What are the pods between the engines and the fuel tanks that look like little jets?
they are...
They are the J85's. They soley make the C-123K a K model. No C-123K's were factory built, they were all converted from B models to the K with the addition of the J85's.
Our's doesnt have the actual jet installed because we sold them when we first got the plane in the 90's to a guy in Alaska who uses like 3-4 C-123K's to support his diamond mines. So he has our engines and uses them. We also removed the super chargers from our engines along with a few other things that i cant remember as we didnt need them for our operations and it would save weight.
Talking about tanks, but there are no fuel tanks actually in the wing. They all are externally located. The mains (and only ones we use) are actually a part of the engine pod. the red colored part is the fuel tank. in an emergency, it can be dropped if need be. we dont use the drop tanks as they leak too much and again, we dont have any real need for them.