I'm a former Army helicopter pilot (but Black Hawks, not Apaches) and I think this is an interesting observation.
By 2011, when I went to war, the main thing we'd learned was to fly high up above small arms range: above 1,000 feet AGL. Only our Kiowas were generally allowed to operate below that, flying exactly the way you describe Marine helicopters operating; that was part of the Kiowa's nature as scouts relying mostly on the pilots' eyes (and sometimes their M4 rifles pointed out the door). The aircraft (Kiowas, but also Apaches and Black Hawks when in support of troops-in-contact) that got chewed up were invariably operating down below that.
By that time, Apaches were also mostly a deterrent. The point was for them to be seen. That kept the enemy in hiding under cover while we did whatever else needed to be done. Before firing a shot, they'd circle for 30+ minutes recording video and talking into the tape recorder to establish positive identification of targets and explicitly go through all the steps that the lawyers came up with to mitigate civilian casualties. It was all very unlike e.g. Iraq in 1991 or 2003, to my knowledge, or present-day Ukraine. Not at all stealthy or fast. And there has been an effort in recent years to unlearn all of this, and get back to the tactics that would be needed in a fight like Ukraine's.
I was in Iraq in 2003, so like you said very different. We did take small arms fire all the time, pretty ineffective though. We had one Cobra come back looking like Swiss cheese but it did manage to fly back to the fob.
By 2011, when I went to war, the main thing we'd learned was to fly high up above small arms range: above 1,000 feet AGL. Only our Kiowas were generally allowed to operate below that, flying exactly the way you describe Marine helicopters operating; that was part of the Kiowa's nature as scouts relying mostly on the pilots' eyes (and sometimes their M4 rifles pointed out the door). The aircraft (Kiowas, but also Apaches and Black Hawks when in support of troops-in-contact) that got chewed up were invariably operating down below that.
By that time, Apaches were also mostly a deterrent. The point was for them to be seen. That kept the enemy in hiding under cover while we did whatever else needed to be done. Before firing a shot, they'd circle for 30+ minutes recording video and talking into the tape recorder to establish positive identification of targets and explicitly go through all the steps that the lawyers came up with to mitigate civilian casualties. It was all very unlike e.g. Iraq in 1991 or 2003, to my knowledge, or present-day Ukraine. Not at all stealthy or fast. And there has been an effort in recent years to unlearn all of this, and get back to the tactics that would be needed in a fight like Ukraine's.