To be honest, the Warthog is prolly the best platform after the AC-130 and the Apache for manned aircraft hitting the PT boats and avoiding the MANPADS, The Reaper prolly best overall for kills but most suscestible to conventional SAMs. Spectre worst for MANPADS, but whoever fires one has bout 20 - 30 seconds to get out the prayer rug to gat ready for the virgins.
The tactic successfully used by Dragonflys and TOW Cobras versus the radar ZSU's and original Strellas at An Loc did fine ( similar AA/SAM threat to Iran now and better gunners), because they flew in two or three ship patterns with somebody on the perch all the time. Same pattern we used for Sandy and Hobo escorts. I flew same area as 2 Strell kills just north of Bien Hoa, but our SLUF turbo fans were very cool and we were 150 -200 knots faster then the OV-10 and other plane they nailed that day. In fact our only SLUF loss to AA was in Cambodia one day after first end of the war and not on a bomb pass over Hanoi - a 57 or 85 nailed him squarely and plane blew up right then.
Of course we could fly convoy escort and endure fairly low hit rate but very probabmatic scheduling if nobody attacks the boats. I did that in 'nam in 68 for Army trucks and helos and of course for Jolly Greens and MACSOG insertions/extractions), and then for boats south of Pnom Penh in 73. They shot at our boats from the bank and was hard to acquire them.
Guess the mullahs are proving they can scare the boats without having nukes, so maybe the rest of the world needs to pay attention, as they claim to own the Strait and could start shooting at any pretense - remember Salman Rushie or whoever?
Gums sends...