Except they're going to be, eventually.
yes but for the au to work eventually only has to be post 1916,
remember that it wasn't until after ww1 that many european armies got rid of the mag cut offs on their rifles, and up until then the functional doctrine was to single load the gun and save the mag for an emergency
If you're going to introduce a "slow", you need to slow a great many other things, not least metallurgy (weapons able to withstand the pressure) & development of steam power (whence rifling, with the ability to deliver tight bores).
this has no bearing on my argument, i'm not arguing that these advancements won't happen, in arguing that these countries main combat rifles won't have a magazine,
repeaters are still in demand on the civilian market
and tbh allowing small elite units to issue limited numbers does not break the op
I'm unaware of any government, anywhere, ever, doing that.
austria hungary (3 rifles in 4 years) germany (converted the g71 to a repeater in 1884, then turned around an adopted a completely different rifle in 1888) france (rearmed it's entire army with the lebel in 2 years)
Like the U.S. did? When no other major nation did? So why did nobody else? They couldn't afford to give up an advantage, maybe?
because the us didn't have the money to purchase the ammo they would need to feed repeaters,
And why adopt MG if you refuse to adopt repeaters? Where's the need?
In fact, without breechloaders, I wonder if anybody ever bothers to look at *Maxims. Gatlings, maybe not either. You can't have it both ways.
you do know that one of the first niches that the gatling and nordenfelt filled in numbers was to protect battleships from small torpedo boats? a roll that the maxim later filled
And unless you somehow slow the advance of chemistry, metallurgy, & a variety of other things, that's pretty much what you have to get. The choices made by nations around the world produced the OTL outcome for reasons beyond the rule of cool.
again i don't argue the these improvements won't be available, just that politics will prevent them from being adopted in large numbers
if you find the op unrealistic, that's your problem, i'm trying to figure out the most probable way it could happen