Poor Stirling Mk III....

Some way to remedying the poor performance of the basic Stirling design with the introduction of the Mark III from the start of 1943, but still the aircraft suffered much higher losses than the other aircraft of the Main Force. Within five months of being introduced, 67 out of the 84 aircraft delivered had been lost to enemy action or written off after crashes.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/stirling.html

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