Naval concepts in GGWAW

[mcaryf]

First I must say I have limited experience to date of GGWAW so my apologies if I am treading old ground or missed some crucial points. That being said, my early impression of GGWAW is that, for a strategic level game, it does handle naval issues better than most. However, with a few relatively straightforward changes it could be a whole lot better in simulating reality with a good possibility that playability would be maintained.

So what is currently wrong:

1) Most people recognise that the current possibility of uber-subs sweeping everything from the sea is both poor from an historic perspective and also for playability.

2) Whilst the battleship era did pass in WW2, GGWAW really makes them too useless too soon.

3) The concept of multiple units being represented by a single counter works less well for navies than the other two military arms. Thus a Heavy Fleet unit or a CV which matches to 2 or 3 BB's or 2 or 3 CV's which is damaged is then out of action for several turns whilst being repaired. The more likely situation in real life would be that at least one of the BB’s or CV’s might still be available for missions e.g. Scharnhorst (and Gneisnau), Vittorio Veneto (and Littorio), Shokaku (and Zuikaku).

4) MS were actually pretty helpless against U-Boats in 1940 and into 1941 with too few escorts to cover the Atlantic crossing – even in early 1942 the shipping on the US Eastern Seaboard was not effectively escorted for the first 6 months and were pretty well sitting ducks. The current GGWAW technique of effectively escorting all MS with a built-in anti-sub capability is not really appropriate.

Possible suggestions for each of these issues.

1) The problem with the ability to develop uber-subs arises partly because the evasion factor for warships versus subs is too low. It was quite rare for subs to successfully attack warships because their genuine evasion capability, i.e. their speed, made it very difficult for subs to get into a good firing position. The successes such as the sinking of the Barham were largely down to luck. Thus I would suggest a simple change, which has the difference in speed between the warship and the sub added to the warships evasion factor for sub attacks. This would immediately result in subs being ineffective versus warships but with a possibility to tech up sub speeds to be a threat later. In order that game balance be preserved I would give subs an additional ability, that was possessed in real life, to attack shipping in port. In this case the extra “speed” evasion would not be added – this would simulate the attack by Gunther Prien on Royal Oak at Scapa, the Italian frogmen at Alexandria and the British X-craft versus Tirpitz. This attack would put the sub at risk of detection and attack by any air in the port region prior to the attack and by land artillery or ships in the port after the attack.

2) If you actually look at the examples of battleships being sunk in WW2 the only occasion when the primary weapon was not air attack, attack by another BB or submarine was when one of the attacking IJN BB’s was sunk by volleys of DD torpedoes fired at night in the Battle of Surigao Strait. In my opinion the Heavy Fleet is rather under-specified in comparison with the Light Fleet. I have previously suggested that the speed/endurance for Light and Heavy Fleets are the wrong way round as BB’s etc had much longer cruising range than lighter units. My suggestion here would be that the ranges be swapped i.e. the Heavy Fleet becomes 12 and the Light Fleet 10 and then I would apply the same effect to the evasion factor as for subs i.e the evasion factor for heavy fleets would initially be increased by 2 in battle with Light Fleets. This would remove the current 1 in 12 possibility of a Heavy Fleet being damaged by Light Fleet gunfire and mean that a torpedo attack (where armour does not also apply) would be the only prospect of causing damage.

3) For naval units I would like to see the player given the choice of continuing to use one that has been damaged albeit with a risk that it might be totally destroyed. For simplicity I would probably leave all the attack and defence values the same but I might reduce the speed/endurance by two if my suggestion above had also been adopted, this would make the unit more vulnerable to attack.

4) To address the issue of transport vulnerability I would suggest that transports start with a zero attack against U-Boats so the tactic of grouping large quantities of transports for protection would be ineffective unless accompanied by real warship, this might create a need for more Light Fleets to act as escorts but as I have made them less powerful (in 2 above) this should not effect play balance. Players could tech up transport fleets to restore their attack as this would represent the Allies desperate construction program to build enough escorts.

I might be going too far with a final suggestion, but there was one technology that effected all types of ship. Radar gave the WALLIES a very considerable advantage against both the Italians and IJN. It, together with code breaking, also helped immensely in the war against U-Boats. Thus I would very much like to see a research category of RADAR on its own that would improve the evasion on all naval vessels to the side getting it. It was US radar controlled gunnery that eventually had a decisive impact versus the IJN in the Guadalcanal naval campaign and it enabled the RN to sink the 3 Italian heavy cruisers at Cape Matapan. It was also an important early warning tool versus air attack so should apply to evasion generally.

This is probably enough for the time being, I hope that my suggestions might not be too difficult to implement and stand some chance of consideration for GGWAW II if not before!

Mike

[aletoledo]

hi mcaryf,

certainly a few good ideas. I like the idea about u-boats attacking ships in port and you bring up an interesting point regarding the speed of light vs heavy fleets (I agree they should be reversed).

I like the u-boats the way they are to a certain extent. if anything I have the opposite opinion than you however. u-boats are way too easy to kill and you can't research them to uber status fast enough.

since every increase in ASW is a 3.5 increase and sub evasion is only 3 per increase, there really is diminishing returns. even an evasion 4 sub can be attacked and killed by 2-3 units of 2 ASW fairly easily (if the sub isn't grouped together).

I recently played a game as the allies where the german player tricked me into thinking he wasn't going subs. I was about 2 turns behind in researching ASW and he killed just about every british transport, including the ones around toward india. despite this, I was only cut-off in england one turn and the cost was the sale of two damaged BBs (for their resources) so as to not slow production. when the US entered I have a dozen transports ready to make up the lossses on the east coast. overall the only thing the germans gained from having ten 4/4 subs was a drain on their ecomony and 30 dead british transports, but I still invaded france in 1943.

[mcaryf]

Hi Aletoledo

My main concern was not the extent that subs might slaughter transports (although my suggestion of evasion 0 for transports does play into that) because irl they did sink a great number of ships but rather the extent to which they can become lethal against warships. Did you tech up the ASW on all of those as well versus your Axis opponent? A fleet of 10 4 x 4 subs might make quite a mess of many Allied TF's? I realise the AI is somewhat dumb, but playing as the Germans I destroyed the entire RN versus the AI just with U-Boats.

It is somewhat difficult to compare GGWAW with reality as the transports are used a lot for troop transportation (i.e. not general merchandise) and it is the case that the Allies only lost a handful of ships actually ferrying military personnel because they used fast ships (e.g. liners) that the U-Boats could not easily attack as per my previous post. However, the Axis did sink a whole load of tankers, munitions and materiel carriers which is another use of transports in GGWAW.

It seems to me that the GGWAW units can develop to be rather more like modern hunter killer nuclear subs than they should be.

Doenitz's actual strategy was very much the tonnage war and he was very unhappy when Hitler periodically diverted his forces into the Med or up to Norway in vain attempts to play a role versus naval units.

Regards

Mike

[hyperbob]

Great ideas and not to cumbersome to mangage either. WaW2 has new goals to reach:)

I do the same thing, its always nice to dream... the present incarnation is kinda like rock/paper/scissors with a "window of opportunity" attatched, but I like the replayability factor.

adding function buttons like the choices that air have when attacking could also work.

transports and fleets could click on embeded ASW or other such options and thus have their values modified
ie: defense/movement for next turn/transport capacity and such.

a good example could be on the second turn the Wallies set their Atlantic transport net on ASW. and their English ports to 'patrol. the following turn the transports are harder to hit and better defended but lack ability to move that turn. Any ships at port would also get defense bonuses but suffer movement penalties to simulate changing its focus.

the opposite side of that could a move at all haste 'button' and 'prep' button that would kinda have the opposite effects.

subs could now have a 'tonnage' attack button where as they attack a transports capacity (similar to rail attack except damage only lasts one turn) then scoot away. or 'blocade' button where they then have the chance of destroying ships but become more vulnerable.

k, i'm done ...next idea

[Lebatron]

I agree with Aletoledo that subs are not overpowered. Yes they can seem that way when playing the AI but not against a good WA player. A human player can use his air and warships so well that you won't have many oppertunities to sink capital ships. In other words you will be steered into using them to sink transports instead of hunting warships.

I'm not so sure about swapping the range of heavy and light fleets. Did you consider the fact that with BB moving 12 like the carriers, that big CV and BB fleets basically can move one more sea zone. Big help to the US in the Pacific. As it is now the BB holds the CV fleet back to a range of 10 unless you have no BB in that fleet. But I suppose that you wouldn't run around with a good number of Lights included so the range of a huge fleet would still be ten. Not a bad idea though. Its easy to mod to try it.

I had the idea of dropping the transports ASW to zero myself in my mod Franco's Alliance. What I would have done was put it at zero but with some research already started in it so that it took only a few poinst to get to one. I left that out because many already complain about supersubs. Its unjustified IMHO.

[aletoledo]

Did you tech up the ASW on all of those as well versus your Axis opponent? A fleet of 10 4 x 4 subs might make quite a mess of many Allied TF's?

what I did and what many of the better allied players seem to do is tech up the ASW for CAG and heavy bombers. this way they have a long range and are immune from getting hit. when the ASW gets to 3 you basically just need 2 planes on each sub. you obviously can't kill all 10 in one turn though because you don't have that many CAG and bombers. but the briitish have one strat bomber and 3 CAG, so you can essentially eliminate two 4-evasion subs per turn minimum and thats assuming you don't build any extra bombers (which come in handy for other things.

a damaged sub will take two turns to repair and won't be able to attack again until the third turn. so adding things up (at a minimum) you can have 6 subs out of commission at once. eventually this will be a severe drain on the germans and they'll have to make a choice between keeping up the repair of damaged subs or to withhold them more into ports. putting them into ports will stop any blockade attempt and thus all they've accomplished is killing a dozen or transports, a tactical victory, but of no long term strategic significance.

[Lebatron]

Hyperbob, I feel a minimalist approach to game design is best. Those new options you mention sound cool but I don't think they are needed in WAW. I like WAW alot because it has a board game feel. If WAW2 moves away from that and becomes like most other computer war games, I probably won't play it for long. Think about this. I have been playing Axis&Allies for 20 years and Chess for 25. These are simple and elegant games that pass the test of time. I played Hearts of Iron for 2 weeks before getting tired of it. Will I play it again 10 years from now? Not likely, but I garantee I will play Chess or A&A again. Most complex computer wargames only hold the interest of players for a few weeks then their ready for a new fix. Why is that? I think its because they are unsatisfying to play and gamers just don't realize it. WAW is one of a few computer wargames I played that I can honestly say is a timeless classic like A&A. The reviewers that gave it less than 5 stars are fools. The other games they awarded 5 stars to will be played only a month then forgotten when a new wargame comes out. I seen it happen again and again over the years. Purhaps them 5 star games were never more than a 3 in hindsight.

Good boardgames keep your interest a long time. Can that be said of many complex computer wargames? WAW's design is simple like a boardgame. Thats it charm. Remember that before you wish for new features ad-nauseaum ad-infanitum.

[a511]

hi mike, i like a couple of ur ideas, namely

1) change transport's ASW to 0
in fact, i dont understand why transport got an ASW of 1 at all, as they are not suppose to be combat unit. i assume there are several destoryers in each transport unit that contribute to the "1" ASW. but the fact that transports just take 2 turns to build vs the time to build a LF is solid evdience that the assumption cant stand. while i understand LF got far more firepower, my pt is transport is not suppose to be a combat unit at all, so they are not suppose to hit back at and damage u-boats.
as such, given its non-combat unit nature, ASW for transport should be 0 and can never be upgraded.

2) port attacks by u-boats
it gives a another cool navial battle option.

3) navial combat units' evasion to u-boat attacks
tough call on this. while i did manage to kill nearly all RN with u-boats in one of my GER games and i know its ahistoric, GER u-boats are limited to transports killers in the rest of my GER games in which WA tech-up navial combat units' ASW (and even EV in one case) as the lost of u-boats will outweight the benefit of killing the navy units. i agree that u-boats are not the primary factor in ruling the sea, but they should have the fair share of contribution. imo, changes in this area may affect the overall game balance and im happy to leave this part unchanged.

AN

[Tom Grosv]

ORIGINAL: Lebatron
Good boardgames keep your interest a long time. Can that be said of many complex computer wargames? WAW's design is simple like a boardgame. Thats it charm. Remember that before you wish for new features ad-nauseaum ad-infanitum.

Lebatron
I totally agree with you. I remember the arguments about realism over playability for the old board wargames and I really don't think it is that different for computer games. Like you, I'm sure, I would want the developers of WAW2 to consider very carefully any proposed changes to ensure they don't undermine the simplicity of this game. Frankly, I doubt game designers this good would do anything to change a winning formula.

[von_Schmidt]

Problem: Subs are too effective against warships compared to history (IRL only Japanese subs were supposed to attack USN ships as their main role, but even they did not do too well). The occasional picking off of unlucky or crippled (towed) ships would not have to be modelled, since it is below the level of abstraction (scale) of the game.
So: Subs should be good at killing TRNs and bad at killing warships.

Possible solution: lower the WS for sub attack rating. Lower the WS for TRN evasion. Leave the subs evasion settings as is.
One advantage is that this does not involve complicating the game or adding additional logic or coding.

Result: due to research subs will get better at surviving attacks (evasion), kill TRNs as now but be unable to damage LF/HF/CV.

Thoughts?

-von Schmidt

[mcaryf]

I am pleased to have generated so many responses - my thanks to you all.

It seems that several of you actually think subs are too vulnerable particularly to teched up air. Well of course this was the real situation in the latter part of the war, more subs were destroyed by air than any other cause and what is more air patrols made them ineffective because they had to stay submerged. However, the Germans were on the way to cracking this problem with genuine high speed submarines as opposed to submersibles that had to spend a lot of their time on the surface to get anywhere.

The trouble is that even if the German research and production had acted sooner this would not have turned the subs into modern hunter killers chasing warships. Thus if you want to match reality a solution is needed where the subs vulnerability can be lessened by research but it does not result in an unrealistic ability to slaughter warships. Perhaps if the sub durability were increased to 4 with its evasion initally at 1 (in 1940) but partly teched up to get to 2 soon then that gives the sub a chance of keeping ahead of the ASW until such time as it is overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Logically this works because the subs inherent durability was because there were lots of them so it was not easy to totally destroy a whole wolfpack - it is the pack that is durable not individual components. This still leaves the risk of the sub becoming too great a threat to surface ships. I still like my idea of adding the speed difference to the ship evasion but if that requires too much coding it might be possible to re-jig the armour and durability on warships. In truth most WW2 carriers, excluding the Brits, had little armour and it would not be too anomalous to say that light fleets were not armoured either. This gives the possibility of downgrading the armour rating on all warships but increasing their durability or evasion. This makes them less vulnerable initially to sub's torpedo attacks and any impact on aircraft torpedo effectiveness can be dealt with by increasing their initial torpedo values. Again in real life carriers and light fleets proved more vulnerable to dive bombers than torpedo aircraft and this change would make the relative threat of the two types of aircraft attack a closer approximation.

BTW to the poster who was worried about the BB/CV fleet roaming far and wide in the Pacific, the reason BB's were developed to have greater speed was just so they could keep up with CV's. This is why the IJN made much more use of its 14" gunned Kongo's rather than its other 16" BB's. Their speed also provided a defence against the risk of subs. Please also remember that whilst a DD might nominally be a faster ship in any sort of heavy sea the DD cannot achieve their top speed whilst the BB's plough on regardless so BB's are both consistently faster and have longer ranges.

Mike

[Lebatron]

Mike,
Your reasoning is sound, and your knowledge of WW2 naval stuff is good. However, I just don't think this game needs to be that accurate. What your proposing would take a lot of fun out of the game for the German player. When playing Germany I like to have the occasional shot at taking out warships with my subs. If they were only effective against transports it would be boring to play with them. German players would then op-out of a sub strategy and just focus totally on Russia. Keeping the subs a dangerous threat to both Transports and Warships may not be as realistic as you would like, but its much more FUN to play. Isn't that the point of gaming? Leave the uber similations for the naval officers to play with. Because for them realism is key, for us its gameplay.

I still agree with you on point 4. If enough people would like to see transport ASW reduced to zero I can include that in Franco's Alliance. This way on turn 1 germany will not lose any subs to a lucky 6. The WA's will be able to get it back to 1 in a turn or two.

Edit: I just tried it. Seems you can't reduce it to zero without losing the ability to research in it. So if it was made a zero it would stay that way the whole game. To bad though, it was a nice idea.

[SeaMonkey]

Alright I'm going to throw this out there and it does have historical premise.

What if subs could attack subs? The German Uboats were given a high priority of attack by Royal Navy submarines and IIRC they sunk around 35.

Same goes for the Americans, there were a number of Japanese subs sank by their American counterparts.

Now I realize that this might make for some gamey strategies, like Uboats assisting Japanese, or USA submarines hunting Uboats in the Atlantic, but it might be fun and it is historically accurate.

[mcaryf]

Hi Sea Monkey

You are correct that subs did sink subs but remember the sub unit in GGWAW effectively represents a wolf pack of probably a dozen or more subs and there was no case of a whole pack succumbing to other submarines.

However, just to open a new can of worms, subs certainly did sink a lot of their victims with their deck guns, therefore it would be quite historic for subs to be given for example a sea attack of 2. When war broke out Churchill ordered all merchant ships as fast as possible to be fitted with deck guns to defend against subs so it would be more accurate historically if transports had no anti-sub capability but did have a sea attack of say, 1. Perhaps a sub with no torpedoes left might choose to undertake a sea attack with some risk that their victim might shoot back.

Answering a point by Lebatron, I would not want to make it impossible for subs to sink heavy fleets and CV's but just a bit more difficult. There was after all a famous salvo by an IJN sub that hit both a BB and a CV. I guess my suggestion of allowing attacks in port might require too much development but I think the various evasion, durability and armour values might be changed to make it both harder for subs to be hit and harder for them to hit warships. That way they stay a realistic investment for the player but do not become a game breaker for all naval forces.

One further thought - it is a shame that it is not made more cost-effective to research the evasion capability of transports. In truth this was the strategy adopted by the WALLIES as convoys were not so much to band together for protection as to make it much harder for U-Boats to find their prey. In later years research into breaking the Axis codes also lead to more sophisticated evasion as convoys were routed away from where the U-Boats were known to be. However, in GGWAW expensively researching evasion to be multiplied by a durability of only two is not a good investment. I think the concept of durability ought really to include a consideration of the number of actual units represented. From this perspective Heavy Fleets and CV's, representing only 2 or 3 actual entities, are rather more susceptible to catastrophic loss than a transport fleet comprising 50 or so ships - most subs could only fire 4 tubes front and 2 rear so massacres of convoys were extremely rare.

The Japanese failed to implement convoying until much too late and in fact the US submarine fleet had already virtually won the war for the Allies before the A-Bomb was dropped as the Japanese were literally starving with virtually all their MS at the bottom of the ocean.

Mike

[SeaMonkey]

Point taken mcaryf, but I interpret the sub icon as all the subs in that sea zone, not necessarily as in a wolfpack, but perhaps on random patrols throughout the zone.

Just like the transports could represent a bunch of single vessels or a/ convoy/s, dispersed throughout the zone.

See in actuality engagements at sea, especially in the open ocean were very randomized. Because of the possibility of inclement conditions and the technological level of the detection equipment, open ocean battles were pretty haphazard. It was possible to pass within eyesight of your opponent and actually miss spotting him.

[Uncle_Joe]

2) Whilst the battleship era did pass in WW2, GGWAW really makes them too useless too soon

This I definately disagree with. If anything, the opposite is true. With one level of AA researched, BBs become uncomfortable to attack with air without teching up your aircraft Evasion. With 2 levels of BB AA, they become effectively self-escorting and pretty much trump CVs and CAGs.

History showed that it really didnt matter how many AA guns you stuffed on a BB, it was still going to be overwhelmed by determined aircraft (Prince of Wales and Repulse, Yamato, Musashi all come to mind). Yes, later US BBs with radar and proximity fuses took a toll on Japanese air, but by that point the Japanese were already steadily declining in aircraft and (more importantly) pilot quality.

Fire up a solo game as the US and research BB AA just one level (its very cheap). Then go mess with the Japanese. Crank the AA up to 5 and I'm sure you'll be appalled at how easily BBs swat aircraft aside. [;)]

[Lebatron]

So true, which was why they reduced BB AA in one of the older patches if I recall corectly.

[Drax Kramer]

From my point of view, sinking a lot of transports with my submarines and bombers is the most funny aspect of German naval warfare. Without transport to ferry troops against my posessions in Western Europe, all those Allied battleships and carriers are useless.

Do I enjoy occassional sinking of Allied heavy fleet? Sure, but this game is fun to me because I can play it "realistically".


Drax

[mcaryf]

Hi Uncle_Joe

As I said previously, I am relatively new to the game so my understanding is not as good as yours but I am not sure that I can agree with your concern. You suggest teching a BB up so that it has AA 5 and then sending it to mess with the Japanese. Well if it is on its own, it will probably shoot down one attacking plane and then be torpedoed by any others so what is the problem with that?

The cases of POW/Repulse and Yamato/Musashi were really quite different. At the time of the loss of POW/Repulse no major warship had been sunk by aircraft alone and this came as a rude surprise to the Admiralty. The Japanese attacked with a modest number of a/c and achieved total success albeit with an early and lucky disabling hit on the POW's drive shaft. In the case of Musashi and Yamato these were eventually overwhelmed by successive attacks from large numbers of a/c from many US CV's - each BB took dozens of torpedo and bomb hits. In the years after the loss of POW, BB's were equipped with very large quantities of AA and no USN or RN BB was subsequently seriously damaged by aircraft attack. This was usually because they were also accompanied by CAP that kept a lot of the Japanese aircraft at bay even the Kamikazes and they themselves were able to put up positively awesome volumes of AA. A torpedo aircraft, which was the only type that could really harm BB's, needed to adopt a fairly steady approach and this was suicidal against a late war US Task Force. The USN had developed a sophisticated system of radar equipped picket ships to give early warning - neither Yamato nor Musashi had the benefit of this when they were lost because of the types of mission they were undertaking.

Thus BB's did become pretty lethal against a/c but could be overwhelmed by numbers. In terms of the GGWAW implementation Yamato and Musashi would probably be represented by a single Heavy Fleet counter. In the real Leyte battles Musashi was sunk by US a/c but Yamato went on to attack (albeit ineffectively) the US CVE's. This would work quite well I think in that the Yamato Heavy Fleet unit would be damaged in the air attack but go on to attack the US ships with reduced effect.

This is not really my worry in the GGWAW implementation. It is the relative strength of Light and Heavy fleets that bothers me. Unless a light fleet can get within torpedo range it should have zero chance of damaging a heavy fleet. The ability of Light Fleets (light cruisers and DD's) to get within torpedo range undetected had disappeared by the end of 1942 with the advent of effective radar. The only actual case of a lost BB, which I quoted in my earlier post, at Surigao Strait was because the IJN were on a suicide mission and just drove their BB's straight into a USN destroyer screen regardless of the consequences.

The current GGWAW implementation of naval conflict with there being a random but reasonable chance of naval battles taking place at short range in my view gives Light Fleets much too good an opportunity to damage Heavy Fleets and this was my concern.

The BB did become much more vulnerable in WW2 but it was to aircraft, to a limited extent submarines and attacks in port but not to Light Fleets. This is why late war TF's were usually balanced forces with CV's, BB's and ASW escorts with the BB's coming along for their AA and shore bombardment capability and on the off-chance that they might meet another BB. That BB encounter never actually happened to the BB's incorporated in a US CV TF - the actual BB battle at Surigao was with the older US BB's which were on a separate shore bombardment mission.

As it is in GGWAW there is really little reason to invest heavily to develop BB's as other naval units can fulfill their various roles virtually as effectively. Indeed if you start with Heavy Fleet units it seems a reasonable idea to send them out to get damaged so you can reclaim the resources when they re-enter the production spiral!

Mike

[aletoledo]

The current GGWAW implementation of naval conflict with there being a random but reasonable chance of naval battles taking place at short range in my view gives Light Fleets much too good an opportunity to damage Heavy Fleets and this was my concern.

actually thats not true. the naval battles take place at 4 ranges if I recall correctly. as I recall, CAG is range 4, BB ship 3, light fleet 2 and torpedoes 1. so its easy to set up a test and see that if you send a light fleet alone against a BB ship, the BB ship will shoot it before it even gets a chance to launch any torpedoes.

As I said previously, I am relatively new to the game so my understanding is not as good as yours but I am not sure that I can agree with your concern. You suggest teching a BB up so that it has AA 5 and then sending it to mess with the Japanese. Well if it is on its own, it will probably shoot down one attacking plane and then be torpedoed by any others so what is the problem with that?

what he means is to send a few BB ships to match the aircraft that could be sent against you. they would get shot down before getting a chance to attack the BB ships. I rememeber how strong the AA was before the patch downgraded them. since then I don't invest in BB ship AA. I and I think most people will transport along fighters with extended range to clear the CAG when they come around.

IMO BB ships in W@W are still very useful for a number of things. as german, many times I've increase the evasion and antiship by 1 to try and get the edge on the WA.