I have to disagree with you. You’re thinking in terms of someone who is an expert in the game and not someone who is still unsure of every rule in the book. I get a lot of questions on YouTube from players who ask me why I made this move or that move and how can that be legal? There are many situations in naval combat which are not the same as land combat and that’s where the confusion comes from. I characterized those as “special” on this thread because they are unique to naval warfare. If you don’t like that word then fine, let’s call them unique.
At no time could you leave attacking aircraft in a land territory regardless of whether you won that battle or lost it unlike the situation in this thread. It would not be possible to place new land units in a territory that you no longer own, unlike what happened in this thread. There are no Capital Units on the land. You can’t submerge an AAA like you can a submarine.
The OP of this thread started this because he was unsure, even as an experienced player, if everything that happened in this particular battle was legal. You don’t have to look very far in this section of the forum to find several threads dealing with naval movement, combat, scrambling, and so on that players want to find clarification in the rules from others.
In order to resolve the situation in this thread you would have to find the rules on pages 19, 20, 23, 31, and 32 of the Europe rulebook. That is the point that I was trying to make, that you can’t just open up the book to a unit profile and resolve this battle. And yes, if you have been paying attention to the threads created here, naval combat is confusing to many players.