My (distant) cousin is a bit of a character. At one time he was going with some chick and her ex-bf came around and my cousin just beat him up like an ugly step child. I mean bashed him black and blue and bloody.
My cousin is probably not over 5’3” but he’s probably 180 lb and all muscle, reminds one of a dwarf. So my cousin heard the guy had been talking to the girl a few months later and says “well that was fun, let me beat him to a pulp again”.
He goes up to the guy who says “not so fast hombre” pulls out a .38 special and shoots my cousin once in the knee cap. He ended up going to jail for a year or 2 and as you can guess the rematch didn’t occur.
Here is the point to my rambling story. My cousin had a hell of a long and painful recovery. He had numerous operations, walked on a cane for years. I saw him 3-4 years later and he had probably lost 40 pounds of his muscle and was pale. So these POWs are going to suffer for years, decades and even for life in many cases. Some will die.
Getting your knee cap shot is no little thing.
Thanks for that story.
You can die of infection in real world situations, too. And, yes, it’s permanently damaging.
That’s my target if I am assaulted while unarmed. A stomping kick to the knee joint will disable almost any attacker. You want to hear that joint go “crunch”.
When you are under attack (your country, that is) you can’t afford to take prisoners; they have to be guarded and fed.
Bad use of manpower and resources. Dead is better but disabled means less danger of them getting back in the fight.