I recall reading a sci fi story many many years ago that touted “manned missiles” as just the thing to evade missile defence systems. They could jig and jag and dodge like no one else to avoid anti-missile systems. Left unexplained was how these kamikaze pilots could withstand g-forces inside a missile and live to reach targets.
Isaac Asimov wrote a similar short story.
The military future was at a stand-off because everybody used computer driven machines that could predict every move the other side’s computer driven machines would do and thus cancelled each others advantages.
By putting real human pilots back in the driver seat, they could not predict what they would do..............