Such attention to details can be very useful in a 3D sim, but it has to be abstracted in a strategic view we are aiming for (we don't have directional hits, or 3rd dimension) Still, the DAC gives a fairly well approximation of this, with large components like engines being more likely to get hit, and there is special weaponry that address the issue of electronics.
For all intents and purposes the DAC is a pretty good model of what would happen in a 3D world, since each armor box corresponds to a certain area and DAC randomly selects which area is hit. If there happens to be a turret in that area it's hit, if not the armor is hit.
To make it work you simply need another layer to the DAC where external stuff have their own that is rolled/checked first to see if any are hit, or share numbers with internal and damage gets applied to the external modules first ( if they are hit ) before its applied to armor.
Having some modules be external also means advantages since the main armor don't need to protect 100% of the tonnage any more, so it can be made thicker.
Basically you could have a more interesting and deep combat simulation and ships with external sensors or unarmored turrets would be quite vulnerable to sandpapering hits or you could render ships "blind" more easily by knocking out their sensors like you can in reality.
I also disagree that you are "aiming for an abstracted strategic view" when you want to simulate each second of combat in great detail!!! If you were aiming for an abstracted strategic view instead in the game then each ship would just have broad overall stats like cost, hitpoints, beam attack, missile attack, armor, and then you would simulate combat like a turn based game with say 1 hour ticks where you roll dice and blow up ships depending on the result of a single dice roll.
