The Chief they court martialed was a Boatswains Mate, AKA "Deck Ape". He had no clue how to operate the system, and falsified the qual's of his sailors to stand the "helmsman" watch.
Normally, when a new system is installed, ships technicians work directly with the installation team, and receive "onboard training" directly from them. The Ships Control Console is maintained by the IC and GSE rates. The Chief should have sent his sailors to the IC shop to get proper training on this equipment. At a minimum, they would have been trained using written CSOSS/EOSS procedures that would have taught them how to properly configure and operate the Ships Control Console in every possible mode.
If the CO had been doing his job, not only would the helmsman have been properly qualified, but the ship would have been in a "modified sea and anchor detail" watch condition, and there would have been an IC rated sailor on the bridge, with his/her greater understanding and training of the steering system.
On the tin can I was on, Quartermaster 2, lead navigator, we had a couple of deck apes who took the helm when we were involved in close maneuvers...refueling, etc.
We QMs mostly stood helm watch when at sea...we were busy manning our navigation/piloting stations in close stuff.