55 round was pretty much useless against even the Panzer II. Originally, the Boys was issued to reconnaissance units just because it was issued to any mechanized unit that had a vehicle to stick it on, such as a Bren or Universal Carrier. 55 Boys by the SAS and LRDG in the Western Desert was AFAIK purely in the anti-materiel role. If you like history and find yourself wondering what could have happened definitely check him out. Albeit it is stagnant trench warfare which would be more suited for a heavy rifle like Ian talked about. There is a Czech soldier who uses an anti-tank rifle for anti-personnel use sniping officers in second and third line trenches and actually becomes quite infamous, even having a price put on his head.

In one particular series Neville Chamberlain rejects Hitler’s final demand that lands be given to Germany, and instead declares war. Theres a wonderful alternate fiction author by the name of Harry Turtledove who has written an assortment of books covering some of the biggest “what ifs” in military history. It’s not just video games that give people this perception of anti-tank/material rifles being precision sniping weapons, even though they are the largest proponent (the scoped PTRS in Cal of Duty, World at War). There was a report during the Tamil Tigers conflict against the Sri Lankan Government, that their Navy used Boys for a similar role in the early stages of the conflict in the late 1980’s (it went from 1983 to 2009).

The Boys was from 1944 transferred to the Royal Navy for use on minesweeper sweeping the enemy and Allied mine field for both cable mounted mines and sea bed mines, with the Boys again fitted with a No 32 sight used effectively to blow mines when they floating on the surface, and the Boys was used by the RN and other commonwealth navies up into the late 1950’s. The history is quite supportive of the Boys in the role that they used it. And as a anti-material weapon shooting at such as mortar, artillery, pack animals such as donkeys, horses and the occasional mule. Fitted with a No 32 sight they were used as a long range harassment weapon, not as a individual killing tool. The regimental history in a appendix on sniping of the Lovat Scouts of the British Army whilst serving in Italy and Greece 1944-46, discusses the use of the Boys AT Rifle as a marksmans weapon.

Modern anti tank sniper rifle