Doctrinally speaking, are Army aviation units (namely Apache) considered manuever units on their own? As in, do they normally get sent forward on interdiction missions past the FEBA/FLOT to hit targets far downrange independantly? Or are all their ops in direct support of some ground commander or ground unit in some way, and they don't go too far ahead of that? Does their Batallion or higher commander run his birds independantly in that way? Or again is it all tied to support of some ground element in some way/shape/form?
They are kind of considered maneuver units (or were), but use depends on who the asset is attached to, division, corps or army. Even that was argued as aviation can not hold ground... so are they really maneuver units? Prior to about the mid 1990s attach units were "mixed"- a combination of AH (I think 15), OH (10 if I remember correctly), and 3 UH's. The Army decided to go "pure" then. I think someone needed a Legion of Merit and came up with the idea. So the AH BNs lost their OHs as the older models were retired and the UH's were turned over to lift BNs. Most AH CO's were not too upset about the OHs but were pretty pissed about losing their UH support. In theory they were suppose to get UH support from the UH units... but did not always work out well.
At the division level AH's were doctrinally closer to the FLOT/FEBA to support divisional troops. Army Corps are headquarter command and control units normally with some support units- prior to OIF they included aviation assets. I don't know if it is still the case, but they also had some attach units, UH/CH units, plus some air cav. The Corps could either cut these units to divisions or use them for corps missions- such as the deep strike attack mission you mention. For WWH or World War Haiti I was cut to the 82nd Airborne division for the invasion even though I was a corps asset. My command, support, everything was from the 82nd for the duration. Did not interact at all with my "real" commander once we were locked down except when he came by to wish us good luck the day prior to our departure.
Personally I think large scale AH deep attack missions carry large risk due to the vulnerability of RW assets to air defense, especially during daylight. Not to say they should not be done, but if done should probably be done in conjunction with the Air Force, and/or at night and balanced against the risk. In those deep attack scenarios the corps or army would normally give the mission, then let the unit commander fights the unit as seen fit, although air routes obviously must often be coordinated and may even be dictated. Probably the biggest problem faced by Army Aviation is that we try to be like the other branches so our staff officers are normally poorly trained. When I attended the Army Officer Advanced course from 1990-1991 I was suppose to learn how to be an aviation staff officer- how to plan air assaults, attacks, etc. Yet I spent about 5% of my time doing that. The other 6 months were wasted studying the Battle of Chickamauga, learning about tank tactics, learning infantry tactics, learning about the development of the water cooled machine gun. It was so silly that while we were doing our walk of the Chickamauga battlefield the commander of Ft. Rucker asked the class how we could apply the Air/Land battle doctrine (it was the theory in vogue at the time), to the Battle of Chickamauga. I kid you not. All I could think of was the Kirk Douglas "Saturday Night Live" skit "What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?" I had to turn away so he would not see me laughing.
Thirteen years later I had to do the same thing as a WO- they would not give me credit for having done it already. So I learned about the Soviet threat (yes, in 2003) and order of battle, how an infantry unit clears a trench, the operational skill identifier for a tank turret repair man, and how a Corps smoke unit gets their resupply of smoke. You know, useful stuff. So officers trained like this are then expected to plan large scale assault and attack missions.
Not sure of the exact make up of the aviation units now, but for the most part the Army has gone away from the "pure" unit concept as it was not the way we were fighting. I think Corps has been stripped of much of their assets and they have been pushed to divisions making the divisional aviation brigades more robust. The only army left is 8th Army in Korea. I think they still have their assets which can be used as the 8th Army commander sees fit. When I was there long ago our mission was to support the theater. I did not expect to live past day 3 based upon the missions I saw.
