Johnw is more correct than many others here. The environment for this plane will be more like the early to mid days of Vietnam, when the mission was to find the enemy and then direct other assets against them. Ground fire was from small arms to at most heavy machine guns. In those years, our planes had no armor, no offensive nor defensive weapons, and no ejection seats. And there was certainly no electronic wizardry. We had paper maps and eyeballs. And yet, we managed to be highly successful and survivable.
Special Ops is sneaky pete stuff, not major conflict. It is also VERY different from any other air mission. So are Special Ops people. In my opinion, pilots in that role will be pawing the ground to get into this plane.
I see aircraft such as this being used to assist against hardened but under equipped and underfed militias who are the recipients of fat wallet gifts of Advisors and Weapons. Such fat wallet gifts might enable Adoum, the dissident Erdimi loyalist from Aouzou, and his 28 best buds to strike against anti-terror coalition forces in Libya.
If a pre-positioned ranger team from Livorno can get boots and equipment on the ground in time they can disrupt delivery plans, and just maybe rendition a Kosovan or Chechnyan advisor to the "proper authorities".
