Hi Guys. Maybe some of you could shed some light on a subject that I have been talking about with some Swedish modellers.

When did the Russians start connecting the external fuel cells, to the main fuel system? Its clear on the likes of the T55, that these are connected, and the earliest Ive seen this is on a JS3, although that is most likly post WW2 (and also a model .... Modelling the JS tanks by Nicola Cortese).
According to AFV interiors, (Yes, I saved loads of pages before they closed down) ... "By the way, the external fuel tanks did not connect directly to the engine fuel feed system, so all that fuel had to be hand pumped into the internal tanks before it could be used".

Thanks for any help offered ..in advance!

There are several good sources to tell and so I just use them right now :

The external fuel tanks weren't connected to the inner ones indeed! They were hand-pumped into the inner ones before a battle, attack, defence.. on: T-54, T-55 (A / AM) the first tanks using an electric pump used to be the T-72s AND the updated T-55 AM2B!

I added a pic of a T-72 in NVA-service (model) were u can see the connected tubes! The same construction was used at the T-55 AM2/B

I hope I could help a bit. If there are more questions... just ask

oops, forgot to add the pic...

Thanks very much Gary and Marian, for taking the time to reply. Much appreciated.
I had a feeling that this happened post-WW2. What confused me was the JS3 that Nicola modelled .... as this was available at the very end of WW2. But I guess that it was around for sometime afterwards ...and maybe overlapped the time frame for this development. Nicola doesn´t say what or when this reference comes from.
As the T44 was in development phase at this same time frame, I suppose its only natural, in the years that followed, what happened to one tank, happened to the other.

Hi Frank,

the JS-3 didn't have any direct fuel feed....

taken from the Russian Battlefield Website:
"The JS-3 carried four internal steel fuel tanks with a total capacity of 450 litres. The fuel tanks sat in pairs on both sides of the engine. Furthermore, the JS-3 was equipped with four cylindrical external fuel tanks. These external fuel tanks each carried 90 litres, and were connected to the internal fuel tanks. The external fuel tanks were equipped with emergency release brackets in case of a fire or a sudden attack."

What you are mistaking for fuel feeds are the release brackets..
the hose that is on top of the fuel cells is supposed to be for the starting the tank engine in cold weather...

hope this helps..

Nick Cortese

Hi Nick. Thanks very much for your reply. Funny, I was just reading through the same page as you posted!
Would the sentence above mean that the fuel in the external tanks, were first fed into the internal tanks ... or what else would they mean by connected?
Maybe they still had to be manually pumped?



Very possible Im confused ... LOL ... I openly admit to knowing very little on subjects like this .... what Im talking about specifically, are those very thin cables you placed on top of the tanks on your JS3 model.



8)

Hi!

The external tanks were pumped into the internal ones first! Cuz the fuel-barrels had to be removed before a fight (fire danger etc.). That I know for sure.
For the first tanks using this system it was hand-pumped (as mentioned before) and not connected to the inner tanks all the time as far as I know. So the crew had to fix a tube, pump it and remove the barrels.

Although it seems to defy common sense, the fact is that the external diesel fuel carried on Soviet tanks did NOT have to be jettisoned prior to combat. Diesel burns under pressure, and also, being on the outside of the armor envelope it posed little risk for the crew.

You can actually drop a match into a can of diesel and it will not burn. This was the subject of a lot fo jokes among newbies to diesel vehicles in many armies.

Danny Egan
President
AMPS
Join us now http://www.amps-armor.org/ampssite/membership.aspx

VERY good point. It would take a hell of a lot for the diesel in these tanks to ignite, so I cant see how it would pose a fire risk.

Also, it would make sense that irrespective of what tank it is, as technology progressed, there could be some retrofitting of electric pump systems could have happened.....