In the comments of this post, Ronald Lewis, an experienced bomb damage assessment expert with 20 years of experience, states, in part (my bold):

...The nature of the hole in the roof of the Reuters vehicles is inconsistent with penetration by shrapnel. There would be more than one hole, a larger one surrounded by many smaller ones. This single hole, its shape and the initial gray color of the damage area are more consistent with a vehicle struck by a large piece of masonry striking the top of the vehicle at high velocity, possibly dislodged by a rocket blast. It is clear that the vehicle, itself, was not struck by missiles or rockets...

Mr Lewis is not the only expert to reach a similar conclusion.

Both of the armored vehicle manufacturers I corresponded with yesterday agreed that an explosive probably did not cause the damage shown on the Reuters vehicle. Old Soldier, a retired Master Army Aviator helicopter and fixed-wing test pilot also remarked based upon his 31-years experience that the damage may have been caused by (my bold):

... [a] chunk of flying concrete debris from a larger explosion (say perhaps a HELLFIRE or artillery round hitting a building nearby).

There are, of course, conflicting ideas that very may well be valid. Photo analysis alone does not seem capable of resolving this issue with any degree of certainty in the blogosphere, which is why it is quite disappointing that the professional media refuses to investigate what may have occurred.

I have one more email floating out there to an expert that might be able to shed a little more light on this incident, but as time passes, it appears that they are unlikely to return comment. The simple fact of the matter is that without a close-up inspection of the vehicle by recognized experts and perhaps metallurgical tests on any shrapnel that can be verified as being recovered from the victims and the vehicle, we may never know exactly what transpired.

I could not resist my sillier side, however, and present to you an artist's conception of the helicopter that carried out the attack.

Barring any late-breaking developments, I think this story is pretty much done.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:48 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 370 words, total size 3 kb.