Stealth firing mechanic: Intentional, or not

[Maty83]

Simple question I'd like answered: Under certain conditions with different ships you can't properly see enemy ships firing at you, with the difference in seeing shellfire and being spotted being several kilometers. Is this intentional to give smaller ships a degree of opportunity to hurt enemies at extreme range, or not?

Personally, I feel like an enemy firing at your ship with main guns should be visible unless the weather is exceedingly terrible. Even during the Battle of the North Cape, Scharnhorst could see the flashes as the lighter forces engaged her early on (Norfolk and the light cruisers at the start of the engagement).

This may be hard to implement, but would be a major QoL improvement for battles around the early 1910s where on occassion one side may not see the other side until several damaging hits had been scored by the opposing ships, reducing the chances of victory quite a bit, even while using top-of-the-line towers