A gun pod is a detachable pod or pack containing machine guns, autocannons, revolver cannons, 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.
One of the first American attempts at a gun pod was the .50-calibre machine gun conformal-mount "blister" pod on the B-25 Mitchell
A Bf 109G-6 of the WW II Luftwaffe's JG 27 in Reichsverteidigung service, armed with two MG 151/20 underwing gun pods
A Mark IID Hurricane of 6 Squadron at Shandur, Egypt (1942)
An autocannon, automatic cannon or machine cannon is a fully automatic gun that is capable of rapid-firing large-caliber armour-piercing, explosive or incendiary shells, as opposed to the smaller-caliber kinetic projectiles (bullets) fired by a machine gun. Autocannons have a longer effective range and greater terminal performance than machine guns, due to the use of larger/heavier munitions, but are usually smaller than tank guns, howitzers, field guns, or other artillery. When used on its own, the word "autocannon" typically indicates a non-rotary weapon with a single barrel. When multiple rotating barrels are involved, such a weapon is referred to as a "rotary autocannon" or occasionally "rotary cannon", for short.
US M242 Bushmaster 25 mm autocannon mounted on an M2 Bradley armoured fighting vehicle
ZU-23-2, a twin barrel 23×152 mm anti-aircraft autocannon from the 1960s still in service with some former members of the Warsaw Pact
German BK 5 50 mm aircraft autocannon displayed in front of the Me 262A jet, a design once tested with it
XM307 25 mm caliber man portable Automatic Grenade Launcher, part of the cancelled OCSW program