Recognizing national stereotypes in naval history

Which navies are commonly misjudged because historians rely on national stereotypes?

Almost every navy can be flattened this way, with the Italian, Austro-Hungarian, Japanese and American navies providing clear examples.

Popular accounts often underrate the Regia Marina, while the Austro-Hungarian Navy suffers a similar loss of attention despite strong wartime performance. The Imperial Japanese Navy can appear in the same book as either terrifyingly effective or incomprehensibly foolish. The US Navy is alternately caricatured as recklessly aggressive or excessively cautious. Readers should be suspicious whenever a narrative maps too neatly onto one national stereotype, especially when the evidence should show different institutions and commanders behaving differently over time.