Was HACS an ineffective fire-control system?

Was the Royal Navy's High Angle Control System as bad as some accounts suggest?

No. HACS had real limitations outside its intended long-range engagement geometry, but it remained useful, was repeatedly improved, and integrated well with other shipboard systems.

The High Angle Control System was not simply useless. It was designed for long-range, high-angle engagements and became less comfortable as aircraft entered short and medium ranges outside its original assumptions. The Royal Navy updated it throughout the war, and properly trained crews could gain useful situational awareness from its integration with the ship. The fuze-keeping clock receives a particularly favorable assessment for its adaptability. American systems were better in several respects, but they also embodied compromises, so the comparison should not be reduced to one navy being wholly competent and the other wholly deficient.