Forget the cargo pods--make it with a forward gun that does a hideous amount of damage but has only a totally forward firing arc and maybe a fifty meter range. Give it an incredible explosion bloom and grinding crunching sound for an explosion. Then you have a ship muncher--kind of like a kamikaze cap-killer. I was thinking of the USS Campbell loaded with explosives in WWII and sailed into an enemy harbor to ram and destroy cap ships/port facilities--you could even make its secondary weapon a blast radius damage area when it dies.