Salute!
Agreed, Global. But this is not the basic kinda war/armed conflict we trained for. Secondly, patroling the area with AC-130's and Warthogs and Reapers and Apaches would work if willing to take a lotta hits from manpads and mobile eo-acq and guide/seek/home systems.
Only SAM kill I suffered in Red Flag was from an SA-8 and I was still not on the low level phase of the attack. No warning on the RHAW. A real one would have had the smoky launch and maybe my wingie would hav seen it, but whathehell. SA-2's and Firecan controlled 85's for my real experiences over Hanoi were not close enuf to talk much about.
Gums sends...