I don't think Interdiction Pulse requires sci-fi fluff handwaving. If keeping a fleet going at top speed with burn drives requires perfectly coordinating their movement to prevent one ship's mis-movement requiring the whole fleet from having to slow down while it catches back up, then a fleet using its sensor suites to jam the sensors of another fleet (which is a IRL thing) that's Under Way using its burn drives can put the ships in said fleet in the blind from eachother and introduce too many errors for the fleet to even be attempting to use their burn drives.
"Radio jamming or communications jamming is the deliberate transmission of radio signals that disrupt communications by decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio to the point where the target communications link is either degraded or denied service."
