How do Nanoswarms work?

[Fleet]

I do not understand the tooltip for the Nanoswarm. I can read at a college level with ease and I can't understand this 

Does it work in the same way as a parasite, the difference being its attack necessarily causes the ship to be destroyed? So once it attacks a unit, its tagged and will be reclaimed on death just as if it were shot by a parasite?

[keith.lamothe]

It's just an autobomb whose damage is counted as parasite damage.  It also has the flak/grenade mechanic of a maximum number of ships hit by the explosion, whereas an autobomb can hit an infinite number.

[Fleet]

I know that melee ships ignore shields, but I can't find how AOE factors into hit chance calculations from the wiki page. Would ships caught in the blast radius all be tagged with certainty, or can shields protect form AOE?

[keith.lamothe]

Honestly I don't know in this case, but my understanding is that shields don't matter.