Material comparison extended beyond guns and hulls. Four French frigates could have provided three signal repeaters while another drove away the British sloop used for communications. That arrangement might have given Brueys a command-and-control advantage over Nelson's shortage of repeating vessels. The opportunity remained theoretical because the anchored fleet never organized its supporting ships for that role.
Notable Point · 1:20:39-1:21:46
Four French frigates offered a signaling advantage
The French could have used their four frigates as signal repeaters and to suppress the British sloop, but did not convert that communications advantage into coordinated maneuver.