Hi there,
yes, you can detect collision with specific meshes.
I guess you do not want to use several Actors and stick them together with ChildActorComponents. If you use a single Actor with multiple MeshComponents that should do. You can move the parts within the Actor like they would be separated parts/Ships. But you need to keep in mind that on movement only the root mesh collision will stop the Ship from going through obstacles. You can also put put a bigger collider around the whole ship to block movement.
Here something to start with:
You need to prepare a Pawn for that. Enable “Simulation Generate Hit Events” for the MeshComponents. And you get their OnComponentHit Nodes by selecting the Event on the bottom of the details.
Hope that helps 
Marooney