Remember back before shoulder-launched heat-seeking missiles?

Many of you may not know it, but ever since the development of the Armored Fighting Vehicle (the Tank) debate has raged about how to deal with these difficult-to-destroy war machines. The final answer appears to be self-guided anti-armor missiles launched from helicopters. In the most recent review of the question, the average anti-armor helicopter was able to destroy no less than seventeen tanks before it was destroyed or could no longer be repaired.
The same situation seems to have developed with warplanes. Modern warplanes can no longer operate below 15,000 feet without incurring high rates of loss, and the most modern long-range air defense systems demand massive electronic warfare support for attacking aircraft. Again the principal applies that 'Victory goes to he who has the last Escudo (a Portuguese coin)'. Now with billion dollar bombers, such as the B-2 SPIRIT, air superiority seems to go to those who can afford the most advanced systems, while land warfare has devolved to guerrilla, ambush or terrorist surprise attacks on civilians. If someone can figure out how to destroy most of our advanced warplanes while they are still on the ground, the whole multi-billion dollar effort could be neutralized before we even know the war has started. The whole push for unmanned combat aircraft reveals the limitations that now confront the future of air warfare. So let's focus on the good-old-days, when 'throwing rocks' was the only way to destroy a warplane in flight.

Jim -
Actually, it's all a bit more complicated than that. You need to think not just in terms of a single weapons system but instead of whole systems of warfare.

A SAM is only as good as the radars, sensors, and other AA weapons that are deployed with it - and with airborne jammers, flare and chaff dispensers, and the Wild Weasel and its anti-radar weapons - aircraft can actually go hunting for the anti-aircraft weapons with some degree of success. During Desert Storm, for example, the coalition forces even used attack helicopters like the Apache and its missiles to destroy Iraqi anti-aircraft radar sites.

Even in World War I, the more observant realized that the tank was best deployed with infantry troops to support it, especially in close country where the terrain or plant growth offered enemy infantry the possibility of approaching close up to the armored vehicle before firing off their anti-tank weapons. The Israeli experience against Egyptian infantry at the "Chinese Farm" in 1973 was a potent reminder of the importance of the tank-infantry combat team in defeating anti-tank weapons.

Robert A Mosher

"Modern warplanes can no longer operate below 15,000 feet without incurring high rates of loss."
Perhaps someone should tell that to the Royal Navy and RAF Harriers operating in Afghanistan. They routinely operate down on the deck. Granted the Taliban don't have ultra modern missles but they still manage to damage the odd Harrier with lead bullets guided by the Mark One Eyeball.
Moral, there is no hard and fast rule, the game afoot creates its own.

Here's an old article I came across recently: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/01/10/is-aerial-warfare-doomed/?Qwd=./Modern...

Have just come home from the library with 'KIMBERLY'S FLIGHT' (2012) with the latest story of American women At war. I'll review it later for you.
One of the first American women to be killed on duty was a U.S. Navy F-14 (Tomcat) interceptor pilot who froze in place when an engine failed just before touchdown on an aircraft carrier, and she was unable to react when the told "Eject, Eject, Eject!" by the landing safety officer. When they found the plane on the bottom of the ocean she was still in the cockpit.