tlb wrote:The defenders would force the control ships to participate, once they understood what was happening. Even before understanding, the defenders would take measures against a second force sitting off from a main attack force (unless they were so overwhelmed that they could not). Once the control ships were forced to flee into hyper, then the command link is broken.
Considering that the defenders are rushed by the droneships with thousand-g acceleration, it is quite hard to think about any tactical solution that would allow defenders to move any significant force against control squadron, without said force being intercepted and mauled by drones. Most importantly, even if the defenders - somehow - managed to avoid the droneships (which would probably require sending all avaliable system defense missiles against them just to force them to deviate and miss the interception), what would forbade the control ships to just make hyperjump, hyper-sneak to the other edge of the system and return to realspace again?
But what about repeater stations so the controlling ships cannot be localized? The response could still concentrate where the most defensive strength is. In the end you are going to need as much strength around the controllers as in the main attack force.
They could, but only if they could discriminate all the decoys and other factors on extreme distances. And if the controlling ships have a squadron of drones to protect them, they could quite easily spoil any such attempt just by throwing the reserve droneships against enemy forces.
At that point, why not combine the two into one stronger force being controlled from inside? You still get the advantages of reduced manpower and gain an even shorter control loop.
Because advantage of thousand-g acceleration is too effective to ignore it.
In short - I agree, that in SOME cases, the defenders MIGHT be able to pull the trick and took out the control ships, thus forcing drones to rely on their own limited AI. Which would PROBABLY allow defenders to eventually defeat them, even under primitive AI control, droneships would inflict tremendous casualties upon defenders (and probably would wipe out all system off-planetary infrastructure, despite any defenders attempt to save it). But in most cases, control ships would not allow themselves to be easily destroyed, and defenders would be forced to cope with droneships, remote-controlled by human tacticians.
And, frankly - even mediocre commander could easily win battles if the have a
fully disposable force that he could use to probe the enemy without thinking twice about it being trapped and destroyed.