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#it looks to me like there is a mistake on the warscroll. I think the Attacks value should be stars, only reason for table underneath as far as I can see. Agree?

The table is for the number of crew that are currently manning the weapon. More crew equates to more shots. As the crew dies, the weapon becomes less effective. So with 2 crew, you can fire either: A) 2 Ithilmar Bolts, or B) 12 Repeating Bolts. You cannot fire 1 Ithilmar Bolt and 6 Repeating Bolts in one turn.

EDIT: Yes, I agree, the Attacks value should be stars. I think I misunderstood your post. The table is misleading.

Also, I'm not sure if I'm interpreting things properly. It seems to me that the Bolt Thrower is a unit, and the Crew are a separate unit, but that the bolt thrower only works if models from a Crew unit are nearby. Most of the time this won't matter - you can split shooting attacks however you like, and it's possible to Charge one unit and Pile In to another.

However, it does mean that if one crewman dies, the other can fail a Battleshock test and leave the machine uncrewed. Likewise, it looks like you could, if multiple machines are close enough, have one pair of crewmen operate a bolt thrower each (although it doesn't really make any difference) or have crew from one destroyed machine wander over and man an uncrewed one.

Or I'm overthinking things.

Exactly so. An uncrewed war machine is largely useless, but it is not and does not count as a casualty. Which might make a difference at some point for minor victory percentages.

It also makes a difference when trying to use bonus-granting abilities; notice that the Bolt Thrower - which is the thing generating the attacks - does not have AELF or HIGHBORN, and therefore can't benefit from abilities calling off those keywords (Eltharion's reroll-to-wound command ability springs to mind)