Ghouta Chemical Massacre(s) : Firing Directions : Placed Impact #8: The Dead Pool
March 28, 2021
updates April 6
Mapping the Spot
I recently started a discussion on Twitter regarding an interesting video report made by Al-Jazeera, posted Nov. 12, 2013. I didn't find a written report to go with it, in English or Arabic. So I've been piecing together what the Arabic video says and, especially, what it shows - several locations, including at least two with otherwise unplaced "volcano" rockets, analyzed by on-site by well-equipped people who would provide estimated trajectories that might even be accurate.
As I had hoped, someone with more spark made good use of the visuals. Chris Kabusk located this half of their unique rocket impacts from the scene at 5:47 in the video, as shown at right. Note reference map is flipped south up in this. Distinct building ahead (to the south), aqua-blue line marks a wall with trees behind, a roof marked yellow on the left, open space beneath that, open space between, and a guy's leg. If you were the yellow pin on his map, that would be your view. The red line to off-frame is Kabusk's rocket trajectory estimate. We'll come back to trajectory.I agreed to his detail matches and added a few more (below, also with map flipped south, but exactly 180). Notably the open pavement with railing, a lip, then some recess to match the satellite view of a large, drained swimming pool. The rocket apparently hit a roofed area behind us there, just east of the pool's shallow north end. Finally, looking northeast from the impact hole, a matching set of distinctive buildings (purple outline, blue for balconies/windows) further cements the match. Also another view out the impact hole, unclear direction, fills an empty space I had.
Coordinates: 33.312049° 36.213243°
This was (or just included) a big, seemingly public swimming pool until it was drained, app. in late 2012. On August 23, 2013, there's a big hole in the roof at the red arrow that wasn't there before but remains after. That must be the impact point for the rocket.
This location is roughly where the Local Coordinating Committees (LCC) had somewhere pegged as impact #5 - I should to track down where I ever got that. As I re-plotted them anyway, they've usually been close but inexact. Human Rights Watch also has inexact or unverified plottings, including an impact reported here - #6 as assigned, on the updated map at right. Green numbers for verified by us = a group including me, as I took note and agreed, by which this dead pool impact is #8.Impact Analysis
April 6 note: This goes on a bit, and then had further work and final-for-now estimates at the end.
The rocket was seen in an odd tiled room with a checkered wall and railing. It's not another part of that deck area, nor down in the pool, and should be near that punctured roof, having a rocket there and much of the roof in the wrong place. Here is Al-Jazeera's investigator looking down at the rocket near that wall. He's also near a slanting metal bar that bisects his body in our view.
The frame below is roughly his view there, looking right down that same bar at the rocket (lime outline) in its trench with its implied trajectory (red) relative to that checkered wall with its base now marked yellow.
In the big detail-matching graphic above, a view to the northeast has afternoon sun lighting up up both faces of those matching buildings marked in purple. To be lit in these afternoon views, this checkered wall must face roughly south or west, besides avoid all the complex shadows. If it faced south, the trajectory is from the E-SE, which is unknown. If west, then it's from the north-northwest. which there's plenty of precedent for. So it must be the eastern (west-facing) wall. Some more complex sunlight details suggest the same. Michael Kobs agrees: "I think, in order to catch some late sun light the rocket motor should be along the yellow dotted wall" (yellow solid line here). And he suggests not reading final angle too literally, as the rocket might "bounce" between walls and so on.
Important point: after it passes the roofed area, views on hand aren't clear if it passed through another wall or door or nothing before entering this room we see. So far I think it's all open space, only metal roof torn through. All debris is sheeting, insulation, ceiling panels and bars, a few pipes, wires in tubing - hardly a single brick or any concrete rubble. I think this is still the right call.
By satellite views, such walls here run 345/165° for north-south. There is some foreshortening, but the angle of the red line I traced above seems like roughly 20-25 degrees from parallel. That would mean a trajectory somewhere around 135-125° (reverse azimuth 315-325) - pretty well due northwest. Michael Kobs or someone may offer a better reading on this in time.So it looks like it came in close to parallel to this wall, or mostly from the north. But it did punch a hole in the roof some distance west of here. That seems to require a different trajectory at that point, one aimed a bit more into the wall and less along it.
The rocket changing direction like that, to me, seems quite plausible; on impact, it would lose much force into that spot, bursting the tile up to the wall. Then it might find more resistance near the wall that would deflect it to the right. In the image above, see how a whole span of tile to the left was ground up, compared to a clean scrape on the right. The weak tile would give for a while before stopping the spent tube, letting that new angle get really etched in. That red arrow above should probably curve a bit to reflect the reality.
Here's another view: red damage starts sharp, angled as if into the wall - the damage that way continues, but wider than it should, as the other side keeps going, curving towards the camera. And the curved tube at the front shows its own resistance curve. That will be partly vertical difference, and partly this curved trench effect, whatever its current rotation,
Other things aimed into the wall, coming from the west: a number of ... explosive fragments? That might raise questions I've already been asking. Either way, it needs to factor in. These mostly uniform chips span the whole west wall, with some heavy clustering north at the entrance doors, and many lighter ones clustered south. See here and further below, marked with orange shapes and dots (and gold dots for poss. lighter chips).
This wall runs for some 10-11m as visible from above. The rocket is 1.34m long to start, the trench a bit longer, so close to what I drew here. From punched roof to near-the-wall, it had to travel 5-10 meters east to southeast, depending on the heading - which must have been different from the angle of that trench. Variables I tried to account for here: exact size and scale of the area, skewed roofline in the satellite view, uncertain center of first contact with that roof, any mild deflection then, and slightly unclear impact point with the ground where the trench begins. Each of these might be - or seems to be - a little bit off in my modeling here, but good enough for this exercise.
It seems Al-Jazeera's findings were of a second government-run firing spot. As Amin25 helped me understand the narration and visuals, and as I follow their lines on the map (as blur-matchingly exact as possible) on Google Maps, this is their case: they set a pin called "Zamalka" used to measure all impacts from. The spot corresponds to no impacts, exactly, but is close to both "impact site 5" and closer to an unseen "LCC1," by far the nearest one to their suspected launch spots. Note how much further out the rest of them range. (this predates finding #8 - that dot is still red in this picture)
So 307, or 306. Or even lower? Yeah - I had placed the black circle pretty crudely too. Re-measuring it now with both ends pinned more exactly, I get about 305.5° from where my green line had ended to the "exact approximate" launcher spot - not the 307 I meant. And from the impacted roof by the pool to our possible launcher is just one degree less, 304.5° (almost zero difference between hitting here vs. here on that roof, more possible variation at the launcher end). Maybe 307 just wasn't that exact?
FWIW Distance: 1.989 km from that suspect field. Long range = shallow landing, likely enough to travel ~10m between roof and floor.
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