At the outbreak of war, the QF 2-pdr was the standard anti-tank gun of the British Army. It was an adequate weapon for the time, being slightly more effective in terms of armour penetration then the contemporary German 37mm PaK 36.
 
Most anti-tank men were reassigned under the Jungle Division restructure. Those few that remained formed ‘Tank Attack’ units and were equipped with both 2pdr and 6pdr AT guns supplied from Britain, although these were of very limited use in the jungle environment of New Guinea and so only saw regular usage in Borneo from 1944 onwards.