One of the most beautiful airplanes - of any sort - ever designed and built.
I remember reading in a reference book some years ago that the emphasis for developing the B-52 came when General LeMay was being briefed on the number of B-47‘s that would be required to complete various contingency plan conventional strike missions.
When he remarked about how many B-47s were being required for execution (a lot), the plans officer doing the briefing said the general needed think about the B-47 in terms of roughly the number of B-17 missions that would be required to destroy the same target. This was because the conventional bomb carrying capacity of the B-47 wasn’t really that much different than the B-17 (14k (max (all internal) vs 17k (max (internal and external))).
The B-47 just flew higher, faster, and further than its WWII predecessor. Of course, the B-47s primary mission was nuclear strike against the Soviet Union.
Not sure if the B-47 ever dropped a conventional bomb in anger.
... and the B-17 had a paltry bomb load for a WW2 ‘heavy’ bomber. It wasn’t in the really same league with the B-24 or the Avro Lancaster. But it was sturdy and brought a lot of it’s crews back home.