There are other, less obvious, but hugely important, bits of "tech" that marked the USN, in particular which made huge differences in effectiveness. Possibly the greatest, and least appreciated, of these is the American gun mounts, not that the 5"/38 wasn't a spectacular weapon, but the mount allowed it to truly shine. Starting with the first powered mount (the Mark 27 used for the 5"/25s on the Brooklyn class) used for secondary armament, the USN had absolutely break through performance, The Mark 27 had a train rate of 20°/sec, the powered mounts for the 5"/38 had train rates between 25°/sec and 34°/sec. By comparison the RN mounts for the 4.5"/45 QF started the war with 15°/sec train rates and reached 20°/sec later in the war, with some late war construction receiving the Mark V with a 25°/sec rate.
On the other hand the IJN train rate for their 12.7cm/50 (the standard armament on most IJN DD) was 4°/sec and the rate for the 12.7cm/40 was 12°/sec, with some late war refits getting an improved mount with 16°/sec. Even the mid/late war 10cm/65 (found on the Akizuki class DD, the Oyodo class Cl, and the carriers Taiho and Shinano) were saddled with a 16°/sec train rate mount, something that had a serious impact on what was otherwise an exceptionally good weapon. The KM standard heavy AAA gun, the 10.5CM/65 was more or less crippled by a train rate of 8° to 10°/sec.
Train rate is a critical, perhaps the critical, factor in getting a gun positioned to engage, followed by elevation rate (even with the best gun aiming radar or manual direction on Earth if the gun barrle can't track the aircraft it is going to miss). The 12° rate was reasonable against early WW II attack aircraft, which tended to be limited to 100-125 knots while carrying a weapon, however, by mid 1942 that speed had jumped top 175-200 and the 12° mounts simply couldn't stay on any sort of crossing target, by 1944 the speed had reached 250 knots and 16°/sec was insufficient, even 20°/sec was marginal against some aircraft.
This is the sort of more or less hidden "tech" where the U.S. and UK excelled. The U.S. also had a huge advantage in another piece of "modern" warfare, production/assembly lines and their related motion studies. When one applies assembly line motion study methods to repetitive tasks, like loading a gun mount, efficiency increases, frequently by a remarkable percentage when ship commanders drilled they gun crews. The U.S. was the pioneer in motion study (which was one of the reasons that American assembly lines were so effective during the War, and why Japanese factories became incredibly productive after the post-war reconstruction period and U.S. methods were adopted and improved) and it aided the U.S. military throughout the War.