AAW and ASW weapons forward

I’ve always found the guns on the sides interesting. Both Moskva class and Jeanne d’Arc have interesting gun placement in support of troop movements. VV has a standard gun placement designed to give the main gun a huge area of cover supported by secondary guns/CIWS.

Suffered extensive machinery problems as well.

Not to mention fires, IIRC the last fire cost some of the crew their lives, something I believe that the other ships never suffered thankfully.

Jon: Mate the Jd’A retired from service last year, she did a paying off voyage around the world (Including a stop over here in Sydney to honour “The White Mouse” with the coverted Legion of Honour). As for the two Japanese ships, I didn’t mention them because I was looking at these ships with a rather large aviation compliment. Shirane and Haruna have a good helo compliment but nothing compared to these three. If I were to add those ships, then I may as well add the RCN’s Iroquois class, but that would be getting off the issuse.

Moskva and Leningrad were both good and introduced the Russians with aviation at sea. Yes they had poor sea keeping qualities but as a platform for war fighting you can’t hide from it. The VV was ment to do the same with the Italians, intorduce them to aviation at sea before they built a carrier. Also to provide an ASW platform on a level that would see the Med covered with no where to hide should the old Soviet Union ever attack with subs pouring out of the Black Sea.