class, certainly the best of the American weapons, including the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine. In North Africa, after Commonwealth units began to obtain sufficient parts, manuals, gauges, and ammunition for the new weapon, the .50 Browning was increasingly used, eventually replacing the 15 mm Besa, but in Italy it was often deleted from top turret mountings because the mount exposed the operator to low branches and enemy fire. All LRDGs, and some SAS units used the aircraft (AN/M2) version of the gun, while beam/waist-mounted and turret-mounted Brownings were used later in the war in such aircraft as the Short Sunderland and Lancaster bomber. After World War II, the .50 Browning continued to see action in Korea and other theaters, in aircraft, tripod (ground), ground AA (hip-ring), and vehicle mounts. One of its most notable actions in a ground role was in a fierce battle with a nine-man Special Air Service team at the Battle of Mirbat in Oman in July 1972, where the heavy Browning and its API ammunition was used to help repulse an assault by 250 Yemeni Adoo guerrillas, though the more famous weapon from the battle is a 25 pounder gun. The Scots Guards used the weapon in the 1982 Falklands War. A .50 caliber Browning was installed along with a .30 caliber Browning machine gun in each compact one-man turret on M113 APCs used by the Royal Australian Armoured Corps in South Vietnam. The M2HB has been in service with the Israel Defense Forces since its establishment and has served in all of Israel's wars, operations, and conflicts. In 2012, the IDF upgraded its M2HB machine guns to the M2HQCB model, with a heavy quick-change barrel. Today the M2 serves as an infantry crew-served heavy machine gun, as a remote-controlled external coaxial gun on Merkava main battle tanks, as the main weapon on the Samson RCWS, and as a secondary weapon on Israeli Sea Corps gunboats and missile boats. Nigerian troops have extensively deployed the 50 caliber Browning, mounted on Otokar Cobra APCs, Panhard VBL M11s and Landcruiser gun-trucks in counterinsurgency operations in the Niger Delta, N.E Nigeria, the Jos Plateau, and in Mali. Sniper rifle The M2 machine gun has also been used as a long-range sniper rifle when equipped with a high-powered telescopic sight. Soldiers during the Korean War used scoped M2s in the role of a sniper rifle, but the practice was