Thanks. Your posts make sense. I am mulling over info from you and others on Beslan. But it does sound odd to me that parents were inside the perimeter with rifles, and speaks to a lack of appropriate control, in my opinion.
I find your Bora Bora analysis interesting in regards to Bora Bora, but it should not apply, it seems to me, to the perimeter of a school. Perhaps I am still missing something, though. In addition to the perimeter being much smaller, terrain should be flat around a school. In addition, the time frame indicates the Spetznaz should have been in place at the crisis point, not moving forward as in Bora Bora.
Nonetheless, I understand you are working by general analogy, and, as you say, the terrorists had a long time to plan and think about the school, and every feature therein---the Spetznaz had a short time.
I made a "tactical blunder" myself when I made my post, essentially not understanding the vast difference between Free Republic and Strategy Page (my main previous experience) in terms of size and how that affects the whole posting experience.
However, I am OK with the way things turned out.
My initial post was on a subject I knew little of, which led people to think I don't know much. That is not true, as I have already begun to prove on this thread, but it may be that no one will notice the information I have posted.
While the way I did it was the result of a mistake, it resulted in a steep learning curve and an interesting thread for all.
Thanks much for your thoughtful and informed replies and not assuming I am an idiot. In this case, a single person's (your) response had a positive emotional impact on me very disproportionate to its numerical weight.