Something for the flak to shoot: carrier strike planes
Last time the warships got anti-air guns — and then stood watch over an empty sky. So the naval theater now launches air power of its own: a wing of AI torpedo bombers that hunt the enemy fleet, run in at wavetop height, and put fish in the water under the ships' flak.
The threat from above
Each side keeps a wing of carrier torpedo bombers aloft. They pick the nearest enemy hull, transit toward it, then drop to the deck and bore in low and slow for the drop — the only way to lay a torpedo that runs true. A fish in the side of a warship does solid damage and opens it to flooding, exactly like a destroyer's tubes, so a clean strike is something the captain has to fight with the damage-control party.
And the run-in is the dangerous part: it takes the bomber straight down the throat of the ship's secondary and anti-air batteries. The flak we added last time finally has its targets — it tracks the incoming planes, leads them, and throws up bursting fire to break the attack before the drop. Bombers that loiter inside the envelope don't come home.
Fight the whole picture
The sea war is no longer a surface fight alone. Keep one eye on the horizon for masts and one on the sky for the wing forming up off the enemy flank. A torpedo in the water forces the same hard choices a destroyer's tubes do — take the flooding, work the damage-control party, comb the tracks — but now the threat can come from any bearing at wavetop height.
Point your secondaries and flak up early and you break the run before the drop. Wait too long and you're combing torpedoes instead. The sea war has a sky over it now — and soon you'll be able to take the bomber's seat yourself.