Two obvious issues related to randomness:

1. How is order resolved when multiple ships end up with the same initiative? Can we guarantee that the resolution order is evenly distributed between the the two combatants?

2. Random target assignment. The fact that all ships are making sub-optimal choices does not remove bias in the event of lopsided ship attack ratings. If one fleet is made up entirely of ships that can one-shot any ship in the other fleet, random target assignment isn't a problem, but if a fleet of smaller ships is going against a fleet of larger ones, random assignment will distribute their damage in a way that will destroy the minimum number of ships possible. This seems problematic, since you'd expect smaller ships to focus fire on larger ones to maximize their effectiveness.