What is an assertion?

What should one think of the BBC's assertion that "The Scharnhorst was greatly feared. She was the most successful fighting ship of any navy during World War II and she was the bravest ship"?

• From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16265665 My thinking is that the Beeb shouldn't employ people who don't know what they are talking about.

• Answer:

  As Dan says, these statements are no those of the BBC or even the BBCs correspondent they are the memoirs of a British sailor Norman Scarth who was an 18-year-old on board the British naval destroyer HMS Matchless, which participated in the destruction of the Scharnhorst. However, let's break Norman's assertion down: Feared This is a fairly nebulous claim.  If you were a crewman on an British convoy to Murmansk or in a destroyer likely to have to try and defend that convoy, I expect you probably did fear her. She was a powerful battlecruiser and a dangerous adversary. The Royal Navy and RAF certainly devoted a large number of resources to tracking and attempting to destroy all the Kriegsmarine's capital ships. To that extent she was feared.  However, she wasn't any kind of wondership that the British had to live in terror of. On the contrary she spent most of the Second World War avoiding combat with the superior numbers and power of the British Home Fleet. Brave It could be argued that the 'Channel Dash' was brave to the point of foolhardyness. In the battle of the North Cape Scharnhorst fought against thirteen Allied ships including a battleship and four cruisers. After the Scharnhorst was sunk, Admiral Bruce Fraser, the commander of the Royal Navy task force that defeated her concluded: "Gentlemen, the battle against the Scharnhorst has ended in victory for us. I hope that any of you who are ever called upon to lead a ship into action against an opponent many times superior, will command your ship as gallantly as the Scharnhorst was commanded today." I think we can give her this one.   Successful I don't think that you could reallistically argue that Scharnhorst was the most successful warship of World War Two. Scharnhorst sank a cruiser (the HMS Rawlpindi) and an aircraft carrier (HMS Glorious) and had a share in a couple of destroyers. The most successful vessel was probably U-48, which sank 55 ships totalling 321,000 tons. Even if we restrict the competition to surface vessels, USS Enterprise was probably the most successful. According to her presidential unit citation she sank 35 Japanese ships and shot down 185 Japanese aircraft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-48_%281939%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_%28CV-6%29