Phaser gun crews?

[Gotham Central]

I know that the writers included gun crews on the Enterprise as an homage to similar gun crews on naval vessels. However, one has to wonder how you can justify them. On modern vessels, gun crews maintain the weapons, fire the guns and load the shells. Beyond simple maintenance, Phasers don't need any of that.

The odd thing is that the show did not seem to know what they do. For instance, in "Balance of Terror" the gun crews were literally responsible for pushing the big red button that fires the phasers. Most other times weapons are fired directly from the helm/nav station.

Do these crews serve any practical purpose?

 

[Botany Bay]

They were just making it up as they went.

Maybe the BOT phaser crew should have been a torpedo crew, but they hadn't established that the ship even had torpedoes at that point.

Maybe the intention was to have phaser gun crews/toroedo crews/weapons crews but they were an early victim of the ever decreasing TOS episode budget - why pay a room of 10 people to hit a button when Sulu is sitting there doing very little?

 

[Thelin]

Yeah, I agree with Botany Bay about them simply making it up as they went.

But perhaps an in-universe explanation could follow along the lines where the phasers were delicate or something and thus required a crew to maintain them or keep on top of them? And then the later disappearance of the crew could be because they worked the kinks out?

Yeah, I know, I'm grasping for straws here.

 

[Trevacious]

Do these crews serve any practical purpose?

I figure it'd be nice to have gunnery crews to aim and fire phasers when automated systems go kaput.

Then again, when noxious fumes take out the critical gunnery crew, it'd be nice to have an automated system.

Basically, I like the idea of having BOTH, each insuring the other.

 

[Patrickivan]

I'd think that when Helm and Nav would be too busy flying the ship to operate the weapons during critical situations. Though they obviously did. But that would be a real reason to have gun crews.

When they added the weapons station in TMP (that would be the lead station I assume), I don't think that would have got rid of the gun crews, as we saw them working in the torpedo bay... So if they had them then, I'm sure they had them in TOS.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I actually like the Phaser Gun Crews because it gives a sense that there are other people involved in the operation of the Enterprise beyond the bridge.

 

[Timo]

Also, let's remember that the very episode that gave us the phaser crews also gave us ample justification for having them: the phasers in that episode were shown to be extremely delicate pieces of instrumentation, falling apart after just a few shots in a fairly benign combat situation.

It would thus be a very good idea to have a repair crew standing by - but also to have a man-in-the-loop who could closely monitor the status of the weapons, and would either okay or abort the firing of the weapons. So when Sulu pressed his own trigger, calling for a shot to be fired, this expert down below would carefully check his gauges and valves and tri-isoduonetic doodads and either press the actual firing button or then not. Or he could set the system on automatic when he was sure nothing was broken, allowing Sulu's button to directly control the firing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Doug Otte]

Also, let's remember that the very episode that gave us the phaser crews also gave us ample justification for having them: the phasers in that episode were shown to be extremely delicate pieces of instrumentation, falling apart after just a few shots in a fairly benign combat situation.

It would thus be a very good idea to have a repair crew standing by - but also to have a man-in-the-loop who could closely monitor the status of the weapons, and would either okay or abort the firing of the weapons. So when Sulu pressed his own trigger, calling for a shot to be fired, this expert down below would carefully check his gauges and valves and tri-isoduonetic doodads and either press the actual firing button or then not. Or he could set the system on automatic when he was sure nothing was broken, allowing Sulu's button to directly control the firing.

Timo Saloniemi

Interesting hypothesis, Timo. So, how does the phaser crew know when Sulu pushed the button? Maybe something pops out of their terminal and pops them in the nose, or a squirt of water hits them in the eye?

Doug

 

[diankra]

Also, let's remember that the very episode that gave us the phaser crews also gave us ample justification for having them: the phasers in that episode were shown to be extremely delicate pieces of instrumentation, falling apart after just a few shots in a fairly benign combat situation.

It would thus be a very good idea to have a repair crew standing by - but also to have a man-in-the-loop who could closely monitor the status of the weapons, and would either okay or abort the firing of the weapons. So when Sulu pressed his own trigger, calling for a shot to be fired, this expert down below would carefully check his gauges and valves and tri-isoduonetic doodads and either press the actual firing button or then not. Or he could set the system on automatic when he was sure nothing was broken, allowing Sulu's button to directly control the firing.

Timo Saloniemi

Interesting hypothesis, Timo. So, how does the phaser crew know when Sulu pushed the button? Maybe something pops out of their terminal and pops them in the nose, or a squirt of water hits them in the eye?

Doug

Well, the post-BoT situation, where Enterprise apparently has totally automated phasers which are targeted by the helmsman while (possibly) he's also flying the ship, and which he can fire without any checks if he just goes mad and hits the button, isn't really that credible. (Obama has to ask for the 'football' and run through the procedures; he can't just fire the nukes by hitting a button on his blackberry).
But, applying the writers' guide principle that background needn't be explained unless it had to be explained, you could assume that what we see on the bridge in later episodes is just the tip of the iceberg. For instance, there might be a phaser taregtting crew who're connected into a relay of the bridge 'audio traffic', who do the actual targeting in response to Kirk's orders; once they've done it, a light signals 'ready to fire' on Sulu's console, and he hit the button once Kirk confirms the order (and possibly, Kirk has to hit an OK button on his armrest to clear Sulu's console to fire). All of which could be done without any comment by a trained crew.

 

[Timo]

Indeed, ever since "The Corbomite Maneuver", there has been mention of drills where "phaser crews report ready", yet no combat engagement has actually involved the phaser crews arguing with Sulu across the intercom. Not even "Balance of Terror" does that. It's entirely plausible that the crews work silently and seamlessly most of the time, making it seem as if Sulu was doing it all by himself.

In "BoT", Stiles does call the people down below after getting told by Kirk to bring phasers to full power. Perhaps Tomlinson down there was lax in his duties (given how he was conversing with his wife-to-be at the time), and Stiles called to find out why his board didn't immediately show acknowledgement of the "full power" command? This would never happen if the phaser crews were alert and behaved themselves.

Timo Saloniemi