truck. And my right shoulder is always near the center of the seat back. Try it for yourself some time.

[Jack Trojan]

IMO, Canning's figures were placed a little too far inboard. I would move both a few inches towards their right. The large ovals represent the shoulders, not where the hips were.

I don't see how a bullet emerging from Kennedy's throat would end up between the jump seats. Only in a CT scenario.

You can't eyeball anything and I don't buy your graphics. You need to develop a more sophisticated 3D model and show the trajectory from the 6th floor of the TSBD in and out of JFK and in and out and in and out and into Connally. I'll let you get away with this if you have an exact 3D model to scale and you are very specific re the entrance/exit wounds. Short of that, you are wasting your time.

Note that you (or anyone) can also use the 2 laser challenge for 3 people.

First, line up JFK's surrogate to match the entrance/exit wounds, then remove JFK's surrogate and insert/fit Connally's surrogate into the scene and match up his rib/wrist/thigh relative to the MB trajectory (providing it was a straight line). Take photos of both surrogates and superimpose them into 1 image. Then note the body positions and look to the Z film to find the frame that best fits. Otherwise, a 3D re-enactment is the ONLY exercise that will advance this and it's cheap and easy and anyone can do it.

You expect us to believe that your CAD rendering is accurate and detailed enough to resolve the MB trajectory, which even YOU can't confirm is true. You are living in a 2D world projected from 3D via a physics engine. Lots of potential error with your methods since you are a CAD operator, not a geomaticist that knows how 3D->2D projection works.

[Tim Nickerson]

Be the first to do all that and post it here.

 Hear hear!

[Vincent Baxter]

If the bullet, coming downwards from left of the car, went through Kennedy in a straight line, as depicted in the photo on the top left of your gif, there is IMO no way that it could have struck Connally where he was hit. That bullet path would have resulted in the bullet ending up somewhere between the two jump seats.

So what happened to the bullet? And how come a speeding bullet that would have only slightly been slowed down by travelling through flesh caused no damage to the interior of the car?