Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary_D
In August 1942 the USSR Peoples Commissariat of Defense issued an order which severely limited the definition of "combat sortie" for fighter pilots. This was important because in 1941 a series of awards for pilots had been established. For example, a fighter pilot was awarded 1,000 rubles for an aerial kill and made a Hero of the Soviet Union for 10 aerial kills. The August 1942 order defined combat sortie for fighters as follows:
1. A sortie in which the fighter pilot engages in aerial combat.
2. A sortie in which, while escorting shturmoviks or bombers on a combat mission, the escorted planes do not suffer any losses from enemy fighters.
If this definition is much more restrictive than other nations' definition, it could really screw up comparisons of sortie rates between countries.
Can someone say if the Germans, Americans, or Brits had a similarly restrictive definition?
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As russian saying mean "the russian rigidity of the act will be compensate with non-compliance". This definition of sortie of august 42 is one example for this saying. In the fact, this order was issued by Stalin in august 42. The background of the order was the letter signed by General Zhukov, Novikow(VVS chief) and Malenkow(member of party leadership). In this letter they described the poor behavior and low moral of the soviet fighter and their inability to protect the own attack planes and own ground troops from german air attacks. Therefore this order was issued and should improve the situation in the figther regiments. But it is not known, that this order was really applied and after some weeks and the situation stabilizing it was practical forgoten, what the definition of sortie concern.
A summer 42 was really hard for soviet goverment and Stalin personally, therefore many such rigid orders were issued, some kind of panic reaction.
The Luftwaffe definition is also complicate. It was different kind of sortie as Feindflug, doppelte Feindflug, Einsatzflug, Frontflug etc. I would say, the german bureaucracy is the best
Best regards