I understand what you're getting at, jigster, but the actual problem with that is the same one that plagued actual naval artillery. Namely, calling the fall of shot when multiple gunners are firing.
Let's say we had three gunners on the CA firing one turret each (a full broadside), plus a fourth player manning fire control for the 8-inch batteries. Assuming you can get four players to cooperate, the gunnery officer (GO) designates a target, all three gunners mates train out their guns to the designated bearing and elevation -- to the best of their varied abilities. The GO calls "fire" and, miraculously, they all fire simultainiously. There WILL be differences in the individual gunners' aim, and the fall of shot will be scattered. Neither the gunners nor the GO will be able to tell whose splashes are whoes. The GO will be unable to correct the fall of shot and the individual gunners, assuming they can see the target (not a sure bet), won't be able to either.
As you can see, the GO needs control of the guns themselves. As for leaving the 5-inchers as they are, that would be okay, I suppose. However, the idea of a gun director is still valid for the 5-inchers. The secondary guns were originally installed on capital ships to defend against destroyers and torpedo boats, and would sometimes be fired individually (in a multiple threat environment). As the splash size of 8-inch and 5-inch guns is not the same, there's no confusion with having seperate GO's for different calibre guns.
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Sabre, a.k.a. Rojo
(S-2, The Buccaneers)
[This message has been edited by Rojo (edited 01-17-2001).]