Dead Sea Dig 2013-03-25

[Mark N]

From the looks of things in the last panel Kath's digging partner exploded. This is backed up by the look of Kath's hair being blown away from the site. I would guess that she was hit by an RPG round or a mortar (doubtful since the sniper hits on Jared show that they were targeted and not just wrong place wrong time)

[Fairportfan]

I'd bet on a mortar, given the appearance of the [?]explosion[?].

[Boxilar]

I was up late last night - watching an "NCIS" marathon - and almost turned on my 'puter to get the new issue of Wapsi. Kinda glad I decided I was too sleepy and went to bed. This scene while a bit disturbing - is so much easier to handle in daylight.

Read the comments on the main page - what a bunch of whiners . Why Paul lets them exist is beyond me. Oh well - freedom of spech does come with its own set to problems.

.. you haven't seen the comments that were removed... this is the main reason it is filtered through face book, due to the level of idiocy rising..

just goto any 'latest mobile phone' forum for the totally brainless awful comments...

I've said before that Wapsi requires a certain amount of in intelligence to follow. Paul doesn't spoon feed us. He gives us the info he thinks we need and lets us draw our own conclusions about what is going on.
Some of the complaints I saw were about jumping to a flashback without warning. I guess those folks hated Pulp Fiction. All that nonlinear storytelling and jumping around must be hard to follow for some people of....limited intelligence.

[Boxilar]

I'd bet on a mortar, given the appearance of the [?]explosion[?].

You're probably right..I was thinking along the lines of a vehicle mounted cannon because of a lack of a warning report. With a parabolic arc and the flight time and range of a man portable mortar, I assumed they might have heard it fire before the shell hit. But then the group would have probably noticed an armored vehicle sneaking up on them in the middle of the desert.

[KnightDelight]

I was up late last night - watching an "NCIS" marathon - and almost turned on my 'puter to get the new issue of Wapsi. Kinda glad I decided I was too sleepy and went to bed. This scene while a bit disturbing - is so much easier to handle in daylight.

Read the comments on the main page - what a bunch of whiners . Why Paul lets them exist is beyond me. Oh well - freedom of spech does come with its own set to problems.

.. you haven't seen the comments that were removed... this is the main reason it is filtered through face book, due to the level of idiocy rising..

just goto any 'latest mobile phone' forum for the totally brainless awful comments...

I've said before that Wapsi requires a certain amount of in intelligence to follow. Paul doesn't spoon feed us. He gives us the info he thinks we need and lets us draw our own conclusions about what is going on.
Some of the complaints I saw were about jumping to a flashback without warning. I guess those folks hated Pulp Fiction. All that nonlinear storytelling and jumping around must be hard to follow for some people of....limited intelligence.

I guess, but I hate it too when I'm looking forward to finding out what was really going on from Friday and find a totally different setting. And I did hate Pulp Fiction, but not because of that.

Plot_Twist_Paul.jpg (62.92 KiB) Viewed 7768 times

[Grantwhy]

I guess, but I hate it too when I'm looking forward to finding out what was really going on from Friday and find a totally different setting. And I did hate Pulp Fiction, but not because of that.

bravo

[jwhouk]

1. Paul shifts gears so much we call him "Dropped Tranny Pablo" (for all the storyline "transmission cases" he's dropped on the road).
2. It would not surprise me if this is something that happened roughly two-three years before the strip began (2001).
3. The only way IRL that Kat could get out of a situation like this would have to be by playing possum. Of course, with the possible amount of splatter from Not-Becky's remains, they may have assumed Kat was dead.
4. Though resentment at 'murricans being in their "sacred places", it may actually be some Sunni/Shiite/Palestinian faction looking for gold.
5. It's possible the "golden calf" they found was a small representation of the larger idol we probably all were thinking of when it was mentioned by Not-Becky.

[Fairportfan]

If that is an explosion, it appears to be un unconstrained burst at ground level, consistent with a high-trajectory projectile.

In Up Front, Bill Mauldin discusses the differing opinions infantrymen hold about shells - high-trajectory ones often give enough warning to take cover - but they only sort-of miss - if they land near you, they can ruin your whole day.

Flat-trajectory shells keep on going if they miss you ... but they don't give advance warning.

In Three Corvettes - memoirs of the WW2 experiences that eventually shaped the brilliant sea-war novel, The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarratt tells of the time he was on deck during action ... and a tracer round went directly between his legs. That's scary enough to think about - but hat about the bullets before and after the tracer in the same belt? Where did they go?

[Grantwhy]

From the looks of things in the last panel Kath's digging partner exploded. This is backed up by the look of Kath's hair being blown away from the site. I would guess that she was hit by an RPG round or a mortar (doubtful since the sniper hits on Jared show that they were targeted and not just wrong place wrong time)

It couldn't be a mortar? Katherine is too close and her surviving fragmentation from a mortar would be doubtful?

Although, this might be a memory, not a flash back, so some of the details might be different to actual events?

[which would explain why the mat Katherine was kneeling on in the first panel disappearing in the last? ]

[Boxilar]

I guess, but I hate it too when I'm looking forward to finding out what was really going on from Friday and find a totally different setting. And I did hate Pulp Fiction, but not because of that.

bravo

Seconded. Brilliant cartoon. My point was you followed Pulp Fiction, despite all the jumping around. As much as i might like to see some of the details we miss, Paul follows the story telling adage that everyting must contribute to the overall advancement of the story. If he followed the storytelling style of many other webcomics, it would still be about 2004 and the girls would just be discovering the Calender Machine needed to be dealt with.

From the looks of things in the last panel Kath's digging partner exploded. This is backed up by the look of Kath's hair being blown away from the site. I would guess that she was hit by an RPG round or a mortar (doubtful since the sniper hits on Jared show that they were targeted and not just wrong place wrong time)

It couldn't be a mortar? Katherine is too close and her surviving fragmentation from a mortar would be doubtful?

Although, this might be a memory, not a flash back, so some of the details might be different to actual events?

[which would explain why the mat Katherine was kneeling on in the first panel disappearing in the last? ]

That's why I was aurguing that it was probably a light cannon, 20mm, 23mm, 25mm or 30mm. All would be small enough to be mounted on a light fighting vehicle. Or a pickup truck. Damn. I could be a recoiless rifle on the back of a pickup. A pickup driving around nearby probably wouldn't have drawn much attention.

[shadowinthelight]

Heh, if some people found Pulp Fiction hard to follow, their heads probably exploded (much like our dear departed Jared) when they saw 12 Monkeys.

[Fairportfan]

That's why I was aurguing that it was probably a light cannon, 20mm, 23mm, 25mm or 30mm. All would be small enough to be mounted on a light fighting vehicle. Or a pickup truck. Damn. I could be a recoiless rifle on the back of a pickup. A pickup driving around nearby probably wouldn't have drawn much attention.

If that's an explosion, the round came in from almost directly overhead. High trajectory or air-to-ground.

[Boxilar]

That's why I was aurguing that it was probably a light cannon, 20mm, 23mm, 25mm or 30mm. All would be small enough to be mounted on a light fighting vehicle. Or a pickup truck. Damn. I could be a recoiless rifle on the back of a pickup. A pickup driving around nearby probably wouldn't have drawn much attention.

If that's an explosion, the round came in from almost directly overhead. High trajectory or air-to-ground.

True, but a solid projectile from any of the cannon calibers I mentioned would pretty much areosol a human body on a center mass hit without an explosion. I know I'm aurguing minutia, but it's all I have untill the next update. (F5,F5,F5 )

By the bye, I was loaned a first edition copy of Up Front. I love that book. Most of my millitary service was peace time with a short war at the end. (Desert Storm) As a truck driver, my duties were to drive a large flamable target (5000 gallon tanker truck) around an active war zone. (southern Iraq)

Most of the time stuff blowing up was happening some distance away. I did see the aftermath, though. What modren millitary weapons, even fairly "light' ones, do to the human body is pretty devastating.

[Mark N]

It couldn't be a mortar? Katherine is too close and her surviving fragmentation from a mortar would be doubtful?

Although, this might be a memory, not a flash back, so some of the details might be different to actual events?

[which would explain why the mat Katherine was kneeling on in the first panel disappearing in the last? ]

I am agreeing with the idea that this is memory. But I am thinking that it is a deeply repressed one. The question is did she survive because she became something else and blocked it out just like all of these events. The statement that Brandi made to the Suzi about starting events that could make a woman skin herself and Atsali's unfinished statement about what Katherine must be.

[Wyvern]

If memory serves me, one of the more experienced soldiers once told me something to the effect that 'you only hear the ones that miss you.' *shrugs*

Yes. The bullet travels faster than sound, so it gets to you before the bang. By the time the noise of the shot reaches you, the bullet has already gone past.

[My2Cents]

From the looks of things in the last panel Kath's digging partner exploded. This is backed up by the look of Kath's hair being blown away from the site. I would guess that she was hit by an RPG round or a mortar (doubtful since the sniper hits on Jared show that they were targeted and not just wrong place wrong time)

It couldn't be a mortar? Katherine is too close and her surviving fragmentation from a mortar would be doubtful?

Although, this might be a memory, not a flash back, so some of the details might be different to actual events?

[which would explain why the mat Katherine was kneeling on in the first panel disappearing in the last? ]

That's why I was aurguing that it was probably a light cannon, 20mm, 23mm, 25mm or 30mm. All would be small enough to be mounted on a light fighting vehicle. Or a pickup truck. Damn. I could be a recoiless rifle on the back of a pickup. A pickup driving around nearby probably wouldn't have drawn much attention.

Nothing explosive or Kathryn would have been hit by fragments. Mortars, recoilless rifles, and RPG are definitely out.

But that list omits one important weapon, which was also standard armament on the BRDM-2, the 14.5mm KPV heavy machinegun which has twice the punch of the 12.7mm, and is a Russian favorite.

[zachariah]

I think we might be spending too much time worrying about which weapon could have caused Not-Becky to become hamburger. Does it really matter? She's roadkill and Kathy is caught in the middle of something that overwhelms the mind. The shock factor alone with the surprise is enough to break anyone. The main point is this shows a lot of what made Kathy the way she is. The rest will show how she survived and support her sudden change on the current field trip. I suspect it is more important on how it affected her than how it happened.

[Opus the Poet]

I think we might be spending too much time worrying about which weapon could have caused Not-Becky to become hamburger. Does it really matter? She's roadkill and Kathy is caught in the middle of something that overwhelms the mind. The shock factor alone with the surprise is enough to break anyone. The main point is this shows a lot of what made Kathy the way she is. The rest will show how she survived and support her sudden change on the current field trip. I suspect it is more important on how it affected her than how it happened.

You have a lot to learn about geeks especially geeks with too much time on their hands Geeks have to understand everything

[Atomic]

FYI, it's not just the size and mass of the bullet, it's the speed. Double the speed or mass, quadruple the energy. Double both, 16x energy. The trick is to get the energy to stay in the target instead of just passing through and working on the scenery beyond.

The famous Colt M1911.45 caliber pistol was designed specifically for stopping power. It was a response to the Moro guerrillas during the Philippine-American War, who used pain-killing drugs prior to their attacks. This video shows how the shock wave does damage to ballistic gel, and concentrates all the energy within the target. Slug is 230 grain at 889fps.

By comparison, a .50 cal rifle (50BMG Hornady in this video) uses a slug (750gr, 2758fps) three times heavier and faster than the .45, so giving it tons more energy. The shock wave simply shreds the soft targets, and the mass pulverizes hard ones.

Further, hollow point bullets are designed to mushroom/flatten on entry, thus transferring more energy to the soft target by retarding penetration and avoiding pass-through.

Of note, military use of hollow point bullets are forbidden by the Hague Convention, and use jacketed bullets instead.

[RunningBull]

I'm surprised that no one has said anything about the extra "what" in the first text ballon in the first panel. Kat says "Did you hear what about what happened to Amy?", it reads strangely.