Ive played the SH2 and SH3 series and know my Uboats quite well.

Due to recent commitments, Ive not played SH4 very much. Maybe 1/2 dozen times or so.
Just enough to really see its brillance and go sub vs fleet with a buddy.

But without having done much research yet, can someone provide good insights and references
to which USN subs are the best and why? (Analogies to Kriegsmarine uboats might help me too)

Thanks

AV8R
aka WULFPAK at Subclub

Balao is deepest diving, that's a pretty big plus to me.

Anything from Gato forward is "the best". They carry the most torpedoes and each class can dive deeper than the previous class.

I think the Balao also allows for two deck guns later in the war. I'm looking forward to that.

Ive got all these great books on Uboats, now I have to start all over and find some
on the USN subs.

In general, whose subs were better: USN, KM, or IJN?

If I had to go just by simple numbers I would say the Gato/Balao class boats were the best overall design of the war. I know some people will argue with me about this but as far as overall capabilities go these were the best all around boats.

Gato's had a range better than type VII boats (the workhorse of the Atlantic) and only marginally worse than a type IX. They carried much better setups in sea and air radar and many consider their targeting systems the best of the war. The crew accomodations were much better in American boats as well. The USN always placed a premium on crew comfort even in small boats. U-boats were smaller and more cramped overall. The biggest advantage I think the USN subs had over their German counterparts was in firepower. The US could fire a 10 torpedo spread (6 fore and 4 aft tubes) compared to just six on most Type IX submarines. In addition they were faster both submerged and on the surface. The only major advantage the type IX and type VII had over the Gato or Balao class was a deeper crush depth. This was a major plus but didn't make up for the other deficiencies. The USN boats could stay under longer as well.

The Type XXI was a superior boat but it wasn't really fielded in enough numbers to be effective. Had it been released in larger numbers my opinion might have changed.

The Japanese certainly made some interesting, and in some ways superior boats but I am not sure they were the best boats of the war. I won't get into the poor tactics I believed the IJN used these ships for, I honestly don't think that for their expendeture they were all that successful. For the most part these subs were large and unwieldy, turned poorly and were huge targets. They didn't really dive any deeper than any other submarine and were pretty easy to pick out on sonar. Other than the USS Indianapolis they failed to sink any other major capital ship of the war after early 1943. Their use of aircraft was revolutionary I suppose but the time it took to put the plane into use, plus the fact that if the sub had to dive the pilot was essentially screwed mean that they really didn't use the features of the boats much at all. I don't know, maybe if they had utilized the long range of these boats appropriately and used them to harass convoys coming from the west coast then I would be more inclined to include them. To put it simply, they never lived up to their billing.

Technically the Japanese were on par (probably too much time and money spent on oddball types), and with torpedoes they were ahead. They just didn't "get it" when it came to using them. I think type VII was perfect for it's environment with it's more severe dangers, and fleet sub was perfect for Pacific. I would give the edge to the fleet sub for the reasons Tom listed, firepower, fire control, range and crew comfort. Of course the latter 2 are of little importance in simming, unless some sort of increasing fatigue or decreasing morale were modeled accordingly between 2 different types of sub.