It is a bug, or otherwise there should be an explanaition for the smoke like "there are one, or two sometimes even 3 smokes. but we dont really know, and dont really care.TBH. have fun with the ship you payed actual money for! thanks for that by the way!"
It´s in the game for such a long time, and this issue is is know for just as long. And it IS an issue, defined by players actually having problems caused by it. This situation atm with a random number of smokes for a premium, that has been in the game for such a long time, is not barable.
For myself speaking, i bought it for the ranke battles and its not just an annoyance but a true handicap to not know how many smokes there will be. Im not please with that, at all, make it a certain thing you can rely on!