jamesdevice
how much practical use would it have been in a non-nuclear role? e.g. as a maritime patrol aircraft? Or as a tactical bomber?
It was designed to carry both conventional and non-nuclear armament. In a maritime-patrol aircraft, I'm not sure how it would fair from the endurance standpoint as it was turbojet powered (even the Nimrods were powered by turbofans).
As a tactical-bomber, there's nothing that says you can't use a strategic bomber to bomb military targets. It could fly fast at low altitude for a large aircraft, it was said to have good handling characteristics, and it was a sturdy aircraft (the incident that resulted in a structural failure resulted in a g-load of 9g or more) probably capable of pulling at least 6g.
Strangely enough as I type this I've got a you-tube video running about "the nuclear bomber" and it states that the USN actually intended powering the turbines with a nuclear reactor.
I have seen some concept drawings of this...