I’ve had this silly question brewing in my mind for a while, so I figured this would be a good place to ask it.

I figure this would be situational…

Say a soldier is participating in an assault during World War II… after said soldier expends the entire load of bullets within the clip or magazine of his/her weapon, does he take the time to collect the clips and magazines and fumble with putting them back into pouches/ bandoliers, or would they just reload, drop the spent clip or magazine, and continue fighting?

I would imagine that soldiers would take the time to save magazines, as they are more complex in design, more expensive to produce, and in general probably harder to come by… Still, stuffing a magazine back into an ammo pouch while trying to reload a weapon/ returning fire/ being under enemy fire must have been a pain in the butt. Beyond that, it must have SUCKED to try to remember which magazines in your pouches were full or empty while under fire… I can imagine that some unlucky souls grabbed empty magazines at the worst possible time and met their end.

I can understand just dropping clips… especially the ones for the M1 Garand considering how they flew out of the rifle. Those clips must have been so hard to find among rubble and debris on the battlefield…

Thanks for your time and consideration!