On reaching Mumbai, the guards were driven to the hostage sites by bus — there were no helicopters — then briefed. By the time they took up positions, many hours had passed.

“A city the size of Mumbai, with [more than] 18 million people, doesn’t even have a SWAT team or a helicopter available,” said Ajay Sahni, executive director of New Delhi’s Institute for Conflict Management. “At every stage there was complete institutional failure. You can’t have a rapid-action force that takes seven hours to arrive.”…

Government forces lacked hotel floor plans, although the militants seemed to have had them — and apparently had stockpiled explosives and ammunition at the sites in advance. And the commandos lacked an effective command structure or a good communication system, experts said, whereas the terrorists reportedly used BlackBerrys and GPS devices to navigate and monitor news coverage…

Onlookers at the Nariman House were allowed to watch from a few feet away, hampering police operations. A night counterattack was nixed, reportedly because it was too dark: The attackers had night-vision goggles, the police didn’t…

“We’re talking about an early 20th century police system trying to deal with a 21st century threat,” security analyst Sahni said.