Well more generally, if you take out the shore bombardment role, there really is no use for a larger caliber. If it was not for the heavy Congressional support of the USMC, 5" probably would have gone out of style and the failed Zumwalts would never have existed (rightly so).
 
The Japanese articles on the delivery of the antenna :


It has interesting information on the dimension of the array. It mentions height of 4.3 m and each SAS (Subarray Antenna System) Which how Lockheed are calling their RMA(Radar Modular Assembly). each SAS, from available imagery seems to have 37 TRM Channels. ASEV have about 328 SAS in total means 82 SAS/Array face, this constitutes 3034 elements per array face. Kinda looks lower than Raytheon's SPY-6 but based on the numbers of the elements and array dimensions it works also in lower frequency of 2214-2296 MHz (2.2-2.3 GHz) or Lower S-band, almost at the frequency used by Apollo CSM to Communicate with Earth, maybe indicating optimization toward Space Surveillance and missile defense rather than general air defense which dwell in higher S-band (about 3 GHz).
 
The Japanese articles on the delivery of the antenna :


It has interesting information on the dimension of the array. It mentions height of 4.3 m and each SAS (Subarray Antenna System) Which how Lockheed are calling their RMA(Radar Modular Assembly). each SAS, from available imagery seems to have 37 TRM Channels. ASEV have about 328 SAS in total means 82 SAS/Array face, this constitutes 3034 elements per array face. Kinda looks lower than Raytheon's SPY-6 but based on the numbers of the elements and array dimensions it works also in lower frequency of 2214-2296 MHz (2.2-2.3 GHz) or Lower S-band, almost at the frequency used by Apollo CSM to Communicate with Earth, maybe indicating optimization toward Space Surveillance and missile defense rather than general air defense which dwell in higher S-band (about 3 GHz).

Senator Sato once said that the antenna size of SPY-7(V)1 is 5m(H) x 4.2m(W):

View: https://x.com/satomasahisa/status/1333189977543376897?s=46&t=5THFve96Abhx7VANdlTzrg
 
The Japanese articles on the delivery of the antenna :


It has interesting information on the dimension of the array. It mentions height of 4.3 m and each SAS (Subarray Antenna System) Which how Lockheed are calling their RMA(Radar Modular Assembly). each SAS, from available imagery seems to have 37 TRM Channels. ASEV have about 328 SAS in total means 82 SAS/Array face, this constitutes 3034 elements per array face. Kinda looks lower than Raytheon's SPY-6 but based on the numbers of the elements and array dimensions it works also in lower frequency of 2214-2296 MHz (2.2-2.3 GHz) or Lower S-band, almost at the frequency used by Apollo CSM to Communicate with Earth, maybe indicating optimization toward Space Surveillance and missile defense rather than general air defense which dwell in higher S-band (about 3 GHz).
The ASEVs are supposed to be replacing Aegis Ashore facilities, so this makes sense.
 
A rule of thumb the power of the radar governed by the size of its aperture.

The Burke Flt 111 SPY-6 (V)1 has 37 Radar Modular Assembly (a mini radar) per face, a RMA is 2 cubic ft x 37 give a 148 sq ft per face, 4 faces gives a total area of 592 sq ft aperture for the (V)1.
Each RMA has 24 T/R modules so 37 x 24 = 888 T/R modules per face and for the 4 faces a total of 3,552 T/R modules

The SPY-7 for ASEV assuming each single face array is 4.3 square meters???, 46.3 sq ft, for a total for the 4 faces only 185.2 sq ft aperture???
The building blocks of the radar are the Subarray Antenna System (SAS) and it has 82 SAS per face with the 37 T/R modules in each and so 3034 T/R modules per face and a total for the 4 faces 328 SAS gives 12,136 T/R modules.

The numbers make no sense at all as expect the RTX and Lockheed S-band T/R modules would be roughly similar in size, so my assumptions and calculations must be totally wrong, but where?
 
The numbers make no sense at all as expect the RTX and Lockheed S-band T/R modules would be roughly similar in size, so my assumptions and calculations must be totally wrong, but where?

Different architecture can, i think. You can see how RTX and Lockheed "pack" their modules

Lockheed

1737275545647.png

RTX

1737275651035.png

Raytheon architecture is "denser" somewhat than the Lockheed and it meant to be replaced "per card" during maintenance. While Lockheed seems to embrace some separation and to optimize liquid cooling only to the high power part, thus you can see the separation between the radiator in SAS, i think Lockheed call that HPM or High Power Module, that part only contain the GaN HPA along with some necessary parts like core chip and LNA. The SAS's control board and power supplies are external and air cooled. In return of course when maintenance or sudden module replacement is needed, you have to take the whole SAS.

---------

Regarding the antenna size tho.

I traced back to original LRDR , and turn out that the numbers provided in the article might not be necessarily correct. Based on LRDR fact sheet, the array was 10 panels with box form factor of 60 x 60 ft or 18.24 x 18.24 m. The radar is described to be consisted of 10 Panels. Thus for the given array size, each panel must be about 9.12 m high and 3.65 m in width. This give total area of 332.88 sqm or 333 sqm.

Each panel has 288 SAS, thus making it total 2880 SAS, 37 array channels (at this point, given the architecture of the SAS, terms "Transmit receive module"/TRM might no longer applicable somehow) in each SAS making it 2880 x 37 = 106560 "TRM"

Divide the antenna area with the "TRM counts" to get the element area : 333/106560 = 0.003125 sqm. Knowing that we can find the frequency.

Given the array is an early warning radar. It is safe to assume that it's a FFOV (Full Field of View) Array which scan the arc of 120 degrees. Typical array geometry would be triangular. This would give constant 0.332.

In case one curious about where this 0.332 constant coming. The deriviation is in "Radar handbook :3rd Edition" chapter about Phased array antenna.

This "scanning constant" can be used with operational wavelength to find the element area, with equation :

Ae= k* Wavelength^2

k is the scanning constant (0.332 for FFOV array, 0.397 for NFOV with scan angle of 90 degrees, good for S-300/400)

To find frequency is :

Wavelength = SQRT(0.003125/0.332)
Wavelength = 0.097 m or frequency of 3093 MHz

Now that we know the element area and of course frequencies. We can try guessing how many "Equivalent TRM counts" for the Japanese array.

If we go with Raptor82's numbers from Japanese senator of 4.2 x 5 m. That would give area of 21 sqm. to find the "TRM Equivalent" Divide that area with the element area. So :

N=21/0.003125
N=6720

Dividing that with the channels in the SAS making a panel of ASEV's SPY-7 to be 182 SAS. Thus for 4 faces the SAS needed would be 728

If we use 4.3 m as the width of the array and same height, we would arrive in "TRM counts" of 6886.

Also on TRX's SPY-6.. Each "card" actually contains 6 channels. Thus each RMA will have "equivalent TRM" counts of 144.

This is one card from an RMA :

1737283645117.png

Notice the leftmost end of the card, it has 3 big "boxes" each of that box has 2 modules containing the GaN amplifiers, LNA and a core chip. Thus making total channels for that card or RTX calling it "TRIIM" to 6.

Thus 24 RMA SPY-6 would contain : 24*144 = 3456 TRM for each array face. Making it total of 13824 "TRM Equivalent" counts.

Sticking to ABM treaty value for power aperture. One can now have enough data to run Radar Range Equation. Starting from LRDR yield the following.


Peak Power/TRM : 141 Watt
Average Power/TRM : 28 Watt

106560 TRM LRDR at Alaska is able to detect ascending 10 sqm ICBM target at 8800-14000 Km.

ASEV In other hand, a scaled down article can conveniently provide 2048-3100 Km range against similar target. This is about 1.56 times more than SPY-1 ship. Below is the example coverage between estimated range of ASEV vs Aegis ship with SPY-1 radar.

1737450584761.jpeg
 
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