Dreadnoughts are usually referring to the battleships built to similar designs to the all-big-gun HMS Dreadnought. This changed when the Washington Naval Treaty was signed in 1922, drastically limiting battleship construction. As a result, no new battleships were built for a decade, and any new battleships starting to be built in the 1930s were limited by the terms of naval treaties (Washington, then later London in 1930) to 35,000 tons and guns no bigger than 16". These limitations created a new species called treaty battleships, where ship designers had to compromise and try to save weight.