what's so threatening about a giant aircraft? It's not stealth so you can see it from miles away, and it has no defensive features. One shot from any SAM or interceptor is enough to bring it down. I think a rocket launching submarine is more of a threat.
It's a giant aircraft capable of conventionally glassing an area 2 miles long. And that is the key word, conventionally.
The threat of force has to be backed up with the use of violence in order to be a viable deterrent.
The US was loathe to use atomic weapons during a world war against a global power. They were never going to nuke a load of rice farmers to save face.
By contrast, any single B-52 has killed more people than every SSBN of every nation ever. B-52s have dropped more tonnage of bombs than any other aircraft type in existence. Hell, by itself it rivals and exceeds the accumulative dropped ordnance of almost any nation on Earth. Arclight and Rolling Thunder alone accounted for more explosives than the entire Allied airwar in WWII (not counting the atomic weapon strikes).
The VC weren't scared of nuclear weapons. Because they knew the chances of them being targeted by submarine launched nuclear weapons was zero.
However.
They were absolutely fucking terrified of BUFFs, because at least you got warning of a nuclear strike. The first time some Charlie would know he was the lucky recipient of Arclight would be when the jungle around him turns into fire, splinters and shockwaves.
It's not stealth so you can see it from miles away,
Fun Fact.
The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is in fact visible to the naked eye, and can be seen from over 20 miles away.
Jokes aside, of course it's not stealth. It was designed before that was a thing. And funnily enough, it's out-lived the stealth bombers that were supposed to replace it.
The truth is, nothing is invincible or invisible dude. The
Yugoslavians shot down Nighthawk. Even without a stunt in a Lightning, U2 can and has been brought down and the mighty Blackbird could theoretically be shot down (the Swedes proved it, although to manage it highlighted just how difficult a task it would be as it required prior flight path knowledge, a passive SR-71 crew and a waiting fighter screen).
It's fitted with similar defensive capabilities to any other bomber aircraft in service in the form of ECM/EECM systems. Hell it even had a tail gun, back when that was a thing.
B-52s carry more weight than any other bomber aircraft in the world. Its major defence in hostile SAM areas is by not needing to go into those places in the first place as its current task is delivery of
lots of stand off weapons.
And that's not including its own nuclear capabilities. Strategic Air Command maintained B-52s in the sky 24hrs a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year for most of the 60s. And i don't mean on the ground ready to go like we did it back then.
I mean in flight, doing laps of the US, flying to Italy, Greenland and back with armed nuclear weapons on board as a threat of force as part of the MAD holy trinity (subs, silos and bombers).
That meant it was pointless launching a surprise first strike in the hope you could catch the US before it got bombers in the air.
Because the bombers had already been in the air for 3 years and just needed releasing.