It comes down to what you plan to do with the game. If it’s single player your approach will work, means less code to maintain, so is better and you can probably ditch the controller (unless you get onto more advanced stuff)
If you are thinking of adding multiplayer then you need the controller as there will be multiple pawns in the world.
As for how I know this stuff. I’ve been playing with the Unreal engines since the year 2000. Entered the make something unrealengine contest with Action Unreal Tournament, that was the last serious thing I released. The point is the concept of game mode, player controller, pawn hasn’t changed for 16 years :). Pretty much anything you want to do you can find an example in c++ in the shootergame source or the Unreal tournamenet source. What you are trying to do is very similar to the redeemer missile in the UE games, which is how I knew what to tell you 
Any tutorial you find for blueprints can be cast over to c++.