From the book: The Battle of Kursk.

Quote
Russian tanks carried on their rear decks a metal drum containing reserve fuel supplies. A hit on the drum ignited the fuel and caused the tank to “brew up”

Brew up?

Brew up's a pretty standard term for ignited tanks so I couldn't dispute that, I may however have some dispute with the suggestion that the external drums were that much of a hazard as has been discussed here before.
Cheers,
Adam.

Cheers, Adam.

Also, most Russian tanks - certainly the T-34 - did I believe use Diesel which is fairly difficult to ignite, unlike petrol.

yes we had a few pages about this......diesel fuel doesent ignite, its quite safe i think the russians knew what they were doing when they put diesel on the outside, im sure if it was standard gasoline, they would have hidden the external tanks...

I've read the other thread also but there is still something I wonder; How come the diesel did not freeze? Some kind of anti-freeze maybe?

Rudel, the most famous Stuka pilot, reports in his book he often saw Soviet tanks carrying the fuel drums.

Diesel never actually 'freezes' as such but it starts to thicken up at about -10DegC which can clog filters. The Russians were very skilled and resourceful about thinning fuels in winter conditions by using small quantities of gasolene etc

Entertaining group of Finns get their t34 started here , If I remember right the T34 has a fairly powerful compressed air starter for really cold weather which does help to blast the diesel sludge through somewhat.

According to this

http://www.brownoil.com/msdsdiesel3.htm

Diesel will freeze at -51F (-46C), but as Martin said, it will pass by several phases where heavier moleculles will coalesce and form a progressively thicker wax surface layer. However this can be controlled by adding gasoline or alcohol. Guess what kind of alcohol a good Russian would put in, after sampling the original of course ;)

Even diesel will explode if hit by a projectile. The Russian tanks, at least later on in production, had an ejector to drop the tanks when they went into comboat.

Just popping the link in from that other external tanks thread. Fire test of external petrol drums on a Centurion . Seems very significant to me even considering the differences between Centurion & T34.
Cheers,
Adam

Generally, tanks burn or explode due to ammunition fires not fuel ones. The T-34 had an advantage in most of the ammunition being stored very low in the tank inside three round aluminum cases making ammunition fires difficult to start. The Diesel the Russians use is much thicker and heavier than Western diesel fuels also making it difficult to ignite. The external tanks are generally placed where any hit that ruptures the tank will spill fuel onto armor and then to the ground.
While one might get such tanks to ignite it is unlikely to put the tank out of action.

On ammunition, note how after the US went to wet storage on their Shermans (the ammunition was surrounded by a water jacket) that Sherman losses by fire were lower than for Panthers.

To von Poop I add that it is clear those Centurion external tanks contained gasoline not diesel.

You have to remember that gasoline is very volatile and diesel oil is not, that is, gasoline will fill the empty space on a tank with fumes (a very rich ratio of highly flammable fumes / air) whereas diesel will cause only a very weak concentration. Therefore a gas tank when hit will have a much higher likelyhood of igniting the fumes (the liquid will ignite when pouring out the ruptured tank) than diesel.

And please do an experiment for me: pour a bit of gasoline in your driveway and throw a match at it and see what happens, and then do the same with diesel oil. Diesel will NOT ignite.

Remember that to have diesel do anything useful inside an engine you have to have it injected at a carefully balanced fuel/air ratio, and then have it violently compressed to a high rate, otherwise the engine won't go.

This reminds me of the boob on Terminator 2, when the T-1000's truck ignites after two cords make a spark.

Don't pour gas on your drive and light it !! It goes BOOM!

Za, I'd agree 100% with the above (and specified petrol in the link title). I included the Centurion article purely to illustrate how little damage was done to the tank by a large external fire, only the tyres were damaged. Having been a child pyromaniac I'm fully aware of how hard it can be to ignite diesel ;) , though far from impossible on a battlefield. My point was that I don't think it would matter that much if they did catch fire; Diesel or Petrol.
Cheers,
Adam.