[drgondog]

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?

USAAF defined a sortie as a completed mission in which the pilot/crew went all the way to the objective and RTB. Had nothing to do with victories or other metrics