Just throwing this idea out there...considering the reports that the amount of gun fire caused the smoke alarms to go off, is it at all possible the other window was broken by Paddock to let some smoke out so he could see/breathe?
“... is it at all possible the other window was broken by Paddock to let some smoke out so he could see/breathe?”
Possible. Likely not required.
Smoke alarms are designed to go off early, before smoke is so thick that occupants cannot see, or lose consciousness or die from smoke inhalation.
Not all smokeless propellants are equally smoke-free.
If the perp was firing some of the cheaper 5.56mm rounds, there would be more smoke than if he was firing US MIL SPEC or NATO STANAG-compliant ammunition.
5.56mm contains only small charges of propellant: only half that loaded into US military 30-06 or 7.62x51mm NATO. So any given number of rounds would generate only half the powder gases.
By 1884, Hiram S Maxim had perfected his fully automatic gun using cartridges loaded only with black powder. He demonstrated it by firing entire belts (250 rds) without pausing. Gun enthusiasts don’t believe this, but it is documented in _The Devil’s Paintbrush_ by noted arms historian Dolf Goldsmith.
By 1914, machine guns of many different designs were fielded by the armies of all industrial powers and many other countries, capable of firing thousands upon thousands of rounds without stopping. During a battle in 1916 (the Somme?), one machine gun section of the British Army fired over one million rounds through ten Vickers guns, without sustaining a single parts failure. Took them 24 hours and they wore out 100 barrels in the process.
Forum members need to stop thinking of the crime in Las Vegas as any deed even remotely connected with some stupendous feat of marksmanship attainable only by secret SOCOM super-soldiers. Distances were in fact well within the effective range of 5.56mm ammunition, and the target was large, soft, and immobilized. And after all the development applied to the AR-15 family of rifles, the number of rounds fired wasn’t especially noteworthy, compared to system limits.