Kriegsmarine surface navy wasn't incompetent-it was outnumbered and outgunned 10:1 by Roya

1) I'd say that in technical terms the USN and RN is wash, Herald.  According to you, the RN had more efficient hull forms, but from what I've read the USN had more efficient power plants.  The result would be for an equal volume of engineering plant the USN got more horse power, the RN's hull was more efficient...so to-may-to...tom-MAH-to either fleet is going to get much the same speed out of their hulls, the US uses more horsepower to achieve it, the RN uses a finer hull form.

 

2) And sitting on these more efficient hulls are mediocre weapons with a mediocre fire control system, commanded by men who didn't really understand aerial warfare at sea, and were way too over-confident about their ability to deal with the U-boat.

3) Herald I'd say you're right, the Kriegsmarine was badly led...even under Doenitz.  The Luftwaffe made the RAF and the FAA look like modern professionals in comparison.  It hampered the Kriegsmarine's ability effectively, by depriving it of effective aerial reconnaissance and strike.  And the U-boats did great things, but could have done more, but they were slow to adapt to the changing tactics and techniques of the Atlantic Campaign.  I think Langsdorff didn't do such a great job with Graf Spee, but I'm not sure Lutjens failed....his mission was commerce raiding, not sinking Hood or PoW.  He carried out his orders.

 

4) Finally Leech, the Tiger IS over-rated....it was slow, had poorly sloped armour, had a miserable and unreliable fuel system, was mechanically unreliable (at times only 30% of all Tigers were actually available).  The only two things it had going for it were:

     a) The 8.8 Cm gun.  Giving it a powerful offensive punch; and

     b) The tactical situation the Tiger faced.  By 1943 the Wehrmacht was mostly on the defense.  All the Tiger had to do was sit quietly and ambush it's opponents.  There was no need for mobility, and as an ambush tank its poor armour layout really didn't affect it...Had the Tiger been in the Allied camp it would have been listed as a very poor vehicle. Slow, unreliable and not suited for the offense.  The Tiger on the offense, Kursk or the Ardennes WAS a failure.

 

What I'm saying is the only reason the Tiger was so "formidable" was the situations it was thrust into...not anything inherent in the tank.  It was designed as a "Break thru" tank, a role it filed miserably in...it was only because the Wehrmacht no longer needed to break thru that it developed any sort of good reputation at all.  OVER-RATED.

1) I'd say that in technical terms the USN and RN is wash, Herald.  According to you, the RN had more efficient hull forms, but from what I've read the USN had more efficient power plants.  The result would be for an equal volume of engineering plant the USN got more horse power, the RN's hull was more efficient...so to-may-to...tom-MAH-to either fleet is going to get much the same speed out of their hulls, the US uses more horsepower to achieve it, the RN uses a finer hull form.

2) And sitting on these more efficient hulls are mediocre weapons with a mediocre fire control system, commanded by men who didn't really understand aerial warfare at sea, and were way too over-confident about their ability to deal with the U-boat.

Kursk was falure, right. But Tiger at Kursk was not failure, failure was Panther, along with several heavy mistakes on German side. Germans had too few tanks for the battle, and Soviets knew exactly when and where Germans will attack (one German soldier said them). Total Tiger loss at Kursk was 22 tanks out of 140 total. (note: some Alan Bullock said that Germans had 2000 Tigers at Kursk-in fact, only 1355 Tigers were ever produced, +489 Tiger II's (68-75 t, max. armor 155 mm at front, 8.8 cm PaK 43/3 L/71, penetrates 159 mm at 2300 m; for comparation, Tiger I 8.8 cm KwK 36 L/56 was penetrating 135/60 mm (135 mm armor angled 60 degrees) at 1500 m). Out of 1355 Tiger I's, 582 was destroyed in combat, 556 destroyed by their own crews, and 217 lost out of unknown reasons. There is no data which would explain combat losses, but it seems that most of Tigers were destroyed by Anti-tank artillery and airplanes, not by enemy tanks. Tigers in Africa were destroyed by hidden British 6pdr cannons (57 mm), firing at sides of tank from minimum distance (few mwters, probably); tigers could easiliy survive 76 mm fire from russian T-34/76; on 21. July 1944. near village of Krivani 6 Tigers from 502. battallion destroyed 19 IS2 and 5 t-34/85 tanks; next day they discovered 28 IS2 on distance of 3 km; for !/2 of hour all Soviet tanks were destroyed; next day two of his Tigers , on reaconissance mission, destroyed 17 t-34/85 and 2 Su-122.

 

Germans lost Battle of Kursk beacouse of pure planning, Hitler's insisting on attacking Kursk and premature decision to produce heavily unreliable Panther instead of Panzer IV. Also, Panthers at Kursk were used "on idiotic way", according to lieutenant Decker, commander

Iowa class had good hull and strong machines; North Carolina and South Dakota were built for speed also, but there were limitations of weight; USN intentionally went for shirter, better protected hull.