page_title: Gun pod
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Gun pod / World War II
context_page_description: A gun pod is a detachable pod or pack containing machine guns, autocannons or rotary cannons and ancillaries, mounted externally on a vehicle such as a military aircraft which may or may not also have its own guns.
context_section_description: 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.
  Other countries also used gun pods on their aircraft; the U.S. SBD Dauntless could be equipped with two gun pods on each wing, each with two M2 Browning machine guns.
caption: A Bf 109G-6 of the WW II Luftwaffe's JG 27 in Reichsverteidigung service, armed with two MG 151/20 underwing gun pods.
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