Yes? Still does not change the fact that the Aster probably has a better p/k. I'm by no means saying that the HQ-16 is a bad missile, it is a very good missile with a big opportunity for further development. I don't doubt that the HQ-16F is on par with SM-2 Blk IIIC in terms of p/k. But it's a big, heavy missile and even with thrust vectoring, I doubt it can match the Aster in p/k as the Aster is a lighter, smaller "dart" with PIF-PAF.
Aster having more wing surfaces means it's also draggier. This means loss of kinetic energy at terminal phase aka loss of pk.
Type 45 is about 39m high (T26 is about 35m for reference), I would be very interested if anyone could figure out the radar height for Type 054B. Since the T45 only has ARH missiles, the S-band was a conscious choice since you don't need the same target clarity as SARH missiles.
Height maybe an issue but when you are scanning near the water surface, S-Band is going to get more surface clutter, poorer target discrimination and poorer angular resolution than X-band. This means not only do have less or lower accuracy measuring target rate of speed, direction, actual location, you also get reflections off the rolling wavey water surface that appear as false targets.
This is why the USN choose an X-band radar for surface scanning, though the Chinese choose a C-band radar for this project. Albeit the SPQ-9B is already an existing radar in the inventory while the Type 346 is purposely made for this intention. The Russians have the Pozitiv radar that is currently used as a secondary radar in many ships supplementing the main S-band radar.
SAMPSON is a considerably bigger radar either SPQ-9B* (which predates AEGIS baseline 9 by some margin) or the radar on top of Type 052D. The Royal Navy uses a very different design philosophy than the PLAN/USN philosophy. Interestingly the USN did have a programme called AMDR-X which would be in the same league as the X-Band radar on Type 055, Does anyone on this forum have more details about this programme I would love to hear it!
Comparing an S-band radar to an X-band radar---what the SPQ-9B is--- is as foolish as comparing a paint roller to a 2" paint brush. The paint roller is better for painting the wall but the paint brush is superior for painting the corners, trim and art graffiti and such. S-band is for volume work but X-band is for precision. An X-band radar does not a big array because the element spacing is far denser as spacing is a factor of frequency but with the frequency much smaller and shorter, it allows you to have a much higher resolution. Do you understand why terminal missile guidance radars use X-band instead of S for this reason? The internet cannot wrap around their head that each frequency band has their own advantages and disadvantages that they are used for their specific purposes.
SPQ-9B's range only needs to be as far as the radar horizon can be since it is dedicated for searching for sea skimmers.
SAMPSON was specifically designed with air cooling in mind to be able to mount it as high as possible. It is a pretty low-voltage (25kW) radar.
It's a low power radar. The Chinese were smart enough to go fully liquid cooled very early with the 052D. The US didn't have a liquid cooled AESA till SPY-6.
