Radial vs in-line engines

[Tacoma74]

The way I've always looked at it is that a big radial may produce a lot of power and be very torquey, but they're is enivitably a quite larger amount of drag introduced to the nose of the plane. A 109 on the other hand for example has a more "bullet shaped" nose with the inverted v-12, thus being more streamlined and needing less power to pull it through the air.