Should of made this a little clearer that I understood this when I posted. Even though you could save yourself a trip if you did several total fleet "suicidal attacks", I wouldn't recommend it, for the very reasons you listed. 
I threw only bombers (and tanks) at it. Did an astounding 41% damage split between two Mk5 shields.
I just let the backwash happen, as by the time I was aware of it (they went through AI space and hit one of my "interior" worlds, because the nearest had four golems on it) it was too late to really do anything about it; rest of my fleet was positioned poorly and the golems would never have caught up. Also I was on +10 speed at the time.
