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I was reading a Mauser book at the TSJC Library (great gun book library) and learned that the 71/84 repeater was never issued to the Askaris. The German Colonial Government didn't want to retrain them, have more complicated guns and felt that their basic foes were Africans who were even more poorly armed. The single shot was good enough to do the job.
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Ha! Shows the racist thinking of the period.
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Of course, we know that the British led Indian Army resupplied von Lettow-Vorbeck's askaris with SMLEs at the start of the war.
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Yes, the Germans used captured British rifles and ammunition and had to give up the M71's because no German supply ships got through.