Shipbuilding knowledge, infrastructure, and fleet mass

Shipbuilding depends on accumulated craft knowledge as well as formal engineering, so lost infrastructure and institutional memory cannot be restored instantly. Jeune École policy, government change, and lost institutional memory left France rebuilding skills and yards. The resulting lag resembled Germany's position after Versailles. France needed enough hulls to cover multiple duties while recovering that capacity. One or two dreadnoughts might have been individually superior, but six Dantons supplied mass, presence, and enough combat power to threaten almost any opponent short of a modern dreadnought. An early battlecruiser could probably choose the range and win against a Danton, yet it would still have to respect the semi-dreadnought's close-range threat.