Vlad, I like that you're toying with visible damage like that, though I would suggest toying with boolean for some damage. If you make a kind of erratic shape, then boolean part of the hull out using it, you can break up what you have left by stencilling shapes (And at the same time, you get that corroded/cauterized hull effect on the ship). It's a messy procedure at first but after a little practise you can make some really neat effects!
A quick example is attached, all I did was make a primitive with several cuts, and used the jitter effect. After that, I intersected the front of the ship with the new primitive to make it look like the hull was torn into, and rearranged the 'broken' parts. With a larger ship like the Connie, you could easily replicate the TWOK damage or even the way BC does damage.
