There's a line of analysis that suggests Leigh Mallory and Bader's "Big Wing" strategy was a quick way to defeat in the battle of Britain.
After the battle he conspired with Leigh Mallory to unseat Keith Park, whose implementation of Dowding's "Woodchipper" strategy wrote down the luftwaffe over 7 weeks while maintaning a viable core of RAF fighters operating in the South.
Leigh Mallory then instituted wing-scale cross channel raids during 1941.
These suffered 4:1 losses against defending German fighters, and saw Bader being shot down and captured.
Once you get past the Spitfires, Michael Caine and Christopher Plummer, there's some serious shithousery going on in fighter command.
The sort of stuff that would have seen a courtmartial in a more senior service.
As a friend and supporter of his 12 Group commander, Air Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Bader joined him as an active exponent of the controversial "Big Wing" theory which provoked much debate in the RAF during the battle.
Bader was an outspoken critic of the careful "husbanding" tactics being used by Air Vice Marshal Keith Park, the commander of 11 Group.
Park was supported by Fighter Command Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the overall commander.
While it is not known whether Mallory and Bader were aware that the claims of the RAF and Big Wings were exaggerated, they certainly tried to use them as a potent tool with which to remove Park and Dowding from command and pursue the Big Wing tactic
RAF ace Johnnie Johnson offered his own view of Bader and the Big Wing:
Douglas was all for the Big Wings to counter the German formation[s].
I think there was room for both tactics—the Big Wings and the small squadrons.
It might well have been fatal had Park always tried to get his squadrons into "Balbos", for not only would they have taken longer to get to their height, but sixty or seventy packed climbing fighters could have been seen for miles and would have been sitting ducks for higher 109s.
Also nothing would have pleased Göring more than for his 109s to pounce on large numbers of RAF fighters.
Indeed, Adolf Galland and Werner Mölders complained about the elusiveness of Fighter Command and Park's brilliance was that by refusing to concentrate his force he preserved it throughout the battle.
This does not mean, as Bader pointed out at the time, that two or three Balbos from 10 and 12 Groups, gaining height beyond the range of the 109s, would not have played a terrific part in the fighting.
25.8 %
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