The Japanese carriers were sunk at Midway by Douglas Dauntless Dive Bombers, not B-25's nor B-17's.
...and they were dropping BOMBS! That makes them bombers.
Bismark and Taranto were not carried out by Avro-Lancaster bombers.
Nor wellingtons nor Halifaxes nor Mosquitoes...
Nor are Lancaster bombers biplanes.
They were hit by torpedoes dropped from Fairey Swordfish torpedo BOMBERS.
The Tirpitz was sunk by an Avro-Lancatser bomber after it was damaged by a mini-submarine.
Actually, three Tallboy bombs (which took three Lancasters to deliver).
In the Falklands War, the HMS Sheffield was sunk by an Exocet missile launched from an Argentine fighter jet.
I hadn't brought that up, but it was the first ship sunk with a cruise missile. That was a game changer.
I may be taking the term "bomber" too literally. Many air platforms originally designed for strategic bombing, B-52 and B1-B Lancer, have found second-lives as smart munitions (guided bombs, cruise missiles) delivery platforms.
A B-2 Stealth Bomber could conceivably evade enemy naval radar sufficiently to deliver an anti-ship missile at closer range than other air platforms.
This goes back to Billy Mitchell: no matter how you slice and wrap it, those vessels were all sunk by aircraft-delivered weapons.
Missiles and aircraft delivered weapons are the threat from above, and will remain so.
(That doesn't include mines, naval (as opposed to air delivered) torpedoes, and submarine/drone threats).
I don't see that changing, as those weapons now far outrange the guns of even the Iowa Class, and at nearly a million a shot, the Zumwalt railgun just isn't going to show. (maybe if there was a nuclear munition that could survive the g's of launch).
Semantically, anything that drops a bomb is a "bomber", not just the B-17s, B-24s, b-29s and other generally level flight delivery systems. The JU-87 was a notorious (dive) bomber that paved the way for the blitzkreig that steamrolled Europe, but for all their reliance on air assets, the Germans built only one viable 4 engine heavy bomber, actually adapted from the FW200, primarily a passenger aircraft, and only used in a naval role to limited success to drop mines. the Japanese had the
G-3M "Nell" and
G4 M "Betty" medium bombers:
Nevertheless, the G4M would become the Navy's primary land-based bomber. It is the most widely produced and most famous bomber operated by the Japanese during World War II and it served in nearly all battles during the Pacific War.[2][3] Attacks by G4M and G3M bombers resulted in the sinking of the Royal Navy battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse, the first time capital ships actively defending themselves were sunk solely by air power while in the open sea. G4Ms and G3Ms are also credited with sinking the heavy cruiser USS Chicago during the Battle of Rennell Island.
These were primarily used as land based bombers, and (to my surprise) there were over 2400 built. Perhaps not so surprising, as they did not have any armor for crews nor self-sealing fuel tanks and were apparently easy to set ablaze.
We can argue semantics on 'bombers', but I think the naval warfare of the future is going to involve a host of different delivery systems. Whether high flying stealth platforms delivering precision guided munitions, submersible unmanned vehicles, cruise or hypersonic missiles, glide bombs, 'sleeper' mines, or even direct gunfire (the least likely, but still possible), being a surface combatant is going to be interesting.
