In 1971, U.S. helo'd alot of ARVN into Laos..[STUPID STUPID STUPID]...anyhoo..U.S. is just logistics and defence..ARVN are for fight.
Dozens of helo's are going down..and dozens each day are shot to pieces.
Theres a photo with 5 burned hueys on a firebase hill.
guys litterly dove off tops of hills to reach the skids as the pilots could see VC running everywhere.
Even Phantom pilots got downed...stumbling around in the forest with helo pilots.
Charlie knew the opp..knew the route..put the hurt on them for it.
Karbala...cocky....overflew firepower..found themselves in chaos... recieving 360 degree fire.
Just bad ingress..got slapped.
Your right about the success factor in intel and standoff launch..
Israel has used their Cobras and Apaches more like "Hitmen" of late..but they do it from standoff..at edge of weapons aquistion targetting envelop..and via teams..where A focuses kill..B copes the intel/com stream and conveys the breifest info to A so A is not distracted.
B is also eyes for return fire.
The also do not loiter at low values...Palies have access to modern shoulder fired missiles from Europe.
I think the most important decision in regards to a helo..is how you push it into the battlefield...cuz once there....its painted.
The NVA had set up "golden hose" AAA (anyone know what piece that was? a Gatling-type weapon, maybe?) on literally every hilltop, with interlocking fields of fire; they were actually shooting down at the U.S. helos as they went by. We lost several dozen veteran helicopter pilots in that SNAFU. Operational security failure: GVN was rotten with VC spies, the op was totally compromised from the git.
Not that we were exempt from security compromises: I've never heard the name of whoever it was who tipped the North Vietnamese about the Son Tay raid. The ARVN's were completely cut out of that for security reasons, to no avail.