History Main / ShootTheFueltank

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* ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'':
** ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'': Creator/GarthEnnis' rebooted series has Frank blowing up a car with nothing more than a few handgun bullets. At least it pays lip service to reality by having him almost empty his clip with direct hits to the tank while his internal monologue hoped for one to spark.
** ' ''ComicBook/XMen'': Quite possibly justified, since Cyclops is a pretty good shot with his eye beams. However, he does discuss it, saying that blowing up a car is a lot harder than movies make it look.

%%%* ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' does it with a compressed air tank.

* Averted in ''WebVideo/TheHire'' story "Ticker". A helicopter gunship shoots up the Driver's car and punctures the fuel tank, but while there's a VaporTrail that ignites the Driver speeds away before his car goes up. However, the punctured fuel tank does add to the subsequent RaceAgainstTheClock, as he races to get the MacGuffin to its destination before his fuel runs out.

* ''Film/TheColony'': When Mason makes his LastStand against the horde of cannibals, he shoots a propane tank in the room with him [[TakingYouWithMe to take them with him]].

* Quite possibly justified in' ''ComicBook/XMen'', since Cyclops is a pretty good shot with his eye beams. However, he does discuss it, saying that blowing up a car is a lot harder than movies make it look.

* Creator/GarthEnnis' rebooted ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'' series had Frank blowing up a car with nothing more than a few handgun bullets. At least they paid lip service to the reality by having him almost empty his clip with direct hits to the tank while his internal monologue hoped for one to spark.
* Averted in the ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'' SpinOff, ''The Streets Of Dan Francisco''. Francisco gets into a firefight with some perps and shoots a fuel tanker behind them. When they're drenched in fuel and start complaining, Francisco convinces them to surrender by threatening them with an [[KillItWithFire Incendiary round]] from his [[SwissArmyGun lawgiver]]. It works.

%%* The way [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas Courier]] Ethan Sunderland kills [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Blue Suns]] Pyro in his first engagement with their troops.

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]
* ''Film/ThelmaAndLouise'' - not just the fuel tank but the whole damn truck. Subverted in that the girls were actually playing at shooting his tyres out, one by one...
* This is how Film/JamesBond makes his escape in the opening sequence of ''Film/CasinoRoyale2006'', he shoots a propane tank with a handgun.
** Also averted in that film; the airport fuel tanker is riddled with holes and weeping fuel everywhere but doesn't burn.
** He also does this at the end of ''Film/QuantumOfSolace'' with a hydrogen tank. That one gets a pass, though, as the building was already on fire.
* ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' did it with a compressed air tank.
** Also busted by the ''Series/MythBusters''.
* Played straight (and in slow motion) by Morpheus during the freeway chase of ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded''.
** Strange, when you consider this is averted in the first movie, though that was with a helicopter and not a car. The only effect shooting the fuel tank had was an empty tank a few moments later.
** Hell, it was averted a few minutes earlier when Morpheus' Cadillac was shot about 1500 times from all directions during the car chase, which must have hit the fuel tank at least once, and nothing happens to it.
* ''Film/SilentNightDeadlyNightPart2'''s "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRBlzttL6Jo Bingo!]]" scene (which immediately follows the infamous "[[MemeticMutation GARBAGE DAY!]]").

* Done in ''Film/MissionImpossibleII''. To a moving vehicle, ''from'' a moving motorcycle.
* Subverted in ''Film/LastActionHero''. [[spoiler: When Jack Slater enters the real world, he chases Benedict until Benedict hops into a taxi. When Slater shoots at the cab, he is surprised to find that it does not explode.]]
* Averted in ''Film/{{Speed}}'', when the cop trying to defuse the bomb by suspending himself near the undercarriage of the speeding bus accidentally stabs the fuel tank with a screwdriver...which only causes the bus to leak fuel.
* JustifiedTrope in ''Film/LoneWolfMcQuade'', as the opening scene has Creator/ChuckNorris loading his sniper rifle from an ammunition case of 7.62mm Armor-Piercing Incendiary rounds.
* ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}''
** Kyle Reese crouches down and fires his shotgun at the gas tank underneath a car in a vain effort to slow down the T-800 in ''Film/TheTerminator''.
** A gas tank does explode after a crash in ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'', but that's only because a live wire sparked next to the leaking fuel. (Also impossible, diesel fuel doesn't explode even when a blowtorch is pointed at it.) Averted later during the Cyberdyne shootout, where the T-800's minigun does not ignite any of the police cars it's fired at.
** Played straight and averted at the same time in ''Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines''. T-800 fires 750 rounds into the police cars, but only one of them explodes. All police cars have a serious amount of bullet holes in them after the shooting. Maybe the Terminator doesn't like the Chevrolet Caprice.
** In ''Film/TerminatorSalvation'', he shoots a tanker with a shotgun in an attempt to stop a harvester. [[RealityEnsues It doesn't work]]. However it did cause the tanker to start leaking, and he then uses a flare on the puddles of fuel, which proved to be MUCH more effective.

* ''[[UnreliableNarrator Might]]'' have happened in ''Film/AmericanPsycho''; even Patrick seems bewildered at the explosion.
* At the very beginning of ''{{WesternAnimation/Cars 2}}'', Finn [=McMissile=] launches a bomb at several oil barrels while escaping the Lemons' oil rig in order to stave off his archnemeses, the Lemons.
* Mark Wahlberg's character does it in ''Film/{{Shooter}}''.
* Subverted in the opening gunfight of ''Film/ShootEmUp''. Mr. Smith is trapped in a garage by a large number of mooks, so he aims at the tank underneath a car and punctures it. Instead of fuel bursting into flames, the tank leaks oil which Smith uses to slide along the floor and shoot all the mooks.

* Seen in ''Film/TheColony'' when Mason makes his LastStand against the horde of cannibals, TakingYouWithMe by shooting a propane tank in the room with him.
* Played straight in the 1976 poliziotteschi (Italo-crime) film ''"[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0179901/combined Italia a mano armata]]"'', even though it takes 7 bullets to make it happen.
* Averted in ''Film/TheBaaderMeinhofComplex''. Police corner two terrorists in a garage used for storing bomb supplies, including several gas cylinders. Though the police fire automatic weapons into the garage, nothing explodes.
* The assassination in ''Film/TheJackal'' (1997) involves a remote-controlled gun in the back of a station wagon. A police sniper destroys the weapon ([[NoKillLikeOverkill and the vehicle, and everything around it]]) by firing a shot into the fuel tank, then a second shot to ignite the leaking fuel after a sizeable puddle has formed.
* Justified in ''Film/TheMechanic2011'' where the shooter lets the fuel spill out over the ground before igniting it with a shot from his pistol.
* In ''Film/DriveAngry'', Milton tricks a car of cultists into jumping over the top of him, and then shoots the fuel tank as the car is overhead. It explodes into a fireball.
* In ''Film/HeadlessHorseman'', the sheriff shoots the gas tank of his own truck to stop the teens escaping: blowing up the truck and killing himself in the process.
* ''Film/EscapePlan'': While hanging from the helicopter ladder, Breslin fires several shots into a group of fuel drums sitting on the deck of the ship: directly under the platform [[spoiler:Hobbes]] is standing on. [[spoiler:Hobbes]] looks confused till he notices the spreading pool of fuel under the drums. Breslin then fires a final shot that ignites the whole lot into a gigantic fireball.

* In the Corean Chronicles story ''Alector's Choice'', Mykel detonates a barrel of oil being dropped on a battering ram with a bullet. Subverted in that he had to use magic powers to actually make the barrel explode. His superior (Who didn't know about the magic) later told him that he was extremely lucky: The odds of actually starting a fire with a bullet are low to the point of virtual impossibility.
* ''{{Literature/Dreamcatcher}}'': this is how Henry blows up one of the two Hummers to kill the final shit-weasel. Double-subverted, since at first nothing happens and Henry even laments that in real life this kind of thing apparently doesn't work the way it does in Hollywood movies, but then fuel tank explodes after all.

* Happens in almost every episode of ''Series/AlarmFuerCobra11''.
* ''Series/MythBusters'' busted it until they tried special rounds and a lot of them. They still didn't get an explosion, just a fire.
** They also tested the 'explode a gas cylinder with a bullet' variant and failed completely. They had to detonate explosives under the cylinder to make the gas catch fire.
* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': in "The Variable," Jack fires at a gas tank to escape Dharma security.
** Averted in season 4, though. The helicopter survives a massive firefight with several leaking holes in the gas tank but never explodes.
* Done in ''Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth,'' when the bad guys are pursuing, Gwen uses this tactic to buy themselves some time. It works.
* Subverted in ''Series/BurnNotice''. Turns out that shooting a car's gas tank mostly just results in an empty gas tank. Shooting a gas tank with plastic bags full of acetone peroxide taped to it, on the other hand...

* In one episode of ''Series/HogansHeroes'' Carter attempted to shoot a German fuel truck with a flaming arrow as it passed by the camp. [[spoiler: He shot the arrow into the wall beside the window instead. Newkirk took the bow from him and did it properly.]]
* Averted in ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' when Mac and Charlie attempt to fake their deaths to avoid Charlie's father. They decide to stage a car crash and destroy the car so that the Police will think their bodies were incinerated in the explosion. When the crash leaves the car mostly intact, they try shooting the gas tank and using a grenade. Neither idea works.
* This was the fate of one of Vecchio's Buick Rivieras in ''Series/DueSouth''. A DiscussedTrope, the characters had to figure out [[AttackItsWeakPoint just the right part]] of the vehicle had to be shot in order to set it off.
* Averted in ''Series/BreakingBad'' when one of The Cousins shoots a parked truck's fuel tank - and it just results in gas spilling from the tank. After a while, however, he tosses a lit cigarette into some nearby dry grass, and after the brush catches fire...
* Done by Gibbs in an episode of ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' to take out a heavily-armed suspect who's shooting at his team. (After he [[PetTheDog saves the suspect's dog]], of course.)
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest''. As Reese drives away from him in a taxi, a government assassin armed with a bolt-action rifle fires two aimed shots; one to puncture the fuel tank, the other to ignite it. The assassin was mentioned as being equipped with armour-piercing ammunition in a previous incident, so it's likely he used the appropriate incendiary round this time.
* Happened in a number of ''Series/TheProfessionals'' episodes, including "Blind Run" and "Blackout".
* ''Series/TheTransporter'' has a variant where Frank Martin rams a hydrogen-fueled car, then throws his car lighter out the window as he drives off, igniting the fuel.

* Justified in ''Series/Sense8''. Kala shoots at the fuel tank of a car, but it doesn't explode -- Wolfgang even sighs that cars don't explode like in movies. She was only shooting at it to get the gasoline to trickle down towards them, which she then lit on fire...causing the car to blow up.
* Outgunned and surrounded in the middle of a bridge, a defiant Daniela Mondragon in the final episode of ''Series/KadenangGinto'' took cover in an SUV as both the police and relatives are urging her to surrender peacefully. Daniela refuses, leading to a brief shootout which resulted in the cops perforating the fuel tanks and thus blowing up the vehicle. Daniela somehow managed to [[KarmaHoudini survive]] the encounter, UsefulNotes/NikiLauda-style FacialHorror and all.

* Done toward the start of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' but with a sword.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyType0''[='=]s Milites Empire has the only real ''vehicles'' around, and so Militesi territory tends to have a few fuel tanks lying around for any soldiers who happen to run out of gas. Class Zero can exploit them to create a sizeable explosion by hitting them with any attack. And '''any''' attack - not just [[PlayingWithFire Fire]] or [[ShockAndAwe Thunder]] spells, but [[AnIcePerson Blizzard]] spells, NonElemental magic, [[GunsAkimbo King]]'s bullets, [[RayGun Cater]]'s magicite pistol, [[TheStraightAndArrowPath Trey]]'s arrows, or [[DeathDealer Ace]]'s ''cards''. Or even a melee weapon from the other eight members of Class Zero, although [[TooDumbToLive that tends to add to their casualties]].
* The first ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar1'' game has the player shoot propane tanks to light paths to get around the Kryll. The second one has the first battle against Locust take place near a pile of these, shooting these will usually clear the area of any enemy (and you are far enough away from them when this battle happens, anyway...)

* In ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', from ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'' onward, shooting a Ghost's gas tank will cause it to explode. Of course, a Ghost's "gas" is actually pressurized [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment hot plasma]].

* In the train level in ''VideoGame/StarFox64'', shooting a fuel car will detonate all adjacent train cars.
* Flamethrower-wielding enemies in ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R. 2]]'' can be insta-killed by shooting their backpacks.
* The Boiler of a SteamPunk tank in ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'' does this, though that's not the fuel tank but rather the unarmored radiator. The principle is still the same: shoot it for massive damage, or even semi-decent damage from small-arms.
* ''TrueCrime'' has an unlockable feature that allows you to lock on to gas tanks in BulletTime for easier destruction.
* Fuel tanks are high-scoring targets in the two ''VideoGame/RiverRaid'' games, and they explode when you shoot them (but won't destroy any nearby enemies).
* One of the more notorious elements of ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' and its sequel, albeit it will take several rounds.
* Seen in the ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' DLC, ''The Secret Armory of General Knoxx''. Badass Lance Troopers carry fuel tanks on their backs, which explode if you deal enough damage. Also seen in the original game, where Jakobs fuel storage tanks will explode if shot up enough. Strangely enough, you can't do this to the cars.
* The Red Alert series of ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' has missions which feature explosive fuel barrels that are often conveniently placed next to key targets.
** And the second game of the Tiberian series does this with less-explosive ammo crates.
* ''VideoGame/Uncharted2AmongThieves'' has a few sequences where Nathan shoots propane tanks in order to cause explosions. One instance where he's hurling them at the enemy and shooting them in the air was a big pain for Creator/NolanNorth who was performing the motion capture and voice acting at the same time. He had to repeatedly hurl an empty propane tank, which isn't exactly lightweight, across the studio to act out the sequence.

* Inverted in "VideoGame/WarOfTheMonsters", where you can throw gas trucks to deal massive damage to your opponents, as well as lighting them on fire.
* Shooting another tank's fuel tank in ''VideoGame/WorldOfTanks'' won't make it explode unless your gun was actually enough to kill it, but if the enemy doesn' die from it, it will immobilize it until its crew can fix it.
** This often has he side effect of setting the tank on fire which, with the current patch, will randomly damage modules, injure crew members and possibly cook the ammo for massive damage. Soviet tanks are especially vulnerable to this tactic, due to many of them mounting external fuel tanks. One shell and it explodes into flames, [[SarcasmMode exactly like how diesel fuel doesn't]].
* A viable tactic in ''Franchise/MassEffect'' games. In the first, there are little [[ExplodingBarrels plasma, ion, and cryo tanks]] all over a ton of different battlefields, and an occasional big one with fuel in it. While facing Blood Pack Pyros in the second game, shoot the (rather obvious) tank with a lower damage weapon and will light then explode. Shoot it with a high powered weapon such as the Widow sniper rifle or zap them with an Overload or Incinerate tech attack and it explodes immediately.
* In both ''VideoGame/{{Sniper Elite V2}}'' and the original game, you can cause enemy trucks and tanks to explode by sniping the caps on their fuel tanks; it's pretty much the ''only'' way to defeat a tank. As with the San Andreas example, this is despite the fact that you can very clearly see the entire fuel tank on all these vehicles, though in this case, the fuel tanks in question all seem to be made of metal thick enough for bullets to bounce off harmlessly. It's also how [[spoiler:Karl destroys the last V2 rocket. You even have to wait for the enemies to finish fueling it because only a full tank will create an explosion big enough to wipe out every last trace of the deadly chemical agent it's carrying.]]

* The ''VideoGame/FarCry'' series of games have this as a gameplay element, usually to show off the dynamic fire effects in-game. Dotted around enemy outposts and towns are a variety of tanks to shoot, ranging from the standard ExplodingBarrel to a large propane tank. It should be noted that some of the tanks don't immediately explode when shot; they rather emit gouts of flame from the bullet holes, or in some cases fly around like rockets before exploding. While EveryCarIsAPinto, they don't blow up when the gas tank is shot, curiously.
* In ''Videogame/FromTheDepths'', fuel tanks will explode when destroyed, though the primary advantage of attacking fuel tank is to cause the enemy to run out of fuel and lose power rather than for the explosion itself, which is fairly weak compared to an ammunition explosion. On the other hand, mobile fuel refineries go off like a bomb when damaged, tipped over, or allowed to generate excessive dangerous gas byproducts.
* ''VideoGame/MadMax'' uses this as a gameplay mechanic. Pulling your shotgun on an enemy vehicle is a good way to destroy it more easily. Helps that most vehicles have very exposed fuel tanks. The only real drawback is that shotgun ammo is hard enough to come by until you develop ammo benches for strongholds and have a bandolier large enough to carry more rounds. It may be justified to some extent in this case, as the post-apocalypse vehicles are running on very crudely-refined "guzzoline," which might be closer to avgas than unleaded.
* Subverted in ''VideoGame/LethalEnforcers''. While you could shoot the gas tank cap on a car stage, doing so only caused flames to shoot out for a while instead of destroying the car.

* [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] twice on ''AudioPlay/WereAlive''. First in Chpater 13 when Burt, Angel, and Riley try to use gas canisters as explosives to ward off zombies while they try to get a fire truck started. The tanks don't ignite when Burt tries to shoot them. ([[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Datu who told them it wouldn't work before they tried it.) The second instance happens in Chapter 24, when the Mallers have a fuel truck rigged with explosives driving toward the Tower and Burt tries to blow it up while it's still far enough away to not cause any damage, but once again his shots fail to blow it up. (Again [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]], this time by Angel who screams "This is just like the gas cans all over again!"

* [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}''. In the episode "The Rules of Extraction", Archer tries to shoot a gasoline tank with an M-16 in order to set a fire to scare some alligators. [[RealityEnsues It doesn't work]], the tank just end up with some holes in it.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' cartoon, Vigilante runs his motorcycle off a hill at the enemy, jumps off, then ''while flying backwards in mid-air'' shoots the gas tank with [[GunsAkimbo both revolvers akimbo]] to make it explode at precisely the right time to hit the enemy. Remember, this is an episode devoted to the {{Badass Normal}}s of the Justice League. Totally a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome for Vigilante.

** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS1E7DuelOfTheDroids "Duel of the Droids"]]: Rex takes out a group of battle droids by shooting a fuel cell hurled at the droids by Anakin.
** Obi-Wan and Cody use the same tactic against Grievous in [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS5E8BoundForRescue "Bound for Rescue"]].
** In [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS2E12TheMandalorePlot "The Mandalore Plot"]], Obi-Wan defends himself against Mandalorian insurgents by shooting a jetpack he threw at them.
** In [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS5E12MissingInAction "Missing in Action"]], Gregor blows up some battle droids by shooting several containers of explosive Rhydonium fuel.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'': In [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS1E05OutOfDarkness "Out of Darkness"]], Hera and Sabine, stranded at the abandoned Fort Anaxes during an eclipse with ravenous, light-avoiding creatures, set up a minefield of rhydonium canisters that they shoot out to destroy waves of the creatures while waiting for rescue.

It is important to note that, while conventional bullets or even tracer bullets do not often generate the heat or have enough surface area to diffuse this heat fast enough required to ignite fuels like diesel or jet fuel, white phosphorus rounds, like those shot from the Lahti L-39 Finnish 20mm Anti-tank/Anti-aircraft sniper rifle (more commonly known as the "Elephant Gun") or the minigun wielded by the Mythbusters, are more than capable of both penetrating the outer shell and fuel-tank wall of the vehicle they are hitting and delivering enough heat to cause an explosion. Of course, the behavior of the vehicle during the explosion is still the same, aside from getting quite a significant jolt from the impact of a 20mm rifle round traveling at 800m/s (similar to the muzzle velocities of some naval cannons).

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'': In [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS1E05OutOfDarkness "Out of Darkness"]], Hera and Sabine, stranded at the abandoned Fort Anaxes during an eclipse with ravenous, light-avoiding creatures, set up a minefield of rhydonium canisters that they shoot out to destroy waves of the creatures while waiting for rescue.

%%[[folder:FanWorks]]

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder:VideoGames]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/DCShowcaseGreenArrow'', Merlyn tries to kill Green Arrow and Princess Perdita by shooting a flaming arrow into a fuel tanker which then explodes.

** In the episode "Duel of the Droids", Rex takes out a group of battle droids by shooting a fuel cell hurled at the droids by Anakin.
** Obi-Wan and Cody use the same tactic against Grievous in "Bound for Rescue".
** In "The Mandalore Plot", Obi-Wan defends himself against Mandalorian insurgents by shooting one of their jetpacks, causing an explosion.
** In "Missing in Action", Gregor blows up some battle droids by shooting several containers of explosive Rhydonium fuel.
* [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}''. In the episode "The Rules of Extraction", Archer tries to shoot a gasoline tank with an M-16 in order to set a fire to scare some alligators. [[RealityEnsues It doesn't work]], the tank just end up with some holes in it.

This is about deliberately shooting a fuel tank. For vehicles that explode on any kind of incidental impact, see EveryCarIsAPinto. This trope also has some overlap with BulletSparks; see that page for the fairly limited number of ways this can be a JustifiedTrope. When this happens to a flamethrower's fuel tank, this is FlamethrowerBackfire. If shooting or otherwise rupturing a ''pressurized'' tank sends it streaking away like a meteor, that's GasCylinderRocket.

This myth was [[JustForFun/TropesExaminedByTheMythBusters busted]] by ''Series/MythBusters'' as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4n--xOOoWE they proved]] that in most cases it simply will not work. A real life fuel tank explosion was only possible when they used a ''[[GatlingGood minigun]]'' armed with [[IncendiaryExponent incendiary rounds]] which, suffice to say, is generally unlikely. Besides, if you have a minigun then you're not going to need to shoot the fuel tank anyway. Even if (against all odds, logic, and reason) the fuel tank ''does'' explode, the result is rarely the spectacular car-flipping fireball that Hollywood promises. An ordinary passenger car's gas tank with unleaded gasoline will produce a "POP" and a quick (and anticlimactic) flash of flames underneath the vehicle with all four tires remaining firmly planted on the ground, though the resulting fire may consume the vehicle pretty quickly. Diesel pretty much won't blow at all unless you light a fire under it and keep it burning until it causes a BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion), which will take a while to accomplish. Jet fuel's extremely-high ignition temperature causes it to behave a lot like diesel. Avgas (aviation gasoline, the super-high-octane blend used in piston-engined aircraft) can blow up like this (with a very Hollywoodish fireball), which is why airplanes since the 1920s have things like self-sealing fuel tanks and inert-gas-pressurization for their tanks.

* Subverted in the opening gunfight of ''Film/ShootEmUp''. Mr Smith is trapped in a garage by a large number of mooks, so he aims at the tank underneath a car and punctures it. Instead of fuel bursting into flames, the tank leaks oil which Smith uses to slide along the floor and shoot all the mooks.

* In ''Film/DriveAngry'', Milton tricks a car of cultists into jumping over the top of him, and them shoots the fuel tank as the car is overhead. It explodes into a fireball.

* ''{{Literature/Dreamcatcher}}'': this is how Henry blows up one of the two Hummers to kill the final shit-weasel. Double-subverted, since at first nothing happens and Henry even laments that in real life this kind of thing apparenty doesn't work the way it does in Hollywood movies, but then fuel tank explodes after all.
* ''Literature/GenerationKill'': Corporal Burris gets assigned to take down a Iraqi T-72 tank, with the expectation that his anti-tank missile, being incapable of penetrating the tank's hull, would be used to blow off one of the treads and stop it from escaping (while, presumably, a more permanent solution is devised). Upon getting closer, he notices the rear-mounted fuel tanks, and decides to target those instead. The Iraqi tankers apparently did not drain them before entering combat, leading to the missile causing a huge explosion that blows the tank to pieces and knocks Burris flat on his ass from the force.

* ''Series/MythBusters'' busted it until they tried special rounds, and a lot of them. They still didn't get an explosion, just a fire.
** They also tested the 'explode a gas cylinder with a bullet' variant, and failed completely. They had to detonate explosives under the cylinder to make the gas catch fire.

** Averted in season 4, though. The helicopter survives a massive firefight with several leaking holes in the gas tank, but never explodes.

* Subverted in ''Series/BurnNotice''. Turns out that shooting a car's gas tank mostly just results in an empty gas tank. Shooting a gas tank with plastic bags full of acetone peroxide taped to it, on the other hand....

* Averted in ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' when Mac and Charlie attempt to fake their deaths to avoid Charlie's father. They decide to stage a car crash, and destroy the car so that the Police will think their bodies were incinerated in the explosion. When the crash leaves the car mostly intact, they try shooting the gas tank and using a grenade. Neither idea works.

* ''VideoGame/Uncharted2AmongThieves'' has a few sequences where Nathan shoots propane tanks in order to cause explosions. One instance where he's hurling them at the enemy and shooting them in the air was a big pain for Creator/NolanNorth who was performing the motion capture and voice acting at the same time. He had to repeatedly hurl an empty propane tank, which isn't exactly light weight, across the studio to act out the sequence.

* Shooting another tank's fuel tank in ''VideoGame/WorldOfTanks'' won't make it explode, unless your gun was actually enough to kill it, but if the enemy doesn' die from it, it will immobilize it until its crew can fix it.

* In both ''VideoGame/{{Sniper Elite V2}}'' and the original game, you can cause enemy trucks and tanks to explode by sniping the caps on their fuel tanks; it's pretty much the ''only'' way to defeat a tank. As with the San Andreas example, this is despite the fact that you can very clearly see the entire fuel tank on all these vehicles, though in this case the fuel tanks in question all seem to be made of metal thick enough for bullets to bounce off harmlessly. It's also how [[spoiler:Karl destroys the last V2 rocket. You even have to wait for the enemies to finish fueling it, because only a full tank will create an explosion big enough to wipe out every last trace of the deadly chemical agent it's carrying.]]
* The ''VideoGame/FarCry'' series of games has this as a gameplay element, usually to show off the dynamic fire effects in game. Dotted around enemy outposts and towns are a variety of tanks to shoot, ranging from the standard ExplodingBarrel to a large propane tanks. It should be noted that some of the tanks don't immediately explode when shot; they rather emit gouts of flame from the bullet holes, or in some cases fly around like rockets before exploding. While EveryCarIsAPinto, they don't blow up when the gas tank is shot, curiously.

* [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] twice on ''AudioPlay/WereAlive''. First in Chpater 13 when Burt, Angel and Riley try to use gas canisters as explosives to ward off zombies while they try to get a fire truck started. The tanks don't ignite when Burt tries to shoot them. ([[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Datu who told them it wouldn't work before they tried it.) The second instance happens in Chapter 24, when the Mallers have a fuel truck rigged with explosives driving toward the Tower and Burt tries to blow it up while it's still far enough away to not cause any damage, but once again his shots fail to blow it up. (Again [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]], this time by Angel who screams "This is just like the gas cans all over again!"
* Averted in ''WebVideo/TheHire'' story "Ticker". A helicopter gunship shoots up the Driver's car and punctures the fuel tank, but while there's a VaporTrail that ignites the Driver speeds away before his car goes up. However the punctured fuel tank does add to the subsequent RaceAgainstTheClock, as he races to get the MacGuffin to its destination before his fuel runs out.

* [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}''. In the episode "The Rules of Extraction", Archer tries to shoot a gasoline tank with a M-16 in order to set a fire to scare some alligators. [[RealityEnsues It doesn't work]], the tank just end up with some holes in it.

* The preferred way for many fire departments to deal with acetylene tanks (and some other compressed gas cylinders) in a fire is in fact to shoot them to ''keep them'' from exploding. Shooting them lets the gas out in a semi-controlled manner, and the released gas can be burned off instead of collecting and possibly causing an explosion. Furthermore, if the tank isn't already surrounded by fire, FD manuals state that you need to ''keep'' shooting at the gas cloud - with tracer rounds - after you've already put a hole in the tank to ignite the gas.

** The most common way for aircraft carriers to sink in WWII - by far - was by igniting the the vapors from ruptured aviation gasoline tanks, which would lead to a colossal explosion and lots of fires. [[AvertedTrope Generally averted]] with the fuel for the ships' own engines, as bunker oil is inert enough that if that's on fire, so is everything else.

** During the UsefulNotes/RussoJapaneseWar, the Russian Second Pacific Squadron fell afoul of this due to two reasons: The Imperial Japanese Navy used a type of high explosive with [[IncendiaryExponent incendiary traits]] in their shells, and the Russians, lacking friendly bases to resupply from on the way, had their decks piled up with extra coal that they had purchased from merchant ships during their voyage. In this case, it was less a problem of the fuel bunkers being hit, but that extra fuel stored outside the ship's armor protection was hit instead, setting everything else on fire. A similar problem was faced by German tanks in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, when Allied fighters would use Incendiary ammo to light off drums of extra fuel the tanks carried with them due to their horrible fuel mileage.
* [[Literature/RogueWarrior Richard Marcinko]] maintains that it can be done, using special tracer ammunition, but in real life it's more effective if there is something in the vehicle that can spark and blow the fuel tank that way, much like the trick in ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay''.
* Of course the fuel tank doesn't have to explode to kill the occupants of a vehicle. A tank full of holes isn't a tank. A vehicle with no fuel is a dead vehicle. (Excluding heavy tanks which can be a bunker if it ever ran out of fuel.) An ''airplane'' with no fuel is, more often than not, a plane crash that just hasn't happened yet. If nothing else, losing a fuel tank can encourage an enemy to [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere break engagement and get away while he still can.]]

* In ''VideoGame/({Warframe}}'', maps are littered with explosive canisters that will detonate nigh-instantly upon being shot, clubbed, cut open, or otherwise. This can be a good thing (shooting a canister to blow up and knock over enemies near it), or a bad thing (knocking yourself down by hitting one absentmindedly while surrounded will ensure a swift death).

* In ''VideoGame/{Warframe}}'', maps are littered with explosive canisters that will detonate nigh-instantly upon being shot, clubbed, cut open, or otherwise. This can be a good thing (shooting a canister to blow up and knock over enemies near it), or a bad thing (knocking yourself down by hitting one absentmindedly while surrounded will ensure a swift death).

* Aversion: Interestingly, most dangerously pressurized material is kept in cylinders which tend to not only be easier to store, but also tend to burst with a vertically aligned rupture which produces little shrapnel. Spherical containers are more likely to explode. This is due to a principle known as [[http://www.ae.msstate.edu/~masoud/Teaching/SA2/chA16.2_text.html hoop stress]].

* Seen in the latest ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' DLC, ''The Secret Armory of General Knoxx''. Badass Lance Troopers carry fuel tanks on their backs, which explode if you deal enough damage. Also seen in the original game, where Jakobs fuel storage tanks will explode if shot up enough. Strangely enough, you can't do this to the cars.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' cartoon, Vigilante runs his motorcycle off a hill at the enemy, jumps off, then ''while flying backwards in mid-air'' shoots the gas tank with [[GunsAkimbo both revolvers akimbo]] to make it explode at precisely the right time to hit the enemy. Remember, this is an episode devoted to the {{Badass Normal}}s of the Justice League. Totally a CrowningMomentOfAwesome for Vigilante.

* Quite possibly justified in' ''ComicBook/XMen''. To quote ComicBook/{{Cyclops}}:
-->"Blowing up a car is a lot harder than it looks in the movies. Puncturing both sides of a fuel tank to draw in the proper amount of oxygen is a million-to-one shot. Thankfully, [[ImprobableAimingSkills I'm a pretty good shot]]."

It is important to note that, while conventional bullets or even tracer bullets do not often generate the heat or have enough surface area to diffuse this heat fast enough required to ignite fuels like diesel or jet fuel, white phosphorus rounds, like those shot from the Lahti L-39 Finnish 20mm Anti-tank/Anti-aircraft sniper rifle (more commonly known as the "Elephant Gun") or the minigun wielded by the Mythbusters, are more than capable of both penetrating the outer shell and fuel-tank wall of the vehicle they are hitting and delivering enough heat to cause an explosion. Of course, the behavior of the vehicle during the explosion is still the same, aside from getting quite a significant jolt from the impact of a 20mm rifle rould traveling at 800m/s (similar to the muzzle velocities of some naval cannons).

* Done in ''Film/MissionImpossible''. To a moving vehicle, ''from'' a moving motorcycle.

* Creator/GarthEnnis' rebooted ''{{Punisher}}'' series had Frank blowing up a car with nothing more than a few handgun bullets. At least they paid lip service to the reality by having him almost empty his clip with direct hits to the tank while his internal monologue hoped for one to spark.

* [[RogueWarrior Richard Marcinko]] maintains that it can be done, using special tracer ammunition, but in real life it's more effective if there is something in the vehicle that can spark and blow the fuel tank that way, much like the trick in ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay''.

* The first ''GearsOfWar'' game has the player shoot propane tanks to light paths to get around the Kryll. The second one has the first battle against Locust take place near a pile of these, shooting these will usually clear the area of any enemy (and you are far enough away from them when this battle happens, anyway...)