@Josh_TN as much as I bag on the Bone, it eventually became quite successful, just not at what it was originally intended, thankfully that had just as much to do with the fall of the Iron Curtain as its teething problems, which was a good thing. Ultimately, it could do what nothing else in the fleet could match; transit from over 1,000 nm away from the theater, loiter over a point somewhere over the middle of a country in the sandbox for several hours, fly to any point within a set radius in less than 15 min, communicate directly back to the CAOC, use SAR radar, MTI radar, and use IR/EO targeting pods to deliver JDAM and Laser JDAM. As much as I like the BUFF, it couldn't do all of that, which is not to say that the BUFF doesn't have capabilities the Bone doesn't which better suit it to high end threats.I think it would be quite a stretch to describe the B-1 as a successful program. They ended up seeing a lot of use because of their endurance, but I don't think they ever ended up doing anything a B-52 couldn't. They had a fairly short amount of time serving as a deterrent force. They are stunningly beautiful aircraft though, with no shortage of range and payload. I've no doubt that they would have been effective low level penetration bombers (when a given airframe was combat capable), had they been used in that role, but it disappeared post cold war.
As to the SIOP role and low level, they probably would have done OK, but that has more to do with the ICBM's and SLBM's clearing the way for them. One of my test directors from back in the day was privy to a SIOP briefing on if the Bone could make it to its target set. The briefer gave an unequivocal yes, but he was wearing a missileer badge. Against Mig-31's and Su-27's they'd had a much tougher time, unless you could use a SRAM as an AAM...