As a fighter pilot I know from my own experiences how decisive surprise and luck can be for success, which in the long run comes only to the one who combines daring with cool thinking.
Many pilots of the time were the opinion that a fighter pilot in a closed cockpit was an impossible thing, because you should smell the enemy. You could smell them because of the oil they were burning.
During the Battle of Britain the question "fighter or fighter-bomber?" had been decided once and for all: The fighter can only be used as a bomb carrier with lasting effect when sufficient air superiority has been won.
To use a fighter as a fighter-bomber when the strength of the fighter arm is inadequate to achieve air superiority is putting the cart before the horse.
Of course, the outcome of the war would not have been changed. The war was lost perhaps, when it was started. At least it was lost in the winter of '42, in Russia.