Getting an air-assault army to work

[rcp90]

Hey guys, I've been reading here for a while, and I didn't see anything about this.

So, I like playing as the US, and their learning curve is generally kicking my butt, but with perseverance and dedicating myself to only playing higher point games I've become acceptable at handling an American force. But one style of build in particular really has me stumped as far as how to work it.

I was trying to experiment with an Air-Assault style army to work, with helo mounted infantry, lots of gunships and air support. But every part of that is so prohibitively expensive that every loss just plain hurts. It's partially rough because the AI will load up on SAM's of all sorts if you're playing as US as far as I've observed. But in general it's just plain hard to get those units to earn their keep, especially against low-tech nations that bring lots of cheap shoulder-launched anti-air.

So, do you guys have any suggestions?

Thanks