Newbie Question - Number of Sorties

[ChesterCT]

Hi there

Serious WITW newbie here.

Having finally given up on CMBN (sick of those leaders seeking mortars), I thought it was time to put some effort into WITW which has sat unplayed on my pc for a few years.

So I started with the opening scenario, Operation Husky, leaving the automated air directives which I then ran. Looking at the Air Execution Phase Summary I was bit surprised to see the Total Number of Sorties to be 12,146!! Can this be a real number? I realize that the air activity takes place over a week long period, but 12,146 sorties? Could somebody please clarify what a sortie actually means as I am struggling to believe that more than 12,000 flights of one sort or another took place over 1 week.

I know that this seems like a silly question but before I invest huge quantities of time in WITW I would like to know that the numbers actually are based on something real and not just random numbers generated which we aren't supposed to ask too many questions about.

I really want to get into this game but just need to understand how so many sorties can happen in one week. Maybe my historical understanding of the logistical aspects of WW2 needs a bit of tweaking so if anybody can give me some perspective it will be much appreciated.

Many thanks

[Helpless]

From Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_invasion_of_Sicily

Between mid-May and the invasion, Allied airmen flew 42,227 sorties and destroyed 323 German and 105 Italian aircraft, for the loss of 250 aircraft, mostly to anti-aircraft fire over Sicily.[37]

Which would be roughly 6-7k sorties per week.

Out of 12k sorties ~3k are auto-naval patrol, which are abstracted. So having ~9k (real) sorties on "D-day week" is not something which couldn't happen.

[ChesterCT]

Thanks for the info and for taking the time to reply.

Much appreciated.

[Joel Billings]

Another way to look at this is that there are 3600 Allied aircraft, so you're talking about 1 sortie every other day for a week for each of these aircraft.

[LiquidSky]

A sortie is a trip from base to target and back.

I imagine that for close targets there could be multiple sorties in one day per plane.