Hardpoint
Videos
Page
A hardpoint is an attachment location on a structural frame designed to transfer force and carry an external or internal load. The term is usually used to refer to the mounting points on the airframe of military aircraft that carry weapons, ordnances and support equipments, and also include hardpoints on the wings or fuselage of a military transport aircraft, commercial airliner or private jet where external turbofan jet engines are often mounted.
An A-10 Thunderbolt II showing numerous hardpoint mountings
Empty underwing hardpoint on a Boeing P-8 Poseidon
Six GBU-31 JDAM precision guided bombs on an Integrated Conventional Stores Management System (ICSMS) MER with nine stores, under the wing of a B-52
A sectioned Mk. 84 bomb body, showing the suspension lugs, which would normally be perpendicular to the body rather than inline as shown
Gun pod
Videos
Page
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)