Fuel Explosion

[С у к а]

How do fuel tanks truly work. Sometimes my fuel tanks and blown up and nothing happens or the crew turns orange-red, other times I get one shot, another time I survive unscathed, same for enemies regardless of nations, I can oneshot them and other times the fuel tank absorbs all spalling.

[Khergit Horse Archer]

its all rng lol, just aim for ammo or crew if you can, unless it's t34 or kv1 then fuel might eat your shots ;p

[Mac]

A lot of it is definately RNG and I am not entirely sure either how exactly it works but I think it also depends a little on the type of fuel and what type of shell you hit the fuel tank with. I could be wrong but just judging from experience I would say I see fuel tanks blow up more often if I hit a fuel tank with an explosive APHE shell for example compared to an AP shell.

If we are talking about planes (yes planes can also have fuel explosions) then you also have to factor in the amount of fuel that you have left. There is definately a correlation between how much fuel you have and how easy it is to be set on fire or to have your fuel explode. No fuel at all means no explosion possible and almost impossible to bet set on fire while lots of fuel means you are very likely to blow up like fireworks if you get hit.

As I said though I am speaking mostly from experience here and don't really have any "hard data" to back this up but that is pretty much how I would describe it.

[PapaSnickers]

It seems like fuel explosions usually work if the shell velocity is incredibly high like sabot, darts and HEAT. But I have had moments where a low velocity round will detonate fuel tanks but rarely does that happen.

[Chaoslink]

I think it was OddbawZ that suggested this, but I kinda agree based on my experiences too. Fuel explosions that actually kill your tank are typically mass overkill damage being applied to the fuel tank. War Thunder works with health bars. It does. Every module in your tank has a health bar. The idea is that, if you can deal an extensively high amount of damage to a fuel tank, it'll detonate large enough to kill the tank by itself. Otherwise, you just ignite it and a fire lights. Its also possible to just break it and have it go away, acting only as extra armor.

[Zulu]

It doesn't work, nothing in this game really works. Just hope that you get the fuel explosion.