If Naval games are not of much interest to you, neither is this Simulation., and it is much more a Simulation than a game. The research and ensuing data on equipment and in the scenarios make the Boxed set worth the price. The designers made great efforts to make CaS a simple playable game with lots of detail - detail won though, and it is hard to avoid being drawn into an ever more complex simulation. It will take the average player about four hours to be functional in it, but 30-40 to be conversant with the rules. The Game requires you do a fair amount of preparation in advance, so quick games will require that you have the ship forms already made up.
Larger scales are just a matter of interpolation.
A spotter aircraft will cause only minor additional time, but if there are two float planes and one wants to attack the other, things rapidly get complex.