This has been beaten many times. However, I haven't seen any meaningful solution besides "MAKE IT WORK, SDE". I have a pair of US CHF AA Gunners that are absolutely useless right now, and I'm sick of low flying fighters and bombers flying around me not taking any hits (yes, I have RLD gunners for AA, but that's beside the point).  Having CVs just park low flying fighters and bombers overhead ships is lazy gameplay, and would promote for tactful placement of planes. This will also make any AA gunner made useful again, and add yet another setup to ship gameplay.

AAW Stat 

Currently, this is a useless stat. Each ship has its own AAW rating (US being the highest, KM/RM/SN having very low ratings). It's great that the ship's AAW is somewhat useful to lower level pilots, however for higher level pilots, there's no defense against them besides secondary guns with actual Gunners in the T-slots.

True Ship AAW

Make the AAW stat from sailors contribute to the AAW ship rating (True Ship AAW), like restore ability contributes to soft defense on a ship. More and more AAW ability on a sailor will raise the AAW rating of the ship. I read somewhere on the test server it took ~700 AAW to start scratching low flying fighters. This will then make Mch Gunners, Rpd Gunners, DP Gunners, and AA Gunners useful again.

Ability Penalty 

UK will be the only nation to receive an ability penalty. This is due to being the only nation with no available CHF promotion for AA gunners. This will also promote people to avoid using AA and focus on supports (UK specialty).

Ship Slots

Just like Engineers will only work in support slots, AAW stat can only be effective in the R & T slots on a ship. That means main gunners and AA gunners will only affect the ships AAW rating.

Example 

Examples below use lvl 82, BVE +12 AAW sailors (used NFCalc to estimate ability/crew size (530) for KM, UK, & IJN AA gunners, and 1.64 modifier for V%+E% ability).

Ex. South Dakota (highest BB3 AAW)

            Ship AAW: 381

            2 CHF AA Gunners AAW true ability:  4.238M

            For every 1M in true ability, raise AAW by 75% base ship AAW.

            True Ship AAW after CHF AA Gunners on board: 1592

Ex. Prince of Wales (upper BB3 AAW)

            Ship AAW: 295

            2 AA Gunners AAW true ability:  4.095M

PENALTY: -1M overall ability = 3.095M

            For every 1M in true ability, raise AAW by 75% base ship AAW.

            True Ship AAW after CHF AA Gunners on board: 980

Ex. Nagato (middle BB3 AAW)

Ship AAW: 203

            2 CHF DP AA Gunners AAW true ability:  4.167M

            For every 1M in true ability, raise AAW by 75% base ship AAW.

            True Ship AAW after CHF AA Gunners on board: 837

Ex. Bismarck (lowest BB3 AAW)

            Ship AAW: 139

            2 CHF Rpd Gunners AAW true ability: &nb