There is a kerfuffle about this New York Times web site photo.
Pakistani men with the remains of a missile fired at a house in the Bajur tribal zone near the Afghan border.
However, this object is not a missile nor a missile's remains.
What is it, and in light of these facts, why did the New York Times decide to run it with such an inflammatory and false caption?
As a retired artillery officer, it's easy for me to see that the blue object in the photo is an artillery projectile. Do you see the golden-colored stripe running horizontally around it near the bottom? That is called a rotating band. The rotating band is what seals an artillery projectile tightly inside the cannon tube. When fired, the band does two things: it seals the propellant gases behind the projectile so that they don't blow by the projectile as it travels down the barrel, and it expands into the grooves of the rifling of the cannon tube to start the projectile spinning, like a rifle bullet does, vastly increasing the accuracy of the firing.
The NYT has withdrawn the photo from its original placement and now runs it alone with a correction of sorts. One apologist for the NYT says that they ran the photo and caption as received from Getty Images, a news-photo service.
There seems to be a consensus among artillerists who have commented that the projectile pictured is either a 152mm (that is, Russian manufacture) or 155mm (used by US, NATO and other countries). Retired artilleryman William Krulac saysthe round has been fired, and was probably a training round that does not explode, a base-ejection round (base ejection is used to deliver illumination flares or sub-munitions over a target) or, a dud. U.S. artillery training rounds are blue, but do not have a yellow band. The evidence that the round was fired is the grooves in the rotating band near the bottom of the round.
Here is a table showing the various colors used by US forces to identify types of cannon shells. Blue is used to indicate training rounds. Training rounds, Mr. Krulac to the contrary, are actually never fired in artillery cannons. They are used to train soldiers in proper handling and storage or for classroom instruction. Also, the yellow band of paint is a mystery. Blue rounds are fired for training practice in small-caliber cannons, such as 20mm or 30mm.
I saved the photo and attempted to emlarge it to read the markings visible near the top, but the resolution is too low to permit it.
So, because the round is blue and, as Mr. Krulac says, was actually fired, my conclusion is that this is not a US-made projectile. Compounding the mystery is that instead of a fuze in the nose there appears to be a lifting plug, used by material-handling equipment to move projectiles inside ammunition supply points. See the second photo here. But it's a real wooden-headed error to fire a round without replacing the plug with a fuze. But again, the resolution is so low that it may be a fuze misshapen from impact with the ground.
I am not convinced that the round is of the 152mm-155mm variety, either. The size of a NATO-standard 155mm round is 155mm in diamter (of course), which is 6.1 inches, with a length of just under 27 inches, including lifting plug and about that with a fuze. That is, it is not even 2.5 feet long. To me, the projectile in the photo appears larger. But again, the photo is low-res and the depth perspective is poor.
So what is it? Definitely an artillery round of some variety. In my view, definitely not of American origin.
But not of Soviet/Russian origin, either. The tool marks, or grooves, on the rotating band - that is, the slightly slanted vertical lines on the band in the picture - indicate that the cannon that fired the round used clockwise rifling (as seen from the breech). Old Soviet-made cannon used counter-clockwise rifling. So that would lay to rest that this is a Soviet-made 152mm projectile.
...indicate that the cannon that fired the round used clockwise rifling
The picture could be reversed, left for right, no? I can't really rule this out by looking at the people, although if it is a digital image it seems unlikely.
What is striking to me is that the boy looks all dressed up for the occasion.
I havent seen this mentioned anywhere yet. It is common knowledge that most of the IEDs that are used in Iraq and have know migrated to Afgahnistan are made using old artillery rounds, what were these supposedly innocent people doing with IED materials in thier house? if it in fact has been fired maybe it was used for IED training.
If Pakastani boys wear the same shirts we wear, then the picture is flipped. Look at the button on his shirt it is opposite to the norm (at least in the US). Of course he could be wearing a ladies blouse which buttons that way.
Dude, don't be an asshole. The picture and caption was distributed by a wire service. Do a google search and you'll find the same picture and similar caption on a few web sites.
This comment looks like the best identification yet. Keep in mind that the color balance of the image could very easily be off by a significant amount.
Gentlemen,
Here's an exchange from the 1999 film, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, that should help solve this mystery.
This is photo shopped. Look at the left leading edge. See the straight white edge particularly near the patch on the wall in the background and the boys. Same on the right where the shell meets the boys.
Second, look at the men and boys in the picture. What are they looking at? Even when the "shell" is in their line of site, they are looking at the cameraman. I thought the give away was the boy in the background covered up by half the shell.
Third, as someone noted last, look at the size of the shell. See the tapering below the copper sealing band? That indicates that the shell is coming to the end. Either that shell is standing on something. Now, look at the boy in the fore ground and the man in the turban next to the "shell". It's not your depth perception that is off, it is the photoshop users error in placing it in that context. It's a dead give away that the shell does not belong in that photo.
Everyone was busy talking about the fact it was a shell and not a missile, I think they missed the fact that it's completely fake in the first place.
A few other comments. Please note the man on the left slightly behind the door. Did you notice that his hands are very nice hands for a guy living in a Pakistani village in the middle of no where? Or that his shirt sleeve seems nice and white compared to his brown suit sleeve? His nice glasses? That dude is a city dweller, not some village guy.
Anyway, looks photo shopped to me. Probably some schmuck who doesn't know an artillery shell from a missile and why there was such an "error" in the first place. Is this village even the one that got hit by whatever it was that hit them? Look at the back wall behind all the characters standing around. While clearly the wall in front with the door is meant to indicate a house of some sort that was damaged, that back wall is barely damaged. Look at the top edge of the wall. There is one little place at the top that has some "damage" but the rest of the wall edge is straight. It doesn't even look like it had ever had a roof on it much less one blown off by a missile or whatever.
I'd give a hundred bucks to see the uncropped version of this photo because I bet it would have other really interesting parts in it that would give it away immediately.
Bad photo. Photo shopped. And, couldn't even get the story right for their photo shopped photo. I think the NYT needs to look into Thir Kahn's (supposed photographer) connection with the AFP and Al Qaida or Taliban. The guy is a bad propagandist artist.
NYT should have run a correction that states the facts that not only is this a faked picture, but that it may have misled readers to believe that the photo was connected to the recent explosion in Pakistan which Pakistanis are claiming was a CIA strike. This photo is not connected. They should apologize for their bad editorial process which allowed this photo to get by. They should promise to do better in the future.
They should make this statement front and center so that they recognize that they can be hoaxed by al Qaida propaganda while trying to be objective and thus the AMerican population should be aware that they may be inadvertant victims of propaganda, too.
A missile? It is clearly an artillery shell without a fuze!
Anyone can be war commenter today.
That's an 8 inch howitzer shell, an exceptionally ugly sweater, and a "house" with two-foot thick concrete walls.
Kat-Missouri is right on target. On a second perusal of the photo and the ref about the lifting plug, it looks photoshopped to me.
Looks like the background image of the wall was cropped, taking with it some further piece of the lifting plug. (I think that was why it was cropped, to eliminate more of the plug, which clearly would not be in place if fired.)
The odd diagonal line of the wall, with a very blank white space behind it confirms is in my view. If you trace along the edge of the wall, the contrast between wall and background looks unreal.
I'm no expert, but I thought the same thing.
If it came from getty images they should have a hi-res version of it on their site. They will charge you for it, but it would be of a resolution size of at least 300dpi which would allow for a rather good analysis of the photo.
http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/search/details_pop.aspx?iid=56593062&cdi=0
You can order the image if you have a getty account.
There are some more images too of the damage, doesn't look like any HE was used. There is very little tell-tale burn marks in the area.
http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/search/FrameSet.aspx?s=ImagesSearchState%7c0%7c-1%7c28%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c1%7c1%2f18%2f2006%7c1%2f10%2f2006%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c7%7cpakistan%7c-8193%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c0&p=7&tag=3
Gabriel,
Your link has ruined the formatting of the page.
Way to go.
You can use standard html and never have the problem again.
CE Design - HTML Cheats
I just want to clear up a few more items:
1) The shell isn't missing a handle or cropped out. If you look at a shell, it has a screw on conical fuse (the sharp pointy end on most shells). The part that is sticking out is the actual fuse, it's just missing the top conical piece. see this diagram here or here showing a cut away with the conical shaped fuse . You can see one other picture with multiple sizes and cutaways here
All that's missing is the conical top which actually screws on separate from the actual fuse or primer section and is screwed "on" as you can see by the cutaways.
2) I'm not sure that the wall in the background has been photo shopped but I am sure that it never held a roof and it is not part of the "house" since, as noted, that wall shows clear signs of age and exposure as opposed to the nice white concrete wall out front. that wall is an outside wall
3) Another good catch though, there are no signs of an actual explosion in terms of massive debris from a house that size or burning or smoke damage. The other give away seems to be the door. It's not warped nor burned or ripped. If you look half way down the door and see the sliding bolt lock, it is not damaged at all.
The picture is just so fake it is phenomenal that it got printed at all.
NYT and AFP should be ashamed.
The 155 seems common to both the Pakistani and Indian Armys.
See the linked photo from the Indian Army, note the blue color of the shells. Maybe it is just a souvenir.
http://indianarmy.nic.in/arkargil/arsoldr/arphoto45.htm
John the Armorer says that it's a Russian 122mm. It has the appropriate markings. He verified by size (there are measurement pictures on his site) that it is not a US 155mm and that it did not fit the parameters of a Russian 152 since it appears to squat.
He doesn't agree that it is photo shopped but I still have questions.
I thought it was too small for a 155 and too big for a 105. It seems that John the Armorer has settled the matter.
Could be an empty shell as well. Base-ejecting projectiles (Illumination and some smoke munitions) eject their payload while in flight. Whereas bursting projectiles do just that, burst...Think high explosive, fragmentation etc. The empty canister (shell) then continues on a somewhat unstable ballistic path after releasing it's payload. Of course, at some point it will return to earth. The fuse would be damaged on impact and all the would remain is what's in the picture. A big piece of steel to keep as a souvenir ;-P
You folks still read the NYT?????!!!!
Training projectiles, or "smurf rounds" of the type Mr. Krulac describes are in fact fired in training. I know, because I fired a few.