it's never communicated particularly well, but the "the control panels inexplicably explode when they get hit" thing isn't that the ship is full of tannerite or whatever, it's that the writers knew more about the pre-1980s navy than most of y'all do

it's due to a battle-short https://twitter.com/leboism/status/1284705698786533377

what's a battle short? well, there were fuses, and then circuit breakers in critical ship systems. in the early days, you used to put a bar across it, short circuiting around the fuse. eventually it was a setting on breakers.

the idea is that in battle, it was better to have to repair or even replace critical systems, than to have them go down completely in combat when you need them

(often the same guy tasked with enabling the shorts in a section also had firefighting equip and was ready in case the machinery literally caught on fire)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleshort

anyway, those consoles are overloading from power surges from the shields/plating but the bulbs and whatever on the console exploding are fine as long as the button for shoot gun was still working

anyway without this context it seems corny but with it star trek takes a sorta more serious tone and honestly im not sure which is better