Posted on 04/29/2005 3:30:21 PM PDT by finnman69
A US satellite reportedly recorded a checkpoint shooting in Iraq last month, enabling investigators to reconstruct how fast a car carrying a top Italian intelligence official and a freed hostage was traveling when US troops opened fire.
The report, which aired Thursday on CBS News, said US investigators concluded from the recording that the car was traveling at a speed of more than 60 miles (96 km) per hour.
Giuliana Sgrena has said the car was traveling at a normal speed of about 30 miles an hour when the soldiers opened fired, wounding her and killing Nicola Calipari, the Italian agent who had just secured her release from a month's captivity.
US soldiers said at the time of the March 4 incident that the car approached at a high rate of speed and that they fired only after it failed to respond to hand signals, flashing bright lights and warning shots.
The conflicting accounts were among a number of differences that have prevented US and Italian authorities from reaching agreement on what happened.
CBS, citing Pentagon officials, said the satellite recording enabled investigators to reconstruct the event without having to rely on the eyewitness accounts.
It said the soldiers manning the checkpoint first spotted the Italian car when it was 137 yards (meters) away. By the time they opened fire and brought the car to a halt, it was 46 yards (meters) away. CBS said that happened in less than three seconds, which meant the car had to be going over 60 miles an hour.
CBS said Italian investigators refused to accept that the Americans were justified in shooting so quickly, arguing among other things that the checkpoint was not properly marked.
Real time satellite imagery recorded the scene.
I believe our troops, but this seems a little crazy to offer as proof.
Who knows though, anything is possible.
but we already knew that without the film.....
Giuliana Sgrena is a dirty, filthy, lying, terrorist-sympathizing, communist.
So what your're saying is that the big bad American soldiers followed protocol. Gee...who would've thunk it. Imagine that.
Sgrena lied. Imagine that.
"arguing among other things that the checkpoint was not properly marked."
Since she lied about everything else, why would she tell the truth about that?
Once a lying communist POS, always a lying communist POS.
No way, the U.S. military shot them for the fun of it. /Italian-communist-barf-crap off
I just spent 6 years in Italy, Aviano, and after having driven in Italy I don’t think there is an Italian in Italy that knows the difference between 100 mph and 30 mph. they all drive like He!!.
I really wish I could believe CBS on this. However, with their track record....
That info has been virtually open public knowledge since Pollard sold it to the Israelis and they sold it to the Soviets.
Your concept is correct, but the google maps are substandard, i.e., not near as close-up as nor as accurate as has already been available on the web for a long time.
I don't recall the site(s), but do a search for satellite imagery and you can easily find images superior to google's (and free) of any address elsewhere. I have done it numerous times.
I'm sure that if an American strike team had found this biotch, kicked in the door to rescue her, she would have thrown herself in front of her terrorist captors.
and this story will be burried AND the Euromedia will say this is all special effects faked by the US army.
So if this was recorded with satellite imagery, why did our government wait until now to release the info after the damage has been done?
JSTARS provides ground situation information ...But hey, a 'satellite' is just as good a cover story as any ...JSTARS provides a picture of the ground situation equivalent to that of the air situation provided by AWACS. JSTARS is capable of determining the direction, speed and patterns of military activity of ground vehicles and helicopters.
1 meter = 39.37 inches, which is roughly one yard. But137 (yards) * 36 (in/yard) / 39.37 (in/meter) = 127.27 metersand 46 (yards) * 36 (in/yard) / 39.37 (in/meter) = 42 meters.
IIRC, and I think I do.
True, but it's not obvious that they would have a JSTARS aloft over Iraq, absent a serious military threat. The satellite is up anyway, and if you luck out you have coverage when you need it. The JSTARS is an expensive aircraft with a large crew, and you are not going to maintain one overhead 24/7 unless you think there could be a serious battle brewing.
MUCH more likely JSTARS caught this action than some bird; a) my understanding this was at night b) this was a special temporary checkpoint because c) someone was in town visiting and d) JSTARS was more than liley 'watching over' the area (HOW might you think they are protecting Baghdad AP at night) ...
Unles you can account for all 17 or so JSTARS A/C, it's far more likely, IMB, that JSTARS caught this action and some 'bird' did not ...
A simple calculus problem, but I get 125 MPH:
D = Distance (yards) traveled as a function of time.
V = Velocity (yards/sec) as a function of time.
K = Deceleration which is normally a constant.
t = time in seconds
The basic equations:
D = (A/2)(t)(t) + Bt + C
V = At + B
K = A
From the data given, when t=0, D = 0 because this is where we are starting. Also:
0 = C : This is from substituting 0 for both D and t in the first equation.
When t = 3, D = 137 - 46 or 91 yards and V = 0 yards/second and you get two equations with two unknowns:
91 = (A/2)x3x3 + 3B = 9A/2 + 3B (distance equation)
0 = 3A + B (speed equation)
What we want to do is solve for B. That's the initial speed:
B = 2 x 91 / 3 = 60 yards / second
To convert to MPH:
B = 60 x (3600 secs/hr) / (1750 yards/mile) = 125 MPH
I don't know, maybe deceleration isn't a constant.
Go to this site:
http://imageatlas.globexplorer.com/ImageAtlas/view.do
They have a subscriber side and a free side. The free aerial maps are vastly superior to the much ballyhooed google aerial maps, which I have found to be a joke. Google's maps are not only not near as close-up as Globexplorer's, nor as good a resolution, but I have several times found google to pinpoint the wrong house by several doors away!! Good thing I'm not sending in a swat team based on their info!!
Good luck.
I spent 2 years at Aviano, 1975-77. Loved the place and may have a chance to visit next spring? When were you there?
MoodyBlu
A satellite capturing this scene is nearly impossible. What luck it would be to have a video camera watching that area at the time. Even luckier that anyone at the Pentagon would admit it, much less release the details to the likes of the Communist BullShit network.
Did you factor in for a abs braking system?
So if this was recorded with satellite imagery, why did our government wait until now to release the info after the damage has been done?
Bureaucratic red tape. Chances are the photos are classified for a certain amount of time. It could take months before some stuffed shirt at the Pentagon or the CIA releases them to the public.
Nope. That real-time video imaging you see in the movies is just that, movies.
UAVs give real-time imaging. I would believe a UAV was in the air, but even then it would have to be looking at the right place at the right time.
Gee-whiz,.... the Italians must have forgot about what Pres. Reagan did to the Soviets after they shot down KAL-007 and proved their lies presented as factual denials to be just that lies, with audio and satellite imagery tapes.
It's possible I'm living in the past (back in the day, we had 2 experimental J-Stars a/c only to support Desert Storm). I suppose if we have 17 of the things, maybe we don't have any better mission than to document traffic in Baghdad in order to investigate the movement of bad guys retrospectively. Which this sorta is.
"equivalent to that of the air situation provided by AWACS"
That is nothing to brag about. I was on the RIVET JOINT. We had a saying for the A-Word :)
Airborne
Without
A
Clue
Is that more a reflection of the functional capability of the a) personnel manning that platform or the b) equipment itself?
I say a) - and there is *no* substitute for crack,
well-performimg/sharp personnel - matter how good the equipment; sharp personnel can 'make the equipment work' when needed ...
Like saying in 1980 the Soviet Union would collapse and that we had a super secret angular radar dodging "stealth"' aircraft? Im surprised we let this slip out. It just must mean our uber-techno military dominance over the world is unprecedented.
I thought of j-stars ,myself
satellite images of Bush's ranch...
this stuff is out there:
http://cryptome.org/
http://cryptome.org/bush-ranch.htm
Most definitely.
The satellite part doesn't surprise me, what does is that video of the scene was collected and recorded. This was at one checkpoint of hundreds, the fact that they dedicated one satellite (or one camera on a satellite) to a relatively unimportant location can only mean that they have tremendous coverage. Just think of all the better places to point one of these things . . .
I don't know much about how JSTARS operates, but I have been out on a patrol and the TOC came over the command net and told us to go check out so-and-so coordinates due to JSTARS reporting activity there. When we got there, there were a few farmers milling about (I guess they were suspicious because it was the middle of the night, but Iraqis often work their fields at night due to the heat of the day). Anyway, I don't think they were given that area as one that was especially important to scan, they just noticed movement, so it would seem to me that they would notice a car speeding towards one of our checkpoints and take notice thus providing the evidence here.
Interesting! And thank you for your service.I worked at Grumman, the orignal builder of J-STARS and now merged with Northrop. Worked on testing A-6 Intruder software, but never did anything on J-STARS, which wasn't done on Long Island but down in Florida. I just know that it's a heavily computerized radar sytem built into a Boeing airliner airframe, and that it'll tell you a lot about vehicular traffic.
Intended to provide detailed info on any Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe, but the USSR imploded about the time of Desert Storm - and the first two prototypes were pressed into service during Desert Storm. General Schwartzkopf (sp?) remarked afterward that J-STARS had been far too valuable for the Army to ever be willing to part with.
No complicated mathematics required. Just simple arithmetic:
The car traveled 91 yards (137 yards minus 46 yards) in three seconds. Assuming constant velocity, the velocity V is given by the following formula and conversion factors:
V = (91 yd / 3 sec) * (3 ft/yd) * (1 mi / 5280 ft) * (3600 sec/hr)
V = 62 mi/hr
LOL, as a fellow RIVET JOINT person, I whole heartedly concur. That being said, my first thought when I saw this article was COBRA BALL.
foxfield, you have the correct calculation but you do not have to assume that the velocity is constant. We have no way of knowing that. The result of your calculation is the average velocity of the car for the satellite observed segment. And for this argument this is all they needed, because 60mph is a long way from 30.
chopperman, the reason your calculation comes out wrong, is that you assume the final velocity is 0. We have no way of knowing that either. With the the data the satellite gave us we can only calculate the average speed as foxfield did...
Just for meanness let's assume that the vehicle, when disabled, slowed down with a friction coefficient of 0.8. Unless the troops were using artillery, they couldn't stop it instantaneously, it would just lose power and stop rolling efficiently on its wheels as the engine, tires, and driver's steering lost effectiveness. If in fact the car was going 60 mph (88 feet/sec), the time it would take to stop was approximately
88ft/sec/(0.8 * 32.2 ft/sec2=3.4 sec
distance = 1/2 at2 = 0.5*(.8)*32.2*3.4*3.4 = 149 feet, or 50 yards.Sounds like it might have taken longer for this to happen than CBS asserts - or the data could be more consistent with a slower initial speed.
If in fact the car was stopped in a distance of 50 yards, the car would have had to travel (137-46) = 91 yards before being disabled.And if its speed was 60 mph (88 fps), that allows a time of
91*3 feet / 88 ft/sec = 3 seconds from the time the car is spotted until it is disabled.
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