Flak is an incomplete answer: falling fragments can threaten a ship's own sensors and antennas, and every weapon has limits on where it can safely fire. The Hatton Garden burglary supplies the analogy: elaborate doors were bypassed by drilling through a wall, just as an attacker may route around a defended corridor instead of meeting it directly. Coordinating several ships could improve coverage, but a laser communications network requires line of sight and could break in fog or after the loss of a relay ship. An adversary that can disrupt ordinary communications may force a task group closer together, compromising the dispersal that reduces its vulnerability. Demonstrating a capability can therefore impose expensive tactical and design changes on an opponent.
Chapter · 42:14-50:29
Defence arcs, networking, and the enemy's options
A useful defensive technology still has firing-arc, gravity, communication, and formation constraints that an opponent can exploit.