 Complete the following phrase:  The British, impoverished by World War I, faced the prospect of slipping behind the US and Japan. No ships had been begun since the Admiral class, and of those only had been completed. A June 1919 Admiralty plan outlined a post-war fleet with 33 battleships and eight battlecruisers, which could be built and sustained for 171 million a year approximately  today; only 84 million was available. The Admiralty then demanded, as an absolute minimum, a further eight battleships. These would have been the G3 battlecruisers, with 16-inch guns and high speed, and the N3-class battleships, with guns. Its navy severely limited by the Treaty of Versailles, Germany did not participate in this three-way naval building competition. Most of 