As per the above posts:

1. German sub hulls were the best of the war...no allied or axis nation had subs that could dive as deep or survive such a pounding.The V11C type 42 design (never went into service as it was replaced by the type XXI) would have had its pressure hull made out of special Krupps steel which would have given it a diving depth of 300 meters and a calculated crush depth of 500 meters. This sort of depth performance is common now but was revolutionary for the 40's.

2. TDC. The german TDC was second only to the American TDC. All other nations had very primative Target Data Computers (english boats had to aim at their targets at gyro angle 0 as they could not put in gyro offsets into their torpedoes).

3. From 1942 onwards the Germans started to resiliantely mount machinery on their subs to cut down on their radiated noise. No other nation started to do this until after the war.

4. Soanr. The germans were way ahead of any other nation when it came to the quality of their sonars. The GHG fitted to all german subs is the direct ancestor of ALL sonars used today on both subs and surface ships. The GHG 'Balkon' fitted to the type XXI was easily capable of detecting convoys out to 100 miles away. Compare this to the performance of the best american sub sonar, 7000 yards and you see how superior the german sonar was.kurt wrote:
>
> I'm not sure exactly to what you are referring, except that
> Clair made quite a bit about the XXI being in bad shape and
> poorly designed / constructed.
>
> As Germany began to use non-ship builders to make submarines,
> under the pressure of allied bombing, some of the quality of
> the late war boats suffered. The XXI - a revolutionary
> design put together in a hurry at the end of the war but
> which never saw service - reflects this. Many of the welds
> were poorly done, and some of the detailed engineering (the
> hydraulics etc.) was oddly done.
>
> Repair and service work done in france, similarly, began to
> suffer in the later war years due to sabotage by french
> workers. (They didn't resist German rule in this way until
> it was clear that the Germans were losing the war, but that
> is another story....). This caused a number of patrol aborts
> and delayed sailings...I might add that the US had a number
> of patrol aborts due to fouled water and food - perhaps more
> % wise then the Germans, and sabotage was certainly not a
> suspicion.
>
> But it is not fair to compare these 1944 - 45 construction
> jobs with the vast number of German boats, which were very
> well made, and could take a beating and keep on ticking. The
> allies were quite impressed with the U-570, and early war
> boat, when they captured it.