Over time, the idea that British artillery during WW2 was known for its effectiveness has taken root in my mind. Is this true, was British artillery actually significantly better or more effective than that of other nations?

There was a question here a while back that discussed the axis opinion of allied troops. The overall consensus was that the Americans, while far from the most fearsome, were noted by German soldiers to have the best coordinated artillery tactics. Americans used the British system, but with a very significant innovation. They pre-computed the firing data for a HUGE number of variations of wind/temperature, barrel wear, elevation differentials, etc. Then for each possible variation, they created a separate calibrated tape measure. Along the tape was printed the gun laying information instead of distance marks. When a firing mission came in, the plotting officer would simply go to a filing cabinet containing the hundreds (thousands?) of these tapes and pull out the correct one for the current meteorological and situational factors. Then the tape would be laid out between the two grid points on the map (the battery's and the target's) and the firing data would be read from the printing on the tape. Apparently there were some other fudges that got thrown in to make the firing even more accurate. Net result was that there were about three minutes elapsed time from the initial fire support call until shells were making the enemy duck. And the firing was almost as accurate as the spotted German fires. Ergo, very responsive explosions exactly where they are wanted. Again, a drawback to the American system is that it requires very accurate and detailed maps (say showing individual farm buildings for instance) which must be plentifully supplied to troops at all levels. However, given the availability of such maps then American artillery could be hellacious. In fact the technique was so easy, that an otherwise ignorant enlisted man could be readily walked through the procedure over radio when all his officers had fallen. Another innovation of the Americans was their ability to obtain accurate fires extremely quickly from a LARGE number of firing batteries. Because of the simplicity and elegance of the tape system, almost any battery in range could fire on any target in any direction. All they had to do was get a request from another firing HQ or even just listen in on other battalion radio nets. No doubt more than one German officer assumed he'd have at least the first 15 or 20 minutes of his surprise attack free of defensive artillery fire. And when the artillery did start to come in, he'd expect to be warned by the initial spotting rounds. Instead he found he was under immediate fire placed directly on his men while many were still crossing the start line. I'm sure it appeared to more than one German that the Americans must have known when and where such attacks were coming. No wonder some Germans were impressed with American artillery.

I will try and find the original post to back this up as I am not a historian.