Diesel engine multi fuel.

If you hit a tank, the tank usually catches on fire. The anti-tank rounds drill a hole into the amour with a jet of molten copper. If the amour is pierced, white hot copper sprays through the compartment setting everything on fire. It depends on how the tank is hit. The common strategy is to aim for a weak spot, usually the base of the turret to destroy the turning mechanism and "weld the turret in place" even if the tank isn't fully pierced. This buys you a lot of time for more hits since the enemy can't properly aim any more. Then aim for the engine or tracks to prevent that the enemy can aim by turning the entire tank. If you have managed that, the enemy tank is useless since there is no way to aim any more. That's how the weak gun of the Sherman could have a chance against tanks with superior armor when there were enough Sherman tanks in the battle.

A tank with a superior gun which can pierce the enemy amour just fine usually needs only one shot since the interior of the tank catches fire. This happens to all tanks, no matter if powered with gasoline or not. The difference is that when the gas tank burns, a diesel fire won't spread that rapidly. During basic training, I was a "tank grenadier" and they had told us that when the tank catches fire, we have about 6 seconds to get out or die from the fire. Back then we still had the Leopard-I in service.

The grandpa of a friend used to be a German tank driver and told a lot of stories about his time in the war. First he was fighting against the Russian tanks. When hit, they often blew up due to the "ready round" inside the crew compartment. When this one was hit by molten steel, the turret of the tank blew skywards. They used to call them "Schachtelteufel" (= literally "boxed devil" = "jack in the box"). The third time his tank was hit, it had killed the gunner instantly and seriously injured the tank commander. As the driver, he was the only one who managed to escape the burning tank. He was sent back to hospital in Germany and later mobilized towards the west after the Normandy Invasion where he had encountered the Sherman tanks.
While shooting the Russian tanks gave very satisfying feeling when destroyed, the Sherman tanks did not! The Russian tanks were mere toys, just a machine to fight and when it blew up, it couldn't hurt you any more. Nobody really thought about the occupants, you just didn't see them die. Usually the tank blows up or it starts to smoke a lot and men climb out and hide behind their tank out of reach of the MG. Hitting a Sherman is really sad to watch, those often really catch fire and burn bright. With tears in his eyes, he had told me that the first Sherman they had shot at caught fire and they felt very happy. Then a "hellhole of fire" opened on the tank and a dark silhouette appeared half way inside the flames and collapsed. He still had nightmares about this.

the other problem was that we weren't building our tanks to go to battle against other tanks, yet, and the Germans were. we still considered the tank to be a troop support vehicle, that would be up against "soft" targets. so it didn't get built with either the armor or the guns the German tanks it faced did. we don't like to admit it, but Hitler lost because he made more tactical mistakes than we made engineering mistakes. - and we made up for it with sheer numbers.

There are war stories that convoys passed obviously burned out T-34s which then suddenly opened fire after half of the convoy had passed causing lots of damage. Sounds like a T-34 has partial functionality even when it had burned.



And that's where the gas tank is located. It's usually outside the Armour of the compartment.

It's true that burning diesel will burn well, but it takes more heat to do so. Movie fireballs are made with a small explosive inside a bag of gasoline. The gasoline is spraid to vapors easily. Diesel is different, it needs help to create enough vapors and that means a wick or lots of heat.

Put some diesel in an open can and try to light it. It's almost impossible except you use a wick or heat the diesel up to above 130°C.

Maybe if Neal Darnell performs near where you live, you can ask him about what he thinks about using kerosene or a Diesel/gas mix as many of his colleagues.