It's a bit complicated, but you can use explosion effects in such a script. If you time them well and remove the ship while there are enough explosion to not make it too obvious to see you are just taking away the ship, it should work.

Isn't there a way to blow up the ship instead? Perhaps I can detonate a torpedo inside it, or something. :S

diner, i would like 2 now how u do this, its a very good idea, say change the backgroud 2 osiris lol BOOM!

Cheese On Toast:
Like the name
Beware the player

I don't know how to do it. That's what I'm trying to figure out here.

I'm going to get Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture playing when 6-8 Rheinland battleships travelling in formation (RH because their ships are huge). Then, when the crescendo comes, they'll all blow up.

Well, believe me, I tried. There is no way of including any kind of fuses or weapons into a menu background script. You'd have to do it manually with a lot of timing. Well, on second though... try looking into the explosion fuse of the Rheinland Battleship you wanna blow up. You might be able to reconstruct the explosion in your script more easily and more detailled, then. Just a though, never tried it myself, though.

You can't do it. The ships you see in cutscenes are just empty shells. If, for example, you want to make ships move you have to create a path and drag them along it yourself. Pretty much everything has to be done manually - even getting an engine flame requires you to create a separate effect and attach it to the back of the ship.

You'll have to do as Manhattan_Guy says above; create a bunch of explosions in amongst the ships (or attach them to areas of each ship model) and set them off in a way that looks like an explosion. Perhaps even spawn some debris models and move them in a trajectory away from the explosion if you're feeling adventurous.