If soldier had to manually load each bullet, were there cases of soldiers loading 6 bullets instead of 5? I mean 5 to internal mag and 6th one to the chamber.
On paper seems plausable and convinient to do if you expect to shoot a lot of bullets (relatively) quickly.
Not sure.
Maybe you’ll find an answer in this original training video from Scharfschützen 1944
With English subtitles
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Ahoi!
No, that’s not possible. One of the five rounds gets loaded into the chamber when you’re closing the bolt.
To close the bolt, the chamber has to be empty.
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I can hold the bullet in mag with my finger to not chamber it.
Theoretical yes, but (just according to my personal experience) i haven’t seen someone doing this on range or while hunting, neither heard about this as a special loading technique. I may be wrong, but i would state that this wasn’t done at all.
I’ll have a look into German Dienstvorschriften later on because of being curious.
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To my (limited) knowledge, soldiers worldwide would be more inclined to have one less round in the magazine, rather than risking a jam by stuffing in too many.
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It does seem plausible because of how you can do that with other guns.
However , the cocking action occurs as the Bolt Carrier moves backwards, and then when the bolt is pushed forward (Kar98 specifically) the next round is fed into it. If you’ve already put a round in the hole manually as you close it will jam.
Further to note, the chamber is not open until the Bolt carrier is all the way in the rearward position. So not matter what it will attempt to feed.
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You can only really do that with tube magazines - so shotguns and the lebel. Most lever actions irl but not the Winchester in game.
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A lot of late war German SMGs and ARs it was common doctrine to not even load to nominal capacity because of how low quality the springs were.
I actually think the combat configuration on the StG44 was not to exceed 25 rounds.
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Not just Germany either.
A lot of boomers in the US still think you shouldn’t fully load a mag
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