(10-04-2017 11:55 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(10-04-2017 11:33 PM)No Bull Wrote:  

(10-04-2017 11:27 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(10-04-2017 10:38 PM)No Bull Wrote:  

(10-04-2017 10:27 PM)WoodlandsOwl Wrote:  He had both 5.56 and 7.62 NATO chambered rifles in the room.

"Las Vegas Strip mass murderer Stephen Paddock used his Mandalay Bay hotel room to fire bullets at jet fuel tanks Sunday night, a knowledgeable source told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The bullets left two holes in one of two circular white tanks. One of the bullets penetrated the tank, but did not cause a fire or explosion near the Route 91 Harvest country music festival, another knowledgeable source said late Wednesday.

The tanks are roughly 1,100 feet from the concert site, where Paddock killed 58 people and wounded almost 500.

Within the past couple of days, a construction crew repaired and painted the holes, and FBI agents inspected the tanks and took measurements of the line of fire from Mandalay Bay, the sources said."

About 2000 feet from the Hotel to the Tanks as per the graphic. 7.62 would have the kinetic energy over that distance to penetrate the Tanks.

This was really planned out. He barricaded the stairwells in the hotel. Peephole cameras. Was trying to blow up fuel tanks.. Anyone care to guess what the blast range would have been if he succeeded? He came damn close... folks this was not your average angry white guy...

Blast range would depend on the fuel in the tank he shot, how much was it it, etc. Probably not very far, and if it was Jet A fuel he was shooting at rather than Aviation gasoline it probably woukdn't have exploded at all.

Not to mention the fact that the only way he was going to have likely success would have been to shoot the tanks with incendiary ammunition, and even then it wouldn't be assured because for there to be an explosion everything......the amount of fuel vapor, the amount of oxygen and the ignition source...has to come together perfectly for there to be an explosion, especially in a non-pressurized tank like what most liquid fuel is stored in.

Thanks. So these were potshots..?

Personally I would guess so. I mean he was a pilot and should have known the properties of the fuel he was shooting at.

Although he could have been trying to set a fuel fire as a diversion. The human eye is naturally attracted to light and a burning pool of fuel is very bright