Because seriously, they can’t hit the side of 230 meter ship. These GUIDED missiles must be flown by hamsters.
It’s just so terribly illogical I had to put it down to a bug.
Target painters and closing to optimal range? Hamster treats?
Once I start firing fast/multi missiles, it quickly becomes a wonderland of confused missiles. Target painters work wonderfully though.
If missiles are flown by hamsters, are fighters flown by cats?
Logically speaking, when we can fire tomahawk missiles into a hut from a 1,000km away then in the future we would be able to hit a small city floating in space with no problem.
Perhaps all ships in the future come with some sort of ECM as standard
True but as space has no sound, no air resistance or drag, and allows you to shoot at a target so far away it cant be seen with the naked eye with almost zero chance of missing, realistic space battles would suck 
Think of GSB as the space battles of the 1960s, or as the deliberately low-tech fun formal wars fought by the dwellers in the bookthe algebraist
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Algebraist
I tend to imagine massive ECM wars, and it makes the missiles missing all the time less bad. However, I do think the accuracy for missiles in general would be better improved a bit. Maybe even just by .10 or .15 tracking, or thereabouts… Eh. Not certain. If they flew over the top of ships it would look less bad, I think. Right now even if they ARE hitting you still can’t tell 
Well it’s just, they’re firing megaton missiles at a cruiser, very decent range (like 600) and HALF of them are missing! I was dumbstruck when I saw it. I expect missiles would have perfect accuracy against cruisers (unless it’s some silly one that’s crazy fast (i’ve made one :D)).
Hah, Banks fan too, huh? I thought I detected a slight Culture influence in the default Gratuitous ship names list… (Being unimaginative, I just have the actual Culture ship names list for mine…)