EXPERTS have backed the NSW Police strategy of not using snipers to shoot Lindt Café hostage taker Man Haron Monis, but they have questioned the number of rounds fired during the incident.

Some hostages have also questioned police tactics and asked why the army wasn’t used to resolve the crisis.

Former army officer, Afghanistan and Iraq veteran and military analyst James Brown said he had spoken to SAS sniper instructors who agreed with the NSW Police decision to not shoot Monis from outside the cafe.

MARCIA MIKHAEL: Siege survivor asks ‘Why am I the criminal?’

MORE: 10 questions still unanswered about the Sydney siege

He said the assault was the correct decision, but he did wonder why the police Tactical Operations Unit needed to fire 27 rounds.

“The question needs to be asked and answered and if they did fire too many rounds then they will learn from it,” he said.

Mr Brown said it was important not to be too clinical when assessing what was a “pressure cooker” situation.

Cafe manager Tori Johnson was murdered by Monis and Sydney barrister and mother of three Katrina Dawson was killed in the crossfire at the end of the 16-hour siege.

Terrorism expert at the Australian National University and former army officer Clive Williams said the army’s Tactical Assault Group members were trained to allocate two rounds per hostage taker and that’s it.

Professor Williams agreed that not using snipers was the correct call but he believes that authorities should have tried harder to talk Monis down.

SURVIVORS: ‘Why I stayed behind’, ‘How I crawled to safety’

SECRET PLOT: How Jared and Joel tried to bring Man Haron Monis down

“He (Monis) would have been impressed by a senior person on the other end of a phone,” he said.

Professor Williams said he did not know why the police fired so many rounds.

“The TAG would have used two rounds — a double tap — and that would have been sufficient.”

The message on the wall of the “killing house” at SAS headquarters in Perth is clear: “Our job is to save hostages and survive”.

Troops serving in the SAS recovery, or counterterrorism squadrons, spend years honing their deadly skills in state-of-the-art live fire ranges.

Members of the Tactical Assualt Group (TAG west) fire thousands of rounds each week sharpening their unusual skill set.

The black clad soldiers move through the 360-degree range called the room floor target complex with focused precision as targets — hostile and friendly — pop up leaving them a split second to decide whether or not to fire.

The bad guys get a double tap — two quick fire rounds to the head or chest — and the women and children are mostly left unscathed.

Similar facilities are installed at Holsworthy Army barracks in south-western Sydney where the Tactical Assault Group (East) made up of members of the 2nd Commando Regiment undergo intensive counter terrorism training.

An army sniper team leader who cannot be identified told News Corp that using snipers early on could have made the situation much worse.

“The police had no idea who this bloke was involved with and what devices or triggers he had,’’ the sniper said.

“You can shoot one person but then you lose the rabbit warren that he might be connected to.”

He said the snipers would have been equipped with special solid copper “glass cutter” rounds that have flat heads designed to defeat thick glass but collateral damage in a place like the Lindt Café was a massive factor.

The sniper conceded that 27 rounds used during the assault was quite a lot but given it was the first time those involved had “gone live” on a room entry and the high number of guns in the fight he was not surprised.

He said tactical assault teams were trained to shoot until the threat was removed.

“They follow two simple rules. ‘Failure to comply’ means two rounds centrally and a third on the edge and ‘no standard response’ means keep firing until the target has stopped moving.”

All these factors are being investigated for the NSW Coroner by a team of British police specialists.