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Originally Posted by Excalibur
Maybe these rifles weren't that common to begin with.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by wikipedia
The Boys rifle was used in the early stages of World War II against lightly armoured German tanks and combat vehicles. Britain also supplied a large number of Boys anti-tank rifles to Finland in 1939 and 1940 during the Winter War with the Soviet Union. The weapon was popular with the Finns, because it could deal with Soviet T-26 tanks which the Finnish Army encountered in many engagements.
Although useful against some early German, Italian, and Soviet tanks in France, North Africa, and Finland, increases in vehicle armour during the Second World War left the Boys largely ineffectual as an anti-tank weapon. A shortened version was issued in 1942 for issue to airborne forces and saw use in Tunisia, where it proved completely ineffective because of the reduced velocity caused by the shortened barrel. In the European theatre it was soon replaced by the PIAT (Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank) in 1943, which first saw service during the Allied invasion of Sicily. In other roles the Boys saw some use against bunkers, machine gun nests and light-skinned vehicles but was rapidly replaced in British and Commonwealth service by the U.S. .50 BMG calibre M2 Browning machine gun as quantities of the latter weapon became available.
Using armour-piercing (AP), armour-piercing incendiary (API), and armour-piercing incendiary tracer (APIT) ammunition, the .50 Browning was just as capable in armour penetration and more devastating when igniting thin-skinned vehicles using incendiary rounds than the Boys, but the Browning could also serve as an effective anti-aircraft weapon. Even the British Special Air Service, which made much use of captured or cast-off weapons for their jeeps and reconnaissance vehicles, quickly got rid of their Boys rifles in favor of .50 M2 Brownings or the Italian 20mm Breda cannon.
However, in the Pacific theatre the Boys was used against the lightly armoured Japanese tanks in Malaya as late as 1942, when the 1/14th Punjabis knocked out two light Japanese tanks at a roadblock. During the Battle of Singapore the 1st Cambridgeshire Regiment found the Boys very useful in knocking holes through walls during street fighting. As British and Commonwealth forces lacked a longer-range rocket-propelled anti-tank weapon such as the bazooka or panzerschreck, the Boys remained in inventory for use in that theatre.
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62,000 made, starting in 1937, served until 1943. Doesn't sound that uncommon to me. It was replaced by rocket launchers and heavy machine guns in antimaterial, antitank, and bunker busting roles, but nobody thought to put a scope on it?
Edit: Apparently they were also used by The Philippines well into the 1960's.
Edit 2: Disney produced the training video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rODm7HF5lFU
Wikipedia also says the Chinese Nationalists did use them as sniper rifles, but it's not sourced.