What if the US Navy had standardized on the pom-pom?

How would the Pacific War have changed if the US Navy standardized on the pom-pom instead of the Bofors?

The pom-pom could provide strong close-range fire, especially against kamikazes, but Bofors offered greater reach; logistics and existing standardization might matter more than a simple technical ranking.

The panel rejects a simple claim that one weapon is universally more compact or flexible, since pom-poms existed in small mounts as well as powerful quadruple and octuple installations. Bofors offered greater reach, valuable through much of the Pacific War, while the pom-pom's dense fire could be useful against late-war kamikazes. Standardization also matters: a navy already committed to one system would need a strong reason to accept the ammunition and logistics burden of adding the other.