What happened to all those Dominion ships orbiting DS9 in Sacrifice of Angels

[doylem1]

I was just rewatching the battle of Bajor from the episode sacrifice of angels and in the shots where they cut off from the battle to go back to DS9 there are at least a couple dozen or more Dominion ships shown orbiting the station (Stock footage I know). But what happened to them?. I don't recall hearing them be sent as reinforcements for the main fleet and if they were how come they didn't intercept the Defiant as she broke through the lines?.
Also after the Wormhole aliens make the Dominion Fleet coming through the wormhole disappear we hear 200 ships have broken through and Weyoun says time to leave.
How can they evacuate the station when there appears to be no longer any ships present as the Defiant is shown to have free reign to fire on the defenceless station. Surely if there were ships to evacuate on some would engage the Defiant or the Defiant would be engaging them?

 

[Watersluis]

The Defiant's power level, like most power levels, fluctuates so the plot demand.

When the ship was first introduced, it was hyped as an extremely powerful vessel, but later retelling adjusted it's power level to whatever the plot be serviced by.

 

[Timo]

Okay, in-universe rationalization time again:

While entering the wormhole apparently calls for slowing to sublight and dropping the cloak, we can assume the heroes did so at the last possible second, carefully avoiding any engagement with the superior enemy before this. Ships would have little time to try and intercept them, and the station at the time might have been rigged to fight the minefield and the minefield only.

Why we didn't see those ships at all may be because they did try and intercept the heroes, and sailed to meet the Defiant, but the hero ship was able to dodge them, possibly thanks to having at least partially restored her damaged cloak.

Weoyun's subsequent orders might well have been for the ships to remain between the station and the big battle, at some distance, but still short of actually engaging; if one ship managed to break through, more of such might follow, calling for this defense-in-depth. They would thus remain close enough to be employed in the evacuation.

Timo Saloniemi