They keep moving our of range of the support ships. That's how they got killed.
I have no problem with the smaller ships behaving like that but the capital ships have no business doing that.
The large ships do not behave like jet planes. Galaxy class firing on a cardy is a excellent example.
Have the big ships behave like big ships. Let the smaller ships do the fighter attacks.
Plus in a game where facing matters; having the ships spend half to 2/3s of the time facing the wrong direction because
the AI has been set to do strafing attacks over placement or facing of units is a totally unneeded mechanic.
I shouldn't have to micromanage 16+ capital ships and a hundred other ships just because someone thought it "would be cool" to make them look like strikecraft.