IIRC it had at least one small (?) purely defensive boat that couldn’t be destroyed by typical weapons so its parent fleet couldn’t be defeated. It wasn’t like a modern drone swarm
It makes me think of the battles in Doc Smith’s Lensman series where the Galactic Patrol would develop a game-breaking fleet formation to use against Boskone in every major naval battle.
Ah yes, probably need to re-read them. I remember how virtually every book introduces a new super weapon that becomes part of the standard arsenal in the next, all the way up to entire 'negative matter' planets that are fired out of subspace (can't recall the in-universe name) at the planets hosting your opponent's base.