All of the great powers were busily constructing battleships as the 1920s and 1930s went on.
Key Point: Battleships were seen as the way to go if you wanted to be a serious naval power. However, the advent of aircraft carriers and their effectiveness during World War II meant the battleship era had to come to a close.
The late 1930s promised a renewed era of battleship construction, similar in some ways to the bonanza that immediately followed the construction of the
HMS Dreadnought. The “naval holiday” restrictions imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty system were relaxing, and in any case Japan and Italy had determined to abandon the system, reducing the constraints on Britain, France and the United States. Moreover, Germany and the Soviet Union were preparing to re-enter the battleship construction game.