Gun pod

In World War II the Third Reich's Luftwaffe made use of many different, and most often rigidly mounted, conformal and suspended-mount gun pod systems usually called Waffenbehälter (prefix of WB, literally 'weapon container') or Waffenträger (prefix of WT, literally 'weapon carrier'), and carrying anything from rifle caliber MG 81 machine guns, all the way up to the enormous Bordkanone anti-tank cannon based ordnance weapon series, ranging from 37 to 75mm in caliber, though the usual underwing conformal gun pods fitted to Bf 109 and Fw 190 single engined fighters used either the MG 151/20 or MK 108 in gun pod mounts.

The Bristol Blenheim Mk.1F of the Royal Air Force was a night fighter conversion of the twin engine light bomber equipped with airborne interception radar and armed with four .303 in (7.7 mm) Browning machine gun in a special gun pack under the fuselage.

The RAF Hawker Hurricane Mk.IID of 1942 was an early and extremely successful example of tank busting aircraft of the North African campaign armed with two 40 mm (1.57 in) Vickers S gun with 15 rounds mounted in gondola-style pods, one under each wing.

Soviet experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s led to an unusual innovation in the form of the SPPU series of gun pods, which have traversable barrels allowing them to continue to fire on a fixed target as the aircraft passes overhead.

Gun pods are commonly carried on military helicopters, and are often fitted to light aircraft to equip them for counter-insurgency operations.