The cannon could be attached under the wings or the fuselage of the aircraft as self-contained gun pods with 12-round magazines.

It fired Armour Piercing Composite Rigid (APCR, Tungsten-cored) ammunition or high-explosive shells at 160 rounds per minute.

The concept was rather rudimentary, suffered from poor accuracy, severe weight penalty making the craft vulnerable to fighters, and low ammunition capacity; but could be extremely effective when operated by a sufficiently skilled and practised ground-attack pilot, such as Hans-Ulrich Rudel in his BK 3,7 armed Junkers Ju 87G.

The heavy-calibre autocannon-armed series of Junkers Ju 88P twin-engined attack–bomber destroyer aircraft series used twin BK 3,7 cannon, mounted side-by-side in a conformal ventral fuselage gun pod, in its Ju 88P-2 and P-3 versions.

As with other examples of the P-series, the Ju 88P-2 and P-3 were perceived as failures as anti-tank and bomber destroyer aircraft.