surface-to-air missile system

1. 1.

   the shipboard system that fires missiles at aircraft

   Broadershipboard system

   Partssurface-to-air missile

Questions about surface-to-air missile system

What does surface-to-air missile system mean?

surface-to-air missile system means "the shipboard system that fires missiles at aircraft".

Is surface-to-air missile system a common word?

surface-to-air missile system is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.