Well they could've used a non-lethal gas.

i see your point rammius, indeed i cant really think of any hostage rescue action of this scale and type that was really successful, but like mattk, i find it hard to believe there was no other way to take out those terrorists than by pouring in a lethal gas... in this day and age surely there must at least be more effective gasses around?

And yes you're right, its kind of impossible to compare units from different countries as they often have different functions or different types of enemies... but there are definitely differences in thinking about certain things... for instance when in Holland there were 200 people taken hostage in a train in the '70s, they negotiated for 3 weeks before moving in, i dont see that happening in russia (but again, hard to compare with different attitudes of the hostage-takers probably)

aaaanyway i'll just read what the more knowledgeable people have to say :)

bijstands bizondere eenheid - in 1977, 2 simultaneous assaults, on the train and the school.

BUT those South Moluccan terrorits had the decency of releasing the kids and elderly from the train.

They too needed a diversion, so they used a pair of Starfighters that flew over the train at supersonic speeds :shock: to confuse the bad guys.

I read somewhere (can`t remember were though) that even the rescue team was stunned for a few moments :lol: , imagine the poor bastards from the train.



From what I know in this area every civilized country in the world changes information, and cooperation is the word of the day.
Israel`s Sayeret Mat`kal was responsable for building up Ulrich Wegener`s GSG-9. Imagine that.
Then in 1977 when GSG-9 assaulted the plane at Mogadishu 2 SAS man assisted : seargent Barry Davies and Major Alastair something.
They were the men with flashbangs :P
I think they have a lot of exchange programs, and they share tactics, equipment aso.

Oh yeah, Wikipedia is a pretty good source too, to read up on this stuff.