Later planners would make air mobility a key to defeating irregular enemies. Partisans could no longer depend on the terrain alone to protect them from quick-reaction forces, and far fewer troops would be needed to suppress them since they could rapidly move from location to the next. At least that's the way it works in theory.

The partisan movement of World War II depended on harsh terrain - swamps, forest, mountains - to shelter its fighters from enemy counterattack. The helicopter was expected to do away with all that, allowing troops to move to any point and deny refuge to insurgents. In practice, it hasn't always worked out that way.