That guy may have been me. I was pretty bummed, but quickly learned about its awesomeness (avionics-wise, anyway).
"SRAM Howell" ring a bell?
I had a really tough time resisting the urge to tell them the "cargo" came out the bottom.
ICBMs also render other kinds of bombers obsolete and yet b52 and tu-95 are still around.
The B-52 survived by becoming a low altitude bomber and an excellent, cheap nuclear-capable cruise missile delivery platform that was comparatively cheap to operate at the same level of effectiveness as the B1-B and B-2A for similar roles.
Russia more or less mirrored this with the Tu-95.
The B52 role was to have wings (and nuclear bombs) in the air constantly over the arctic to act as a deterrent. The only way that idea could attempt to survive out of the 50's is if they (or one of them) were < hour from a target at all times. They're huge, they flew slow, and their flight path didn't change much. The whole multi-decade mission was a huge waste of money; a stage drama.
The B52 also became a heavy bomber in Vietnam, with incredibly heavy loses. The Air Force in general in Vietnam was a shit show -- observe the F4.
It's only when you have air superiority can you dredge up a B52 to deliver a payload.
These are not winning strategies in a war that would start today by an adversary like China. We're going to be caught with our pants down with B52s as the stains on our underwear.
Meanwhile: their entire imported food and oil supply has been easily blockaded by ancient, conventional systems.
Isn't there a truism that the F4 demonstrates that with big enough engines, you can get any lump of junk up into the air ?
The needs of Vietnam required different tactics, and the airmen paid in blood for the myopic vision of the leaders.
Even the airframes are mostly still alive 50+ years later, which is mind blowing on aircraft. They have made a new B52 since ‘62 but they keep on trucking.
It isn’t super fast (the B1 is that), or stealthy (B2 or B21), or sexy (B1), or nimble (any of the generations of fighter bombers that have come and gone). It doesn’t fly particularly low. Or particularly high.
But god damn can it carry and drop absolutely massive quantities of whatever type of ordnance you want, pretty much anywhere you want on the globe, and do it over and over and over and over again. 70,000 lbs worth
The 737 is still around for pretty much the same reasons.
Any alternative ends up being less effective at the same tasks, or more niche/expensive.
They’re basically the alligators or horseshoe crabs of the airplane world. Or the M2 heavy machine gun. Or the Cessna 182 or Robinson R22 of the GA world.
This has been proven utterly false since the 1960s, because a) you can't recall an ICBM after firing it, b) you can't retarget an ICBM after firing it, and c) there's no reliable way to tell nuke warheads from conventional ones, meaning every one you launch has to be assumed to have a nuclear payload, with all the world-ending consequences that entails.
The Air Force resurrected this zombie idea (conventional ICBMs) in the 2000s and called it Prompt Global Strike, only to can it for the obvious reasons.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)#First_ope...
B-52s were able to pivot to new roles so have stayed around.
I'm humbled for us laughing at the one guy assigned to B-52 maintenance role when was in USAF training over 30 years ago "That old thing? Ha!". Who would have guessed..