When reloading a belt fed weapon there is no reason why the soilder wouldn’t combine half used ones when reloading to have a higher ammo count in the gun.
For example:
•topping up a magazine would take a long while meanwhile combing 2 belts could be done very fast.
So I suggest:
•all belt fed guns (even ones with a belt box like the mg34) should combine used belts to create full or higher length belts when reloading.
That’d create an even bigger disparity in the MGs, I’d rather this not happen. More ammunition for arguments about balance and such.
Combining two belts is easy if both are still fresh but combing two used belts not so much
as in WW2 they used non desintigrating ammo belts that where made in a specific premade lenght.
So for example the german belts were made in segmants of 50 rounds so combining belt after just 30 round is just impossible.
If you have a belt were the first 20 rounds were used up (20 empty holders the 30 full ones) and link it to a belt with 30 rounds used up (30 empty holders the 20 full ones) you would end up having a massive gap in your new belt ( 20 empty 30 full then again 30 empty then again 20 full).
So while you could combine them you would leave a giant gap for your mg to missfeed/ get jammed at.
Unless you manually trasfer each round from the first belt into the second or vice versa you will run into problems when combining belts but at that point combining a belt is not much diffrent than combining a normal magazine.