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In the specific, an unarmored helicopter hovering or moving predictably close enough for a marksman to shoot at a target (goat or otherwise) would be easy prey for a handful of people with small arms. In the more general case, I don't think you quite appreciate how difficult counterinsurgency operations are, or how little tech affects them. Jets can drop some pretty nasty ordinance, but require targeting (the counterinsurgents _really_ don't want to damage infrastructure if they can avoid it) which they have trouble doing. Attack Helicopters are lean mean killing machines, but aren't great in urban environments and also need to PID their targets if the brass gives any fucks about civilian casualties. Tanks are great pretty much everything when it comes to conventional warfare, but _MUST BE SCREENED BY INFANTRY_. Looking at you, giraffe-man. All this probably makes you think of drones (I'm going to only talk about large UAVs here), which are in fact a pretty useful asset to security forces. They can carry out assassinations, recon, target designation, gather intelligence, and all without risking pilots. However, in a large scale insurgency, they really aren't that useful in a tactical sense. This is because of the simple truth that the only thing that can hold territory (especially cities) is infantry. A drone can't disperse a mob. A jet can't set up a checkpoint. An attack helicopter can't search a neighborhood for contraband. A tank can't rescue an informant in the middle of the night. Only infantry can do this. And in spite of any training or technical advantages to date, an insurgent with a rifle can still kill infantry. |