It's not so much 25th-century tactics as 25th-century sensor technology. Nowadays, as far as I know, you need an AWACS-type platform mainly because a) it can haul around that giant radome and b) it can carry the computers and manpower required to process all the necessary information. In the 2400s, the sensor and computer packages aboard fighters can handle pretty much all of that on their own (with the occasional assist from the battlespace management systems back on the carrier), and if you really want to have a human sensor operator in the mix at the sharp end, as it were all those Judicators have weapons officers in the back.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.