Vulnerability of liquid cooled engines

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For daylight operations it is true that the defensive fire was significant, the raids that were considered a disaster like Schweinfurt also imposed heavy losses on the LW.

I suppose it depends on what you count as a heavy loss.

The Luftwaffe lost 20-odd fighters in the first Schweinfurt mission. Almost all due to the fighter escort of P-47s and Spitfires.

The Allied fighter pilots claimed slightly more kills than was actually the case. Gunners on the bombers claimed more aircraft killed than the Luftwaffe put into the air, by some margin.

Bombing raids became far more costly to the Luftwaffe when escort was provided all the way to target.
 

The XB-15 and XB-19 were originally intended to use liquid cooled engines (X/V-3420s, I believe) but these were unavailable and would not be available for some time.

So they ended up with what was available.
 

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