Best tank engines of WWII

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The high compression ratio in a diesel engine 'explodes' the diesel fuel, no other ignition source is required (once hot enough),
& yet diesel engines do not suffer the problematic ignition/deflagration complications of spark ignition gas/petrol 'burn' engines.

The shock of that hot piston squashing air tightly up into a fraction of its prior space - just as a measured/timed squirt of diesel
is injected - is what makes that characteristic diesel rattle, & is analogous to what happens to a tank which blows up when hit.
 
Tanks that "blow up" when hit are most likely to have had their magazine breached.

Diesel does not explode like gasoline and an AFV's fuel tank is not strong enough to resist the shockwave of a projectile penetrating it to the point of simulating an engine's piston cylinder.

Depending on the type of projectile striking the fuel tank, it could ignite the fuel as it showers and in turn ignite the rest of the fuel. But again, not like a Hollywood fireball.
 
Hollywood bullshit aside, check some real combat footage. A large-calibre round at supersonic shockwave velocity hits with intense pressures.

(The explosive nature of diesel fuel is something the 'watchers' flag - if you go searching, & recruiters obviously don't want young guys
to know too much about their potential vulnerability - which may be why those Russian vid-game guys are so 'in your face' with it.)

Edit: Fixed typo.
 
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I'm sure that if I scour the interwebs hard enough and use the right combination of keywords, I could find blogs about the "secret nature of exploding diesel the government doesn't want you to know".

Right there with flat earth, NASA moon landing cover up, chemtrail geo-engineering and flaming strawberry poptart pastries.

The flaming pop tarts are actually pretty cool, to be honest.
 
J.A.W. said:
Don't do it, that Oklahoma terrorist used diesel, as an essential ingredient of his nasty device, its a def' flag - you've been warned.
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Sigh. You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

The Oklahoma terrorist used ANFO, ammonium nitrate & fuel oil (=diesel), a common industrial explosive used extensively in quarrying etc as it's cheap and relatively safe to handle. The thing is, it's the AN that is the actual explosive that detonates. It works perfectly fine without being mixed with fuel oil, see for instance the massive Beirut disaster a few years ago, or a number of previous AN disasters.

The explosive decomposition of AN results in a surplus of oxygen. Hence mixing in a source of fuel that can react with the oxygen increases the power of the explosive. That fuel can in principle be about anything that burns and can be finely mixed into the AN. Such as more or less any liquid hydrocarbon, or finely powdered aluminum. Fuel oil (diesel) is in practice used because it's cheap, readily available, and relatively safe to handle. It has absolutely nothing to do with any kind of explosive properties of diesel.
 
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GrauGeist said:
Gasoline (Petrol) is an aromatic flammable compound.
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Gasoline can contain aromatics, but it is not obligatory. Gasoline is hydrocarbon flammable compound.
It can be compressed (vapor mixture with air) by an APHE explosion in an underfilled fuel tank and detonate (not burn). No fire inside (very frequently), all the shells are preserved, but the hull is destroyed, even the turret could have been blown off in a Hollywood style. It follows from the official report where dozens (or even hundreds) of the destroyed tanks were investigated.
 
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Keep in mind that gasoline (Petrol) is aromatic flammable, not combustible. The lower the level of fuel in the tank, the more volatile it becomes.

Diesel does not react the same way, as it's a combustible compound - 1/4 tank, 2/3 tank or full, remains the same. Diesel does not have volatile (aromatic) vapors.
 
*sigh*

I am an ASE certified master tech, I have been involved in the automotive industry for nearly fifty years. As such, I *may* know WTF I am talking about.

The dumbass in OKC used an accelerant which IS ABSENT in an armored fighting vehicle.

Tell me which military has ammonia nitrate in ANY quantity onboard any of their machines.

Go ahead, we'll wait.
 
GrauGeist said:
Keep in mind that gasoline (Petrol) is aromatic flammable, not combustible. The lower the level of fuel in the tank, the more volatile it becomes.
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It can detonate as well. Should I cite numerous publications where gasoline detonation was investigated?
GrauGeist said:
Diesel does not react the same way, as it's a combustible compound - 1/4 tank, 2/3 tank or full, remains the same. Diesel does not have volatile (aromatic) vapors.
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I quoted an official document. No fire, no shell explosion, but hull is destroyed. No such effect if fuel tanks were completely filled. No such effect if pierced by a shaped projectile. Seems, that diesel fuel can be vaporized over the lower detonation limit under typical combat conditions.
 

As we're talking about organic chemistry, it's been over 150 years since 'aromatic' has stopped being defined as something related to the olfactory response of a volatile chemical, and almost 100 years since the quantum mechanical workings of aromatics as delocalized pi orbitals satisfying Hückels rule (for monocyclical aromatics) was worked out. Some aromatic compounds are volatile and have a characteristic smell, many others not.

For gasoline, most gasoline does contain aromatics as aromatics provide excellent octane. But it's not necessary, there is e.g. 'alkylate gasoline' on the market which doesn't contain aromatics (nor alkenes (olefins)). Mostly used for things like chainsaws or small outboard engines in particularly environmentally sensitive areas, as alkylate burns cleaner and the unburned fuel in the two-stroke exhaust is less toxic than for normal gasoline.

GrauGeist said:
*sigh*

I am an ASE certified master tech, I have been involved in the automotive industry for nearly fifty years. As such, I *may* know WTF I am talking about.
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If you look at the post you answered to here, you'll see I wasn't answering to you.
 
High explosives create a detonation with a supersonic blast wave. Fuels will deflagrate, which is basically a really fast burn. So you won't get the same blast effect explosives will produce. The only thing fuel vapour in a tank going up will create is a fireball, not an explosion.

So, as per physics and the accumulation of years of study, liquid diesel does not detonate from a projectile hit.
 
Once again (posted previously).
"...24% of tanks were destroyed only due to internal explosion, and no traces of fire were found in them. Often even the ammunition was completely preserved in the stowage."
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An official report.
 
bf109xxl said:
Once again (posted previously).

An official report.
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My reply was made to assertions that diesel liquid fuel explodes when hit by a projectile.

The report you mention agrees that the fuel does not explode - only the vapours when HE explodes. This
is different to the original assertion which is at odds with the report you quote.

In other words, the circumstances quoted from your report make sense given the percentage of vapour
in the tank when hit whereas the other assertion does not so no one is disagreeing with you at all.
 
WARSPITER said:
whereas the other assertion does not so no one is disagreeing with you at all.
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Hmmm... What about this one?
WARSPITER said:
The only thing fuel vapour in a tank going up will create is a fireball, not an explosion.
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The report disagrees with this assertion stating quite clearly that the primary cause of the hull destruction was an explosion of fuel vapors in an underfilled tank, not a fireball.
 
bf109xxl said:
"...24% of tanks were destroyed only due to internal explosion, and no traces of fire were found in them. Often even the ammunition was completely preserved in the stowage."
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This part of the report does not state that an internal explosion occurred due to fuel vapours exploding. It doesn't actually state what the explosion was
caused by.

No military is going to accept a vehicle for production with diesel if it is so vulnerable in the first place.

Also worth noting is that Germany only decided against diesel engines for tanks as they were advised synthetic diesel would be difficult
to produce - this was the situation pre-war. By 1942 the situation had changed dramatically and moves were finally made to work
towards a full diesel changeover. By then it was too late with not enough time left for development.
 
WARSPITER said:
This part of the report does not state that an internal explosion occurred due to fuel vapours exploding. It doesn't actually state what the explosion was
caused by.
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Only fuel tank explosions are considered in the report. All other reasons are listed separately.
WARSPITER said:
No military is going to accept a vehicle for production with diesel if it is so vulnerable in the first place.
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The diesel has other advantages. And the presence of fuel tanks in the crew compartment was the problem of the T-34 design, not of diesel tanks generally.
I guess, in 1942 Kriegsmarine submarines consumed all the diesel as before. But you can disprove my opinion with numbers, of course.
 
Unfortunately we seem to have a number of different definitions of "explosion" going on here.

My experience is limited, firefighters don't do much investing of incidents except for a casual look around as we are picking up.
I have seen the effects of several "gas explosions" from piped natural gas to a few bungled arson jobs.
If you apply even a few pounds per square inch over a big enough area you can get walls to move off of foundations or even distributed around the yard of the house.

Gasoline is a lot more dangerous than many people think, so is diesel. IF it is atomized and distributed in the proper proportions.

HE has both the fuel and the oxidizer contained in the explosive. With either gasoline or diesel if you have a few ounces distributed in a confined space (like a tank.) you have quite a bit of explosive mixture. Assuming 35 cu ft of space inside the tank you have about 2.8lbs of air or 0.56lbs of oxygen inside the tank. So the equivalent of perhaps 3/4lb of high explosive? enough to lift the turret? a turret that is 62in in diameter gets 1 1/2 tons of lift per 1lb of pressure.

A high velocity round that penetrates a fuel tank and sprays fuel into the tank's interior has the potential of creating a fuel/air bomb inside the vehicle.
The diesel fuel itself is not going to detonate inside the tank.
 
Shortround6 said:
Unfortunately we seem to have a number of different definitions of "explosion" going on here.
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"Explosion" means "no traces of fire" inside the destroyed combat vehicle.
Shortround6 said:
Gasoline is a lot more dangerous than many people think, so is diesel. IF it is atomized and distributed in the proper proportions.
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The Soviets revealed that German gasoline tanks are not worse (at least) in sense of the fire safety.
HE projectile explodes inside the fuel tank with fuel vapors and initiate detonation of the latter, that enhances the explosive effect of the projectile. The effect was observed only for HE projectiles of caliber 76mm and larger.
 
bf109xxl said:
I guess, in 1942 Kriegsmarine submarines consumed all the diesel as before. But you can disprove my opinion with numbers, of course.
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Highest number of U-boats in operation at one time was 118. They were not all type IX's but we can use them anyway as
they were the longest ranged using 165 tons of fuel for a trip to the US and back. That, rounded up is 20,000 tons per month
for the U-boats at their peak use.

Germany produced over 150,000 transport vehicles which were diesel powered as well.

Synthetic diesel production alone easily covered both requirements and the story of the Kreigsmarine needing all diesel
production is an unfortunate myth as by 1944 synthetic diesel production alone was 65,000 tons per month.

By 1942 it was realised diesel was becoming easier to obtain than petroleum for the army and the move to repower future
AFV's became a priority. From July 1942 a working committee was formed from Daimler-Benz, Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz, Krupp,
Maybach, Tatra, Simmering, and Steyr. The desired outcome was to start production of suitable diesels in early 1943. This
wasn't going to be achieved and was also hampered by deliberate interference from Maybach.

Other reasons for change included reliability, mileage, and safety for the crews compared to gasoline engines / fuel storage.
 
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