Youre generalising and assuming that what one persons account is will actually be the truth. Like Pat I respect your fathers opinion, but with respect its simply biased and quite possibly wrong. You say you respect the opinions of those that saw the SS fight, and yet only accept the opinions of a single person who saw them fight. Im going to suggest to you that this is a far too narrow a sample on which to form a proper opinion, you would do much better to read some books on the formations involved, from which I would recommend some histories of the formations also.
Because if you truly respect the opinions of those that fought alongside the SS units you should also read other peoples accounts rather than just your fathers. Placing reliance for your opinion on one persons account might give you an excellent series of anecdotes, but it leaves your opinion open to bias and also lack of overall understanding. Unless your father happened to be a Wermacht general or similar its unlikely his opinion of the SS would be based on anything more than a surface level and be incapable of understanding the larger picture. It would be akin to taking a GIs opinion of the British army slow, arrogant, tradition bound etc and assuming this was accurate. If as you claim you support the notion of opinions and quotations more than anything else, you would do well to do more in depth and wide ranging research also from other opinions.
On the 6th SS, yes they were held, but this was an extreme situation you might remember. I dont recall the US marines having to fight in snow covered fields with supply roads blocked by snow and moving over wooded mountains in such conditions. The 6th SS were also hampered by lack of supplies (more than normal, not more than they needed) and other issues. Assuming this is the norm of SS fighting is little short of close-minded my friend. Also as I have mentioned, the SS had a tendency for the opposite also, wittman being a small sample, so their rating as piss poor is not even close to the entire story.
Your comment on battles: Arnhem was more than simply an allied cock up. The Germans reacted fast and well (9th SS had been trained specifically in anti-airborne actions a year before) and operate as individual minute formations, blocking the enemy often without orders or need for them. The junior officers knew their roles and performed brilliantly in them against an elite fighting formation without higher co-ordination for much of the first day. This smacks more of adaptability and initiative than piss-poor troops who could only win when the British screwed up, yes the allies messed up the campaign, but the Germans played a more than active role in the defeat.
Away from Arnhem, your definition of a battle is important, as the SS scored many an individual victory against their opposition only for other formations to be crushed around them, hence in terms of campaigns their number of victories were small, in battles their victory numbers were high. Again I cite Villiers Bocage (wittman) as an example, or Kharkov with the SS panzer Korps during which they destroyed over 600 Russian tanks, probably over twice their own number had they all been even at full strength (which they were not). Or the capture of Belgrade, a capital city by a handful of SS recon troops in 1941.
On your fathers Impression: Im going to say this with the best of intentions my friend, your father is either biased as most Wermacht formations were about the SS, or simply not in combat with the right formations alongside him. The wermacht overall despised the SS formations they fought with, but the senior officers also respected them. This is why the proper SS divisions were in the forefront of many a major offensive such as Kursk and the Bulge. They werent there to soak up losses they were there because they were an elite combat formation with some of the best equipment and training anywhere in the entire Reich. In my experience the only formations that could even come close to matching their performance regularly was the likes of the Armys Gross Deustchland, Charlemegne and Panzer Lehr, or the Falschirmjaeger and Hermann Goering Divisions of the Luftwaffe. To accurately define the quality of the SS divisions you really have to divide them into three main types of formation:
SS Panzer Division (7 in all): These were the type I refer to, and believe you me, they wiped the floor with opposition on similar numbers to them more often than not. They were almost always highly mechanised, well equipped with heavy armour and had some of the finest commanders in the entire Reich to lead them. Their record speaks highly on diverse fronts of battle and diverse enemies. Yes they committed war crimes (more on this later), but were a fine fighting formation.
SS Non-Panzer Division (1st class) These included a variety of formations, many of whom were Foreign, but had a semi-decent fighting record such as Polezei (4th) and Wallonien. They lacked the mechanised ability, panzers and elite status of the Panzer formations more often than not, but did fight well under such conditions
SS Non-Panzer (2nd Class) These are the troops who more match your father is more accurate about, the formations formed almost entirely for anti-partisan duties. They werent formed to fight trained armies, and when they did they got their butts kicked from here to next week all too often. Some included those such formation as under Dirwelanger and others. These are the cold hearted mass murderers and little more you mention. These are the formations who committed war crimes probably month in month out in their histories. These are the formations that slaughtered Poles in Warsaw and a fair few did have combat histories consisting of one bloody quelling of resistance after another. Comparing these piss poor (because on the front line they were) formations with the more elite units such as the 7 panzer formations is impossible, they barely count as divisions half the time, and when they do they werent even in the same league as the 7 elite heading up the list.
So I recommend to you that you do yourself a favour and widen your source material, I didnt rely on my grandfathers comments for the abilities of the American army because it would be narrow and ill formed, my grandfathers were brave men, they were not military analysts capable of judging such a situation, unless you care to suggest otherwise, assuming your father knows better than the overall majority of authors on such formations is totally close minded just to prove your point.
On the Airforce: You need to do more research, German ground support had moved on somewhat from 1941-43. Their Henschel 129 was one of the finest of the war and the upgraded Stuka (when protected I admit) would do reasonably well also. Your comment on time on target is interesting, but probably wasnt quite as accurate as often the allies (well at least the British ones) in NW Europe employed a kind of taxi rank of typhoons over vital engagements. European battles were constant and drawn out over months, providing constant air-cover during nearly 12 continuous months is a little different from providing said cover for a short time at any one point.
On the airpower overall, well actually no, you assume and simplify to far again. The SS formations contained more than their fare share of both heavy (88mm) and light (20mm) AA guns more than suited to the role of denying your air force their freedom of movement. Average composition tended to be 10 heavy and 20 light. Also some mechanised AA could be expected, quad 20 mm and single 37mm guns on tanks and what not. I grant you the 88s were all too often adopted for A/T roles, but this would wreak havoc on any Sherman/Stuart force. Id go as far to suggest that those 10 heavy flak guns, supported by dug in infantry would make mincemeat of your armour, all too frequently it did anyway.
Your comment on Western/Eastern Front/Far East shows your inability to grasp the quality of Russian formations or the nature of the engagements. As for toughest battles since the marines never had the mispleasure of engaging armoured units or even anything like such warfare, the ability to define whether it was a difficult engagement or not is limited.
Yes lets look at Kursk, the SS formations backed by the army faced off against vastly superior numbers in tanks and ridiculously more guns than they could ever hope to cope with. The tanks were either unsuited to sweeping offensives (tiger) or experimental and too prone to engine problems, again screwing with their ability to attack (panther). Youre right, the Russians lost more tanks, its not hard to work out after all, they HAD more tanks for one, and secondly could afford to loose more tanks to gain their victories.
Which is where your point looses out, you like quotes, well heres one my own grandfather told me about the cold facts of armoured war against the germans, namely For every panther you meet you have to take 4 or 5 shermans. Youll loose 3-4 of them killing it. And that IS borne out by facts also. No major engagement I know of in 1944 saw German tank losses equal allied ones, west or east front. Had that ever happened the war could have been over reasonably quickly given the rate of loss in allied formations. You talk of the Kursk battle as if this should denote the inability of the Russians in combat, Im telling you this was the norm for all allies, so simply dismissing victories against Russian formations is close minded and selective to prove a point.
Budapest: It was suicide, no fuel, formations had been shot to hell anyway and were asked to relieve a position in the middle of winter-spring without a decent way of moving to the front (ie rail) that was protected by infinitely more powerful Enemy formations just on the orders of a maniac. Not an entirely good sample whatsoever.
Bulge: Reasons outlined above. Additional thoughts would be that I dont recall the allied formations in the west doing especially well either. This was an almost pointless attack anyway, any result would have been negligible. You also quite neglect to notice the fact that the SS formations DID inflict losses on a high scale in the early days of the battle.
On the Russians: Well thank you for demeaning our then allies so efficiently, but your attitude to them is blinkered also. Lets look at Russian armour shall we? Firstly you have the T34, in its original form superior to any German tank then in service in 1941, and most western tanks until a year later with the Sherman. The catalyst behind the Panther. Or in its second guise, the 85mm role the tank offered one of the best of its time (early 44) in the allied armies, look at its comparison forces, the American/British army were STILL using Shermans, the Ronson. Compare their upgraded versions, the 76mm Sherman was quite inferior in armament and armour to the T34/85, the firefly was superior in arnament, but inferior in armour. Then moving on the next big thing in Western Allied armour, the Pershing, well it was about as good as a Josef Stalin, but over a year later than the original JS. Thats without beginning to mention the KV tanks that came before such armour.
So your derision of the SS capacity for defeating what was an entirely capable enemy that always outnumbered them (well thats the same as on the western front) only with better tanks is rather pointless. Yes most of their infantry were markedly inferior in training, as where some of their crews, but they had superior aspects in their formations also, the armour and so on. Some Russian formations also were easily the match of their western Equiivalent.
On the Division sized battles:
Ok firstly German formations rarely either had their full complement for their divisions in the west, or when they did their battles were in poorly planned/supplied and fought under poor conditions such as the Bulge. When under strength the Division tended towards Ad-hoc (ie improvisation?) kampfgruppes who more often than not held back divisions when on the defensive such as in the battles to break out of Normandy. I really havent the time to write up the entirety of the actions the SS formations engaged in during this period, just please read some of the books on the subject.
Also one thing you neglect to note is that your question in itself is difficult to address. Battles of this period and theatre rarely can be separated into individual division to division engagements so neatly as youd like. If the 10th SS detached their recon battalion to support an infantry division then attacked a US armoured division for example, who is to say the recon formation wouldnt have played a vital role? Whos to say that without the difficulties encountered by weather and supplies that the 6th SS would have been stopped?
My point here is that we can debate the possibility of a marine formation engaging an SS formation and the likely result but so many other factors enter the equation. As they did during the war, so such division/division debates are of questionable merit.
Oh and on the 1 day issue, I didnt refer to the ability to smash the entire division in one day, but during that day you would expect the SS formation to do most of the damage, cutting the marine formations off from each other, penetrating deep into their defensive areas and damaging supplies, artillery bases and so on. The actual fighting and driving out of the division may take more time, but the true damage would be done inside a day or maybe two. Arnhem was lost inside 1 or 2 days, it was a forgone conclusion inside the city by then, thats just 1 example.
Gotta continue in post 2, this is getting too long
Can't remember exact compositions of SS panzer divisions atm, but I assume they had at least 2 battalions of medium tanks (as per standard 1944 panzer division), ie one Panther and one Panzer IV battalion, each I'd guess at about 40 odd tanks, so between them more than the marines. Beyond that, tank for tank the Panther would simply wipe the floor with the marine armour, until 1945 with the pershing the americans pretty much didn't build a single tank that could match a panther, and some reports on the pershing I've read don't always have it come out on top in battle against panthers either... The panzer IV was easily the equal of the Sherman also.
As I have pointed out, on all arms the marines would either be outmatched or reliant on the other parts of the US military to ensure they had any type of sucess. Many of the advantages of the SS formation not even adaptability could cover such as the vastly superior armour, the faster formations, the combined arms tactics and so on. It would be likely to me that 3 tank divisions (with some 100 tanks, many of which would be panthers alone possibly) would easily eject such marines as had landed. As it was the US forces had a hard enough time on D-day and the British/Canadians were endangered soon after by Armour on a lesser scale. 
Now that's a long couple of posts! 
