They're still useful indeed for those reasons. What's now much less useful is to maintain some number of bombers with live weapons airborne at all times to guar

They're still useful indeed for those reasons. What's now much less useful is to maintain some number of bombers with live weapons airborne at all times to guard against a possible sneak attack on airfields. Missiles don't turn around either, but I wonder if any of them have the ability to be disarmed or self-destructed. Might be a useful ability in some situations, but also a vulnerability that an enemy might exploit. I expect people like us would never know for sure if such a thing existed anyways.