Thanks Chris - 'Downing' was disturbing my fragile little mind
'Big Wings' were a very reasonable strategy - as the US 8th Airforce later proved. The problem in 1940 was, Dowding was on an island with basically zero (but possibly growing) support, a finite supply of aircraft and even more importantly and more finite numbers of pilots. Taking Bader's side for a moment, I can WELL understand pilots getting extremely upset at taking off with token handfuls of Spits and Hurricanes with eight puny 303's against canon armed 109's and massed formations of bombers. It must have been bloody terrifying, aside from seeming just silly. But Dowding only had limited supplies and needed to use them extremely sparingly. Radar allowed him to do this and he used that to its fullest extent - it also allowed the German pilots to be constantly surprised, especially with 109's limited to 15 minutes flight time over the UK.
An interesting side point I heard second hand from Georing (through the incredible Eric Brown) who was asked who he thought 'won' the Battle of Britain. Goering replied 'It was a draw!' When questioned further, he said the RAF were losing less aircraft than the Luftwaffe, right up until the last 'official' week of the Battle. In other words, the Luftwaffe had turned the tide. This is factual and not fantasy. Once the tide had turned, Goering said, Hitler 'felt' the Battle was won (or could be) and decided to withdraw large sections of the Luftwaffe to start preparations for Barbarossa - the invasion of Russia. And on that score as well, few know that advance German shock troops actually got inside the Kremlin before the main advance halted as it's supply lines became overly extended.
Dowding, at the time, was completely correct I would suggest.