Duca d'Aosta class deck layout and aircraft handling

The concentration of secondary and anti-aircraft weapons aft suggests that the designers expected air attacks from that direction, but it also created a weakness. Keeping the battery forward of the after main turrets left much of the ship without the same local concentration of defensive fire. The arrangement appears to reflect the pressure to keep the cruiser light. A single catapult could nominally support three aircraft, although two had to be folded beside it. That stowage was more plausible in Mediterranean conditions than in the Atlantic or Pacific.