I found out the other day from a serious researcher into British military small arms that from 1939-1944 the British armed forces purchased 93,500,000 .177" calibre airgun pellets. Yes, you read that right, 93 million.

While that pales set against purchase of around one billion rounds of .22" rimfire in the same period, it does suggest that quite a lot of airguns were being used for, presumably, training purposes. That's not something that I can recall ever reading about. Can anyone shed any light?