re: How were German armored divisions so much more elite than their US counterparts

Good stuff guys, good thread to read.

Question for you WWII buffs. I'm not too familiar with Germany's navy other than the U-Boat, but how different would the war have been for the US/Allies if Germany had a naval fleet along the lines of the Japanese (or the US)?

The Pacific was a cold-hearted bitch, so if we had to fight that front, while also dealing with an equally formidable navy on the other front, how big of a difference would that have made? It seems that Germany was pretty much all in on the U-Boat (and having good success until they had to battle a real fleet) but lacking in other departments of naval warfare (specifically battleships/aircraft carriers....at least I think..)....It would seem to me that the US at least would be stretched pretty thin in that scenario, and might not have had the impact we did. The Allies would still have won IMO, but it might have taken quite a bit longer. Did we even have carriers in the Atlantic or were they all focused on the war in the Pacific? I mean, maybe we didn't have any over there because we didn't need any over there, so we were able to focus the majority of our naval fleet on the Pacific...but if we had to split them up because we were fighting fierce wars with other carrier divisions in both oceans, things might be different?

Seriously, WWII has to be, for me, the most fascinating war ever.