Galactic War broken?

If they killed your first team, and then you submitted that and went in again, they will have preloaded turn meter. In a lot of PVP battles, if you go against a team for a second time, they still have the same health, cooldowns, and turnmeter as when you ended the last battle.

So you may have had higher gear, but since they started with more turnmeter, they all went before you and wiped you in the mirror match. As someone else already mentioned, mods are extremely important.

One thing you can do in early GW before you have a lot of teams is to preload turnmeter on your own people. In one of the first nodes, use a good team, and try to finish everyone off with basic abilities. Then switch to another team. On later nodes, the first team will have preloaded tm and you can use them to go first. 

If a fight is going badly against a team, try to forfeit rather than accept defeat. This will avoid preloading tm on that team. In general, don't submit a loss unless you've managed to kill some units.