Do soldiers in WW2 discard spent...

magazines, charger clips, drums, ammo belts, etc. after use? Or do they retain them to be reloaded later?

When they rearm, do they get new magazines, or just the bullets and replacements for magazines, drums, etc. if they were discarded ?

 

It is a matter of which is used, so yes to some; no to others. The stripper/charger clips; NO. The belt feed for MGs, YES to the metalic, NO to the canvas (generally), and I don't think the Japanese discarded their "stick" feeds either, but reloaded them. The box, stick and drum magazines; YES if possible, but they could be replaced if lost in battle. At least that is what I have been able to glean over the years.

If in a hot and heavy engagement, the mags would probably be dropped and replaced into the weapon to continue the fight and retreaved after the battle. Both the STEN and M3 (grease gun in one model) could use the MP-40 style stick, and vice-versa so I don't know who would benefit there, and the M3 could use the Thompson 30 round stick as well.

The PPsH drum and stick were only functional to those weapons (I am not sure the Finn SMG was the same since they used different rounds).

 

depended on the weapon type and army! M1 garand (US) had ammo issued in 8 round clips ready to go. The soldier shoved the whole thing down into the garand and yanked his thumb out as the bolt closed automatically. The metal strip part was ejected with a clang sound when empty and usually the soldier left it there as it usually wasnt re-used. I have never heard any stories with such details but presumably the metal part could be reloaded with loose 30-06 rounds if you were desperate enough, otherwise you had yourself a single shot.
The German kar-98 bolt action too, was generally issued rounds in 8-round clips similar to the Garand. The soldier opened the bolt and shoved in the ammo, pulling out the metal part and discarding it.

For detachable magazine weapons it may have been a different situation since ammo was often simply issued "loose" in boxes of 20, or in the famous green GI ammo can that everyone has seen one of at least once.

Unless a detachable magazine was malfunctioning badly, (the most common cause of stoppages in almost every semi- or full- auto weapon ever made), was destroyed or broken or the soldier simply had no time, most soldiers DID try to hang on to the empty magazines.

Ammo was generally easier to come by than new magazines and this became more true in many armies as the war progressed as armies adopted new weapons and sometimes whole new calibers, requiring each type of weapon to have its own magazines that were interchangable with no other types.

Look at the WW2 standard-issue weapons of the USA, and the Germans. The Germans managed to keep things more or less simple as they started the war with only two types of ammo for battle weapons (7.92 long and 9mm) and ended the war with only 3 (the addition of the 7.92 kurtz round for the MP-44 sturmgewehr - the weapon was so revolutionary the Germans considered it worth the logistics headache of an additional round in the supply channels).

But using these 3 calibers was several types of weapons: 9mm: luger pistol, p-38 pistol, mp-40
7.92 long: Kar-98, mg-34/42, kar 43 (semi auto), fg-42 (fallshirmjaeger full-auto, magazine fed rifle),
7.92 kurtz: MP-43, mp-44, one or two other types;

all of which used the same ammo with absolutely NO magazine interchanging.

The situation was even worse for the USA:
45 caliber: 45 auto pistol, M3 submachine gun, reising submachine gun (Marines only).
30-06: M1 garand, m1917 machine gun, johnson rifle (Marines only).
M1 carbine round: M1/M2 carbines.

Of course the same ammo from one type of weapon could, and often was, used in another (i.e. machine gun rounds could be de-linked and used in your rifle). The point is the soldier in no army could ever always count on spare magazines being issued along with ammo, and re-use was customary whenever possible. The soldier was generally trained to give the magazines the same care and cleaning he treated the rifle (almost all detachable weapon magazines can be disassembled for cleaning and replacing broken parts).

 

I think it's worse than that, I don't expect a pistol to use the same magazine as a SMG or a bolt action rifle as an LMG.
But even for the same class of weapons the "drum" magazines of the MG 42 was possibly the same as the one of the MG 34 but not compatible with the "saddle" of the MG 15 adapted for ground use issued to some Luftwaffe units or the box of the czech designs used by the SS.
Also the Germans had lots of other SMG besides the standard MP 38/40.
I'm thinking of the MP 18, MP 28, MP 34, MP 35, MP E (Erma), all of those had side not bottom mounted magazines so they possibly were different. AFAIK the sping of the MP 40 magazine tended to wear very fast if it was loaded to full capacity so there was liely to be a shortage of those and I'm not sure the MP 40/II that had a double magazine could use the standard one.


So definetly a German soldier had to hang onto his empty mags if at all possible.

 

Generally they discarded spent charger clips and ammo belts but retained magazines. Often when re-arming only bullets are provided and you loaded them into magazines yourself. You could generally get more magazines from supply -or pick them up from the battlefield. Most soldiers carried as much ammo as they could conveniently deal with -it was quite heavy during WW2 -much lighter now. Try carrying 250 rounds of .303 British or 30/06 Springfield some day and you will see what I mean. Both Thompson and Sten Magazines were heavy when loaded. You wouldn't want to carry more than 10 or so.

 

I thought 9mm smg rounds weren't completely interchangeable with 9mm pistol rounds. Some of the German pistols were also rather finicky about the rounds used also weren't they?

 

The Germans certainly ran into problems when they introduced lacquered steel-cased rounds due to material shortages. Generally, the steel-cased rounds were for SMGs whereas pistols were supposed to be used with brass. Obviously frontline conditions meant that this wasn't always the case. I've certainly read that the Luger pistol didn't take kindly to being loaded with steel-cased ammunition.

 

British soldiers were supposed to retain magazines and chargers. The latter were less important, though. Stens and the like were only issued with a limited number of magazines and a mag loader (if necessary) and the gunner/rifleman was merely resupplied with more rounds.

ETA: Don't forget about battlefield clearance brigades, however!

 

everyone ran into material shortages sooner or later so basicly there would have been a major call for saving mags and the like heck it used to be the u.s started making pennies out of casings retrieved off the battle field showing that shortage that every nation fighting in ww2 had even the germans started making wood lowers for mp-40s everyone had problems

 

The problem was the open bolt SMGs required a hotter round to operate. Today those rounds are referred to as "+P" and "+P+". The higher pressures accelerate wear/stress in weapons not intended to handle the hotter ammo.

 

Enfield guys kept the magazine (rarely removed it) and tossed the stripper clips.
Garand guys kept one/two clips so they could grab rounds from a BAR or MG if they couldn't get bandoleers.
'03 guys tossed the stripper clips.
Carbine & Thompson?