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Wiktionary
surface-to-air

a. (context of a missile English) fired from the ground, or from a ship, at an aircraft in flight, or at an incoming missile

WordNet
surface-to-air

adj. operating from or designed to be launched from the ground against an airborne target; "surface-to-air missiles" [ant: air-to-surface, air-to-air]

Usage examples of "surface-to-air".

The tapes would quickly be flown to NSA, where analysts would search for new signals coming from the vicinity of the surface-to-air missile sites under construction.

Paris sold Baghdad a wide range of weapons, including armored vehicles, air defense radars, surface-to-air missiles, Mirage fighters, and Exocet antiship missiles.

Melody was not as successful in locating early-warning radars, especially a new surface-to-air missile system codenamed Tall King.

In addition, the United States could bolster Israeli defenses with the latest version of the Patriot surface-to-air missile, which, though less capable than the Arrow, would add some redundancy to Israeli defenses.

Other intercepts revealed the parameters of Soviet Fan Song radars, used to guide surface-to-air missiles, and the exact location of a new Fire Can radar associated with Russian 57- and 85-millimeter anti-aircraft cannons.

For example, if Iraq were to acquire several thousand advanced surface-to-air missiles, standoff antiar-mor weapons, and highly accurate ground-attack missiles, it might be able to shut down many of the air bases in the GCC, fend off or shoot down whatever U.

Wickland pressed the attack at Zillah Air Base thirty minutes later by first firing one antiradar missile at the airfield surveillance radar at Zillah Air Base, then at another unexpected SA-10 mobile surface-to-air missile site that had just activated its radar, both from high altitude.

The antiradar missiles were programmed on the ground to detect and attack any height-finder radar, an integral part of a surface-to-air missile or fighter ground-controlled intercept radar.

The frigates had only the shorter-range HQ-61 SAM system, but four of the five destroyers in the Philippine Sea and eastern Celebes Sea area had the Hong Qian-91 surface-to-air missile, with four times the range of the HQ-61-and the U-2 was coming within range of Feylin 's system right now.

His job was to defend the B-52 against attack by jamming or decoying enemy surface-to-air missile or artillery-tracking radars, and to warn the crew of missile or aircraft attacks.

The surviving AWACS was back at altitude now, eighty miles behind the Rhein, and its radar operators were working to reestablish control of the air battle over central Germany as the MiGs ran for home through a cloud of NATO surface-to-air missiles.

The first French-made Crotale surface-to-air missile launch was followed by two more, but the other two were unnecessary.

The radar was attached to a Crotale 2000 surface-to-air missile system, a relatively short-range mobile SAM intended primarily for point defense of airfields and other strategic targets.

But the FlightHawks were able to determine from the type of radar detected what kind of air defense system it was, and if it had a remote launcher setup it would listen for the data transmission between the radar unit and the missile launch unit in a surface-to-air missile battery, compute the location of the launcher, and pass its location to the Wolverine missiles.

The general gist (ha, pardon the pun) of what Tabitha told General Bracken was that I had been stranded in low Earth orbit after my ride was destroyed by terrorists, ingeniously found a way back to Earth, was hailed on and chased by an extremely large and violent tornado, electrocuted, forced to run about eight miles barefoot, my ass was well kicked—although I had done a good bit of kicking myself—stabbed, shot twice, fired upon by surface-to-air missiles, ejected from an exploding aircraft during a hundred-kiloton explosion, walked about six miles while bleeding profusely, died, was brought back to life, died again, brought back to life again, died a third time, brought back to life again, operated on, remained unconscious for about a day, and finally slipped out of the hospital in a clandestine fashion.