Before the pause, French yards could complete warships in six years

Earlier French programmes provide a working construction baseline of roughly five to six years. Redoutable approached that pace despite the repeated changes to her design, so revision alone did not make a decade-long build inevitable. Britain averaged about four years in this comparison, against roughly six for France. France's smaller production programme increased the pressure to get each ship right, encouraging further changes as new possibilities appeared. Aube's pause interrupted this already difficult process and pushed later ships well beyond the earlier French baseline.