ORIGINAL: Michael T
And bombardment missions conducted at night and not too far from Alexandria would not be suicidal.
One raid every blue moon sure. But start making a habit of it and pretty soon those waters would have U-Boast lurking.
I don't see why that would be more dangerous than their other function of keeping the RM at bay. They have to go to sea one way or the other. And over the campaign, a total of one BB was sunk by U-boat.
Another thing, which is beyond the control of the scenario designer (only a HR could sovle this problem) is that in 1940/41 shore bombardment was very much limited (if it were to have any accuracy at all) to firing at targets with a spotter (read along the coast). To suggest a Naval unit could hit a target 30km away at night without a spotter or rader is well, ludicrous.
TOAW accounts for that. Ranged units bombarding alone are much weaker than ranged units used in support. (This models the spotting function that the supported units would provide.)