Good post.
Any contractor going into battle of any kind, with armor, must know they will be degraded when they have no air power assets.
They knew they were going against US backed Kurds. They had to see our air assets overhead. Did they think we would be dropping candy?
No, they died because of greed and stupidity.
BTW, looks like about 200 of the 600 kia were Russian/Ukrainian mercs. The other 400 were mostly local militia and Assad troops.
Jughead would drop candy such as military supplies in the area at times. I guess they thought Trump might continue that but they were wrong...
Russia is still a poor country for most, the pay is worth the risk to these guys.