ORAC,
all fair points, after editing the second time realised I should have mentioned AAA but it all got too hard. AAA is still the biggest killer.
Agreed that Medium level requires suitable suppression, it also allows the acft EW and dectection systems to work and gives some defensive mnvre potential.
Your point about low level reducing the threat. It certainly worked against older IR and RDR SAM's, not so relevant these days. Most systems have got rid of (or significantly reduced)clutter and minimum launch depression angles which caused the main problems for the older generation RDR SAMS. Most systems now have an optical launch backup which again helps negate the effectiveness of low level. The option then is to at least go high (if you have SEAD, good EW) and limit the threat to the high order SAM's. You now have options to avoid (you tend to know where the high order ones are better than the portable stuff) and also mnvre / defence potential if targetted.
As has already been said, we are probably trying to condense tens of years of lessons learnt into a few paragraphs so there are bound to be holes in anything we write here.
The one thing that seems to be common is the preference for F15E. Its not just all about howe much fuel you can carry and how many bombs you can put on.
ORAC - by the way, what does SAW stand for? (not a term used in RAAF, Im sure I used to know it but have managed to destroy those memory cells)