Talk:Boys anti-tank rifle

Discrepency in Bullet Velocity
The following paragraph has two separate velocities listed for the W Mark 2 - Emphasis mine:

There were two main service loads used during the Second World War: The W Mark 1 (60 g AP at 747 m/s) and the W Mark 2 ammunition (47.6 g AP projectile at 884 m/s). The W Mark 1 could penetrate 23.2 mm of armour at 100 yards, about the thickness used on the frontal armour of a half-track or armoured car, or the side or rear armour of a light tank. Later in the conflict, a more effective round was developed, the W Mark 2, which fired a tungsten-cored projectile at 945 m/s. The Boys' effective range against unarmoured targets (for example, infantry), was much greater.

Which value is accurate? Mecheye (talk) 13:48, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Void
Clearly there is not a lot of excitement or interest generated by this page in Wikipedia devoted to the Boys Anti-Tank Rifle - so I write this into an aching void! My interest is through my father being equipped with a Boys when he was with the 1939 British Expeditionary Force [Grenadier Guards]in WW2. He reminisced [in his writings] about the awful recoil of the Boys - it was necessary to have someone to kneel on the firer's shoulder so as to prevent the recoil dislocating the collar bone - and of its weight - it was a very heavy tool. My father said that in use, the Boys would stop any vehicle dead in its tracks - except tanks which remained impervious to any number of hits. By '39 the armour on German tanks had so improved that the Boys had been rendered obsolete. The projectile was designed to disintegrate as it penetrated armour and in doing so release saucer-shaped shot pellets; these were designed to ricochet off metal surfaces. Thus it would slice the crew into shreds whilst the tank trundled on! I understand the Boys was the only hand-held anti-tank weapon available to the British Army in '39. Incredible! I read somewhere that the Boys [not being very successful in tests] was sold to the French Army. With war imminent Britain, in a panic, bought back the patents. But the French charged them double the original selling price. C'est la guerre!


 * FWIW, a small number were purchased and employed by American forces in the Pacific Theatre.

Very surprised to see the Boys described as a "semi-automatic bolt action" weapon. It can't be both. I suggest delete "semi-automatic".


 * Good call. They certainly cannot be both.

Nevertheless this rifle was used in anti- personnel role also setting the grounds to large caliber sniper rifles


 * If you have a citation, perhaps add this factoid.

The recoil is not that bad, I shot about 5 rounds back in the 90's, my Lt had gotten hold of one of those monsters and some ammo. We shot some at a military range, and we put the bipod (which I remember being U-shaped and attached to a straight bar going up) against a wooden rail that ran across teh range. The helped some with the recoil. Was a cool gun, though. 216.111.97.126 01:27, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I too fired a Boys, in the early 80s
 * Lovely accurate weapon, would have made a fine sniper's rifle except for that recoil!
 * Never tried hanging the bipod over a rail though...
 * I got a 5 round 1" grouping at 1000 yards - not bad at all, considering it's a 1/2" round!
 * chrisboote (talk) 13:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

WWII Poster
It looks like this image was included because the soldier pictured is carrying a Boys Rifle, Not being an expert, I can't tell for sure. I expanded the caption so there would at least be an obvious reason for it to be on the page. If anyone can confirm this, great; if not, then the image should probably be removed soon. JWAbrams (talk) 17:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Boys1.jpg
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BetacommandBot 01:52, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Someone please change the name of this article, comma overload! Was it supposed to be Boys .55in Anti-Tank Rifle, or something else? Please make the title more understandable. Thanks. 124.169.136.17 (talk) 08:48, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Disney
Is there any information or a refrence from the 1942 Boys rifle training video "Stop That Tank" made by Disney that would be use full to this artical? -Khaose1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.26.236.94 (talk) 03:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Rate of fire unfounded?
I saw the ~10 rounds/min and I'm doubting the accuracy of such a fact. Bolt action rifles can be fire at much higher rates. Is there a handbook of the boys or source that states that 10 rounds/min is the recommended sustained rate of fire? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.224.254.34 (talk) 07:38, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Replaced by 0.50" Browning?
Is there any evidence out there to support the assertion that Boys rifles were replaced by 0.50 Brownings other than in highly specific niche applications as on LRDG vehicles? The Boys was a platoon AT weapon. No British or Commonwealth infantry platoon had a 0.50" Browning in its ToE as far as I am aware. Other than their ballistics they're completely different weapon systems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.145.220.0 (talk) 11:21, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Used by/in Philippines? Highly unlikely!
The Filipino armed forces prior to WW II were organized and equipped by the US Army, which did not use the Boys rifle in any meaningful manner, and did not use it at all prior to 1942, far too late to have been supplied to Filipino forces. Nor would there have been any source for Boys rifles after the Japanese invasion. Neither the UK nor Canada supplied equipment to the Filipino resistance forces.

It's possible --- in theory, at least --- that Boys captured in Honk Kong, Malaya or other British colonies were issued to Japanese occupation forces in the Philippines, but there would have been little purpose for them in that role. No evidence has been cited to support that or any other claim of Filipino military use of the Boys. Some may have been provided to the Hukbalahap communist guerrillas by China during the Huk's attempt to stage a communist takeover of the Philippines, but again there has been absolutely no evidence provided.

Finally, the US Marine Corps DID NOT use the Boys in the Philippines. The only Marine units to use the Boys were the Raider battalions, none of which fought in the Philippines. The only Marine unit to fight there was 4th Marine Regiment, which had just been withdrawn from long service in China and had no Boys rifles.


 * There is this http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-P-PI/USA-P-PI-7.html#fn30 "An unexpected addition to the tanks of Col. James R.N. Weaver's Provisional Tank Group was received shortly after the start of war. The Japanese attack left marooned in Manila Harbor the Don Jose, a vessel belonging to the Canadian Government and carrying a cargo of motor equipment for two Canadian motor battalions in Hong Kong. MacArthur immediately requested that this matériel be released for use in the Philippines, and the War Department secured the Canadian Government's consent. The cargo included fifth-seven Bren gun carriers, forty of which were made available to Colonel Weaver. Unfortunately, the guns for the carriers were not included in the cargo, and they had to be armed by the Manila Ordnance Depot."

It very likely that quantities of the Boys were in that consignment. I am unsure about the assertion that no weapons were included. One can surmise that this means Bren guns. It is an interesting aside, and would be a good source for Bren gun carriers being available and being used in combat in the Philippines during the invasion. Irondome (talk) 22:32, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Alleged USMC use in Korea: nonsense deleted
The USMC did not use the Boys rifle in Korea. Nor did they use "double charged" .50 Browning cartridges in Boys rifles for long-range sniping. The bore of the Boys rifle is .55 caliber, while the .50 BMG is .50 caliber; a .50 BMG projectile will not engage the rifling of the larger .55 Boys barrel, producing a non-stabilized projectile that will not fly straight for even a few yards, let alone "2000 yards" as claimed. Nor will the smaller .50 BMG case seat in the larger .55 Boys chamber. It is unlikely to fire, let alone seal properly and prevent the high pressure gas produced inside a cartridge from escaping to the rear, damaging the rifle and anyone foolish enough to try firing it. And it is physically impossible to load a "double charge" of propellant into a .50 BMG cartridge case. The normal charge fills the cartridge case almost to the base of the seated projectile. Exact measurements of cartridge case dimensions and loading data can be found in Barnes' Cartridges of the World, one of the reliable sources already cited in this article.

The source cited for these claims of Marine Corps use is Martin Pegler's Sniper Rifles: From the 19th to the 21st Century, a very slender (80 pages) book published by a firm best known for "young adult"-oriented picture books on various military topics. Quite simply, it is NOT a reliable source for technical details of firearms. It would appear that the claims are a poorly recalled version of the .50 BMG sniping rifle experimentation that was undertaken by members of the US Army in Korea, using barrels from US M2HB heavy machine guns, fitted to the actions of captured Soviet-made PTRD anti-tank rifles. This has described in numerous books on the evolution of modern military sniper weapons and doctrine, biographies of Carlos Hathcock and other authoritative texts. See Peter Senich's A Complete History of US Sniping for example.
 * You don't actually know who Martin Pegler is, do you?
 * Skimming a few book reviews on Amazon, it seems this Pegler has made a lot of really crazy errors in his sniping books. Claiming that cold air is less dense than warm air, for example. Or that Browning invented the Garand rifle. We should not be so razzle-dazzled by overall reputation that we overlook the physical impossibility of something he says. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:B930:7B90:7C78:2E26:A515:7051 (talk) 14:15, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Nor do you know the dimensions of the Boys round. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:47, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Nor Osprey Publishing, a highly respected source especially for military modellers, with some of the best technical illustrators on the planet. Hardly for "young adults" Irondome (talk) 22:58, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh, no, he's right about Osprey. Little flimsies for kids and modellers. Pegler himself is rather more though. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:16, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
 * .5O BMG uses a .510 inch bullet, the .55 Boys uses a .562 inch bullet. A .50 BMG bullet will not engage the rifling of a .55 Boys barrel.  Larger diameter of case shoulder on .50 BMG will prevent it from chambering in a .55 BMG chamber.  See http://www.antitank.co.uk/ammunition-boys.htm for a side-by-side comparison of the two.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.125.236.98 (talk) 18:59, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
 * It is nonsense, regardless of the source, as far as "strengthening the action" and "double charged" cartridges go. The .50 BMG case is quite full already from the standard powder charge. Perhaps rather than strengthen the action, they rebarrelled the actions to take standard .50 BMG factory ammo, using readily available M2 machine gun barrels. This would require some machine tools, and probably chamber reamers made by an experienced toolmaker. We can speculate on what the truth is, but meanwhile false facts which physically cannot be true should not appear on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:B930:7B90:7C78:2E26:A515:7051 (talk) 13:41, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

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