Later in 1928, the design staff prepared another ship, with a displacement of , armed with six guns and protected against guns of the same caliber. At least one of these ships would have followed the three 23,000-ton ships once the building holiday expired in 1931. Funding was not allocated to begin construction, however, as the Italian Navy did not want to instigate an arms race with the French Navy. The London Naval Treaty of 1930 extended the building holiday to 1936, though Italy and France retained the right to build 70,000 tons of new capital ships. Both countries rejected British proposals to limit new battleship designs to and guns. After 1930, the Italian Navy abandoned the smaller designs altogether. By 1930, Germany had begun to build the three ships, armed with six guns, and France had in turn laid down two s to counter them. The French vessels were armed with eight guns. In late 1932, Italian constructors responded with a design similar to the "Deutschland" class, but armed with six guns in triple turrets on a displacement.