thats right Umber Gruber ...it is smoke ...
as Hitman says now you can use the real tactics...you can see the ship vanishing completely its hull and its smoke is fading till the distance of 20km
at NYGM is much better this effect exactly for the reasons that Hitman pointed
here is how this ship you see in first pic looks through binoculars .the ship is about 12km away on gwx:
