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It's interesting that you are arguing about retained energy and lost and wounded birds by taking head shots, and then advocate body shots to "cover the biggest area of the vitals."

Have you ever cleaned a wild turkey or parted one out for cooking? "Vitals" are surrounded by thick muscle and robust bone. A wild turkey's wing drum is bigger than the biggest chick leg and the bone is several time bigger. Likewise, the wing flat is very robustly built. The breast on an decent sized bird is as big as a rotisere chicken. Then you have very strong tendons and ligaments, and a virtual armor of feathers. All of this protects the vitals. The heart, liver and lungs are deep and well protected. Clean enough dead birds and you will quickly learn that these structures can keep a pellet from getting into all that. When I do find pellets in the body, they are generally up against the bone that stopped them. And even if you happen to poke a hole or two in a vital, it will be a long time before that bird is incapacitated, and likely very far from where it got shot.

The head and neck aren't nearly as well protected. Skulls aren't very thick and the spinal cord is relatively exposed. There's not much muscle around vertebrae. The head and neck contain the central nervous system which, when struck, produce incapacitation.

You're concerned about "wounding and loosing a few birds." Take body shots and that's what will happen. Probably more than a few. There's a reason serious turkey hunters don't do what you suggest - it's a literal recipe for wounded and lost birds. There's probably not a turkey hunter on this forum who hasn't had an unfortunate hit on the body of bird, rolled him, then watched him get up and run off. That is far less likely to happen with head/neck hits. The experience of hundreds of thousands of turkey hunters has proven it.

Sorry battue, you are way, way, way off base here.