So what's a reasonable number? 1,200? 5,000+ seems just a bit much to me.
5,000? I'm sure Dead0man can speak to this better than I can, but I think most of our "total" warheads are in some sort of reserve. They're not on alert or patrol status (ie an Ohio, or Minuteman). I wonder how quickly they could be deployed and given that it takes about 30 minutes for an ICBM to fly over the pole or under 10 for a sub launched missile (depending where it's launched)...I don't know how likely they are to be used (rather more likely lost in an opponent's strike).
I mean as for your number required question, it's probably a function of the number of opposition warheads (Russians...perhaps Chinese...though the two teaming up on this would be unusual) and what types of platforms you have and their survival-ability. Bombers are too slow to be a first strike weapon right? You used to keep them on 24 hour alert so the enemy knew you had some in the air even if you bombed every airfield and perhaps gave you some leverage to turn things off given flight times. SLBMs used to not be super accurate, so those weren't necessarily the best weapons against hardened silos and specific targets (yeah, specific targets), that's not as true anymore, but a sub getting sunk means 16-24 missiles and the warheads are gone with one or two torpedoes. Land silos are easy targets so you hope your early alert systems are reliable (our attempts to develop the MX early on were...interesting).