Would it be legal to have a captin steering the ship and (a) gunner(s) controlling the turrets and guns?
Nothing prohibits having a two-person ship. The question is, are you better off with a single two-person ship, or two one-person ships?
Totally legal, just like Karl says, tho... You want one ship shooting or two ships shooting? Also, with 2 ships, you can more easily press someone into a less tactically advantageous situation.
I would think especially in big gun that if a skipper could concentrate totally on turning the boat and another person totally concentrate on gunnery it would be very difficult to beat
It was tried at least once in early IRC history. Swampy had an Alabama rigged as a skipper/gunner ship and the stories was that they had problems because the gunner wanted to engage one direction and the pilot the other. Deemed not successful and never tried again.
I would think that two skippers good enough to make such a setup work would be good enough in separate boats to completely stomp a single vessel with a dual crew in combat. As a training tool, though, I think it'd be fun.
it would be a good father & son , daughter wife or girlfriend thing to do so you can go. may thay like it and you get to get a new ship .WooHoo
I think that to be sucessful, such a setup would have to NOT be a team: by this I mean that there would have to be a Captain, and a gunner. Captain commands/steers the ship, and directs gunner which target to shoot. "turning left, Forward guns engage Bismarck, Rears try for Spahkruezer" Gunner concentrates on getting the best shot/s against the nominated target/s. "OK, firing forwards, need more left turn to get Spahkruezer" ETC, etc, etc. Of course, there would always be room for the gunner to advise the Captain... "Can't get Spahkreuzer, Bismarck is open for rear guns" Captain then decides if Spahkruezer is waiting for the rears to fire before running in and torping, or is really out of position. "OK rears on Bismarck then, keep an eye on Spahkreuzer" I can see this working, but communication would need to be practised.
I helped design and build a USS Montana that was designed for a two-person crew. The skipper was in charge of maneuvering and operating the front guns, and the gunner was in charge of operating the rear guns. The idea was that we could put anybody (rookies, skippers without boats, etc.) in the gunner position, and let the regular skipper maneuver the ship to where it would make the most difference in the battle. In effect, the gunner wouldn't have to worry about the front guns, and thus could operate his powerful aft cannons throughout their entire 270-degree arc, and the skipper would be able to do so, as well. We figured that it would be especially effective against torpedo-cruisers, who usually depend on a target's lack of accurate point-defense fire to get in, attack, and get out. Alas, the ship was sold before completion, and has not seen combat.
