I've been told one of the main reasons merchant crews are not armed is that the captains and owners then have to fear for their lives and ships.
Before this burst of Somali piracy, one of the flavors of modern piracy was that ships and cargoes would "disappear." Some of the crew would take over, sail to an out-of-the-way spot, rename the hull and sell the cargo. The rest of the crew would be paid off, and the insurance company is left to figure out what happened.
RE: WW2, the AA guns and crews that were placed on merchant ships were, IIRC, naval crewmen-- the US Navy Armed Guard. The ship's civilian crews were not involved.
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My Twilight claim to fame: I ran "Allegheny Uprising" at Allegheny College, spring of 1988.
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