sub fires

It appears from my reading that US subs had a lot of fires on board compared to German U-boats. I know the old truism that German machines tended to be better built with tighter specs. But after reading many accounts of US subs in WWII I kept running into accounts of how sea water pouring down the hatches cuased fires in the control room and batteries below. When the Tang was dead on the bottom of 180 feet of water a battery fire was causing the paint to peel off the walls in the torpedo room as the men were trying to escape to the surface. I have read several books about U-boats and never recall reading much about fires causes by salt water. I do recall how we in the US brought many German rocket scientists to the states to build our early rocket force, and I do recall that our electronics was of so low quality that most of our rockets exploded or fell over on the pads (and that was with German scientists trying to walk us through the development).

Was the equipment on German U-boats better sealed or water-proofed than American electronics? And did the German U-boats have many battery fires?