Sorry for the delay in replying. Thank you for an interesting article. Cdr Watson is a former Naval Flight Officer on the F-4 Phantom and F-14 Tomcat mostly. He says much the same thing as the former USN NFO from the EA-6B that I quoted above.
The strategy was to have F-14 Tomcats armed with Phoenix and Sparrow missiles sitting on the threat’s weapon release line, thus forcing enemy units to fight through our F-14s to reach a launch point—i.e., “It’s easier to shoot the archer than his arrows.”
No shipborne weapon system can match the range of a fighter. If a successor to Phoenix had been developed, would the US Navy have not fitted it to the F/A-18D/F and F-35C (with a fit to the -B as the USMC may have to defend their expeditionary strike groups, ie amphibious forces)?