I believe many of his missiles have no warheads, their engine's fields are the weapons. In that universe to move in space the ships create a pair of electromagnetic fields, one above the ship an one below. They're slightly curved, kilometers in size thus dwarfing the ship, and slightly wedge shape thus somehow pushing the ship. They're also completely impenetrable so that nothing gets through, not even light. Thus causing the upper and lower parts of the ship to be completely protected, but they also cause big blind spots if sensors aren't used right. Any physical object the fields touch are obliterated. I also think that if two fields touch, "bad things happen" thus the no warhead missiles.

His battles try to recreate sailing ship warfare in space, with some 3 dimensional aspects added. Thus with the top and bottom protected, there's the sides and ends only open, making combat, especially single ship actions, more 2 dimensional. Shields can close the sides (but can be beaten down like Star Trek shields), however the ends are open (for most of the series). Thus the enemy commander always tries to maneuver to get the "up the skirt shop" through the unprotected stern gap. Akin to "crossing the t" of naval warfare where one side could rake an enemy ship, or line of ships, while the enemy couldn't do anything as their canons wouldn't transverse that far, and only the stern chasers of the aftermost ship could fire.

The battles get interesting at times, although the constant need to one-up the previous book started raising the bar quick and got into some rather far-fetched battles.

He co-authored the books based on the Starfire games, I can only remember The Shiva Option at the moment. It was a good series, but The Shiva Option went over the top on one-upping.