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Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen
No, they don't have as many 533 mm tubes, but the uboats are superior to the fleet boats of the Pacific in virtually every other aspect. They have better submerged performance, deeper test depth, reliable torpedoes, shorter dive times and, generally, better sound gear. I prefer the Pacific theatre to the Atlantic, but cannot deny the overal technical superiority of the unterseeboot.
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That isn't necessarily true. A US fleet boat could do 9 knots underwater. A comparable Type IX could do 7, or perhaps less. Even a speedy VIIB could only do 8 knots submerged.
They didn't really have better sound gear either, as near as I can tell from reading. They lacked the advanced radar that was pretty much standard on US boats later in the War.
The Vorhaltrechner in a U-boat didn't have a position keeper function, so if you changed course or speed during attack you had to re-do your firing solution.
In addition, the American boats were much more liveable than the German ones. That makes a big difference in combat efficiency of the crew.
It's not that one or the other is better, they were designed with different missions in mind. American boats had to operate independently over larger areas than the German ones. German boats were mostly designed around a war fought in the North Sea and North Atlantic.