Ivanhoe:
With the way the military-industrial complex is headed, maybe they'd be happier to buy a new F-22 every time one had problems!
Monkeyleg:
The concept of wounding enemy soldier instead of killing them I think came from Mao Tse-Tung. Not sure of that though. I think it has a lot to do with guerilla warfare thinking.
Modern rifle ammo is prohibited from creating excessive suffering to enemy soldiers due to some Geneva or Hague treaty. Therefore, most military ammo is FMJ since around the turn of the century. 1900, that is.
Wound effects of most military ammo didn't begin until the 80s. (Dr Martin Fackler is the only name I've heard for extensive study on international military bullet effects), well after the international acceptance of FMJ ammo for military use. Now, Dr. Fackler does say military FMJ rifle ammo is better for creating wounds in most cases compared to other rifle ammo, but since the bullet designs predate the research by 20, 30, maybe even 50-80 years or so, I don't think the "wounding" effect was intentional.
Even M-16 M-193 55 gr ammo's tumbling/fragmenting effects inside human bodies was more of an accident than on purpose.
OK, now that I've gone over the history, my own opinion is that the wounding/5 to take care of 1 philosophy may have a place in guerilla warfare but on a conventional battlefield it doesn't work too well. I may be presumptuous on the mind of the GI Joe Grunt, but I would figure they'd more often than not shoot to utterly finish the opposition. In short, GI Joe wants to finish off Herman the German or Ivan the Russky or Chang the Chicom, not see him leave to the field hospital where he'll come back maybe smarter and tougher the next fight.
On another note, back in the Cold War the Soviets basically put minimal importance on taking care of their wounded. They probably heard the Mao philosophy, also, so they solve the problem by not putting too many resources into the wounded in the first place. I dunno how well the philosophy took, since accounts I read of Russians in Afghanistan seem to say that a grunt will take care of his wounded buddy that he's been through 2 years of fighting with. However, the hospital/medic support isn't nearly as much as NATO soldiers expect. Anyway, Asian-philosophy militarys often have the same attitude of "too bad" for the wounded.
So what I'm saying is the Maoist philosophy of wounding may work best when used in a guerilla warfare mode on a western miltary. Otherwise its mostly just a military science discussion.
Hope that helps.
Edmund