No, it was not what I meant, as you correctly identified it became an obsolescent meant of transportation for nuclear weapons, the ICBM were superior in every points. I meant as a way to transport cruise missile close to target.
I meant non nuclear tactical strike, e.g. against a country installations either as a "tit for tat" type of retaliation (if the country, be exemple, strike one of your ship) or as part of a wider conventional war, to avoid known AA or ABM concentrations.
I meant a greater versatility in the targeting, if the target is either too far from the sea to target it with a tomahawk missile, too far from ground based CM launchers or if it would take too much time deploy one on theater, as a plane-based ALCM launcher would be able to reach its firing position in a few hours.
Now obviously their are problems and limitations (that you mentioned like the risk of being shot down before reaching firing position) but it is the case
It is what Trident is supposed to do. Why would Russian systems not be similar?
My understanding is that the Soviets generally were a generation behind the us in terms of missile technology therefore their slbms of the 80s would not have the same accuracy as trident, which was cutting edge stuff in then, infact the first patrol of Trident was in 1990 when the cold War was in its final death throws. This is why bluecat mentions them being used for soft nuclear targets rather than the precision hardened facilities like missile icbm silos.It is what Trident is supposed to do. Why would Russian systems not be similar?
I also don't think you would have enough warheads in the soviet slbm fleet to stand a reasonable chance of blunting a us response, iirc there were around 900 silos in the us, that means you need close to 2000 warheads, my rough maths says there were 20 ssbns in the soviet navy in the late 1980s, so if they follow a us deployment model that's 7 or 8 boats on patrol, x that by 160 warheads only gives you at most 1400 warheads , that only gives u in a best case for the Soviets the ability to hit 700 of the 900 us missile silos , ànd thats with 100 percent accuracy for the slbms, no fraticide and no nato trailing sub sinking the slbms pre launch. That would still leave 200ish silos untouched , plus the bomber bases c3m sites and naval bases untouched and leaves the Soviets without a highly survivable.second strike capability as the slbms are shot. It does leave them with a pile of icbms to be sure.l but those icbms are vulnerable to the remaining us weapons.