Was the short nose Phantom able to carry three gun pods along with the usual two wing tanks and some Sidewinders? <...>
If you're talking about the 20mm gun pods, then no, I don't think so. The gun pods under the wings went in place of the tanks.
Weight wouldn't be that much of a problem, but I guess you'd run into a clearance issue with the undercarriage if you tried to fit them on the inner wing stations. EDIT: see a few posts belowYou could, however, have a couple of 7.62mm Minigun pods. Here's one with FIFTEEN of them!

Don't know whether it was just for show or a serious load-out, though.

"PHANTOMS Forever" (what was he thinking? The correct spelling is obviously Phantoms
Phorever!

) by Robert F. Dorr has two pics of AFRES F-4Ds with GPU-5 30mm gun pods on the centre-lines. Wicked cool!
