Tigerfish, you have summed it up well.
What IMHO also needs said is that as a taxpayer, I am inclined to think that what has been done to Air Support, is not all bad.
Even if you ignore the effects of the Banking Bastards having the country over a barrel, the public purse is not a magic money tree. We need value for money, and through no fault of the troops, the money spent on the ASU was not providing that.
Conviction rates and more importantly, sentencing policy, has undermined the Police Service, and eroded respect for law and order. To use a helicopter, a dozen cops, a dog and damage two Volvo estates, in order to apprehend a scrote who is back out to re offend on the same day, and nine months later gets a suspended sentence or Community Service Order, is piss poor value. When the courts are going to let them straight back out to do it again, instead of locking them up for five years, why bother?