SMs revisited

Well, I am in the middle of a combat with a FT (but not sci-fi
wargaming) newbie.  He is running NAC and I am running FSE.  We
both started out with 2K fleets.  So far, mostly with SMs, I
have taken out about 900 points of ships to his 400 points of
mine, and I'm realizing something.  Even being extremely down
ships he still outbeams me significantly, and that is not
counting P-torps.  I have managed to hit with 90+% of my Salvos,
destroying 3 CE's and a couple of destroyers.  I'm down to
4 SMs left and it really looks like I have to put them on target
to have a chance.  This is all in spite of the fact that I have
managed to make affective use of my salvos AND I managed to get
in the aft arcs of one of his BB's and chewed away at it 
unapposed for 3 turns with beams.

So am I doing something wrong?	Is using 3 missiles to take out
a Furious CE a bad thing?  One missed.	It's fairly obvious I
would never do this well against an experienced opponent, I 
managed to have him split his forces and ADFC's and then he
made a bad turn with the BB.  It still looks like I am going
to have to get extremely lucky with my last 4 salvos to be
on even footing.  Right now he has 35 total beams to my 32,
and he has 4 p-torps.  The only thing that has saved me has
been 1 arc p-torps and having better thrust than he does.

Sorry, just a minor frustration.  I thought as FSE if you
could get yourself well up by the midpoint of the battle
you would be in good shape.

Roger (Seriously considering NSL)