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I was wondering why the US relied so heavily on bombers as part of the nuclear triad during the Cold War. I just dont see how the flights of B-52s were expected to survive over the USSR long enough to reach their targets. They're not particularly fast and they didnt fly above the range of SAMS. We relied on gravity bombs for quite a while before the development of ALCMs, in fact, the B-61 gravity bomb is still in our stockpile. So with no stand off capability, how were these slow, lumbering bombers expected to make it over the heavily fortified area? Sheer numbers?