TrT is reading some old notes (Yes, I am rockstar) and has come across "Big Wing" theory again.
Now, as I frequently point out, I have no practical experience of these matters, but "big" and "little" wings are not competitors, they are mutually supportive.
Group your light/fast fighters into small groups, their purpose is to ensure that every incoming bomber wing faces at least some resistance.
At the time, it didnt take much to force a bomber off course, with navigation limited to a compass and a guess at speed, any damage, or evasive maneuver would introduce errors into navigation, and the earlier they were introduced, the greater the eventual margin of error when the bombs were released.
Group your heavy/slow fighters into large groups, their purpose is to ensure some incoming bomber wings face total losses, or as near as.
Note, numbers made up
I've never really had anything back me up on this, but I am convinced that an experienced fighting force can lose 50% of its man power, have them replaced with recruits fresh out of basic and suffer only a minimal loss of its combat effectiveness.
A unit that loses 80% of its manpower is destroyed as a fighting force. The "veteran" soldiers force multiplication effect is overwhelmed by the force division effect of the newbies.
Hence my view that efforts should be put in to destroying sub units as thoroughly as possible.