Ah. Yeah, I apparently misread. I thought he had implied "and" instead of "in place of". Thats what I get for just doing a quickread. D'oh.
I think the SPS-39/52 probably would be better given the timeframe though, as I don't think the SPS-48 came along until the mid/late 80's, which is after these were built.
SPS-48 comes around in the 70s. The SPS-48E, which was a part of the New Threat Upgrade (NTU) was very nearly an all new radar. To that end, I could see the Group 2 getting SPS-40 and SPS-48, and the Group 3 getting the SPS-49 and the SPS-48E, with earlier ships getting backfit as funds allow.
Do you have a link with the dates various radars were brought online? Everytime I try and look one up, I seem to find lots of info, but they rarely mention years.
I am sorry if I wasn't clear in my original post.
No worries. My wife was pushing me out the door so we could go to the grocery store, so I didn't give as good a read as I could have otherwise.
As another point, the AAW ships might be better off with SPG-51s in place of one and in addition to the SPG-60s (2-3 SPG-51s and a single SPG-60). This will allow for longer range engagements against smaller targets. Remember, the California Class (designed as AAW ships) had 4 SPG-51s and an SPG-60 while the Virginia class had 2 SPG-51s and a single SPG-60. The Kidd class, which was considered as a lighter AAW ship with a relatively strong ASW secondary focus mounted the same electronics as the Virginias.
I'll have to rearrange some things, but thats not a bad idea.