Surface-to-Air Missile

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A SAM in Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

The Surface-to-Air Missile, commonly referred to as SAM, is a recurring anti-aircraft unit in Ace Combat franchise. As the name implies, this type of unit tracks and attacks aircraft with homing missiles.

Description

SAMs can appear as individual stationary weapons, mobile ground units, or as subsystems of larger platforms such as those on Aegis vessels. Specialized versions, such as untargetable underground systems, or infantry units excelling at ambushes also exist. They generally take time to lock on the player's aircraft before firing a homing missile, which can be evaded by flying in an angle greater than the missile can track (usually at right angle), or by outrunning it. Attacking a SAM head-on can be dangerous should it fire a missile during an attack run, as there will be little space and time for evasion, but it can still be done with experience.

XSAM is an advanced variant which has better performance over its regular counterpart.

Airborne version of SAM also exists in the form of AAM, which are usually mounted on aerial warships for self-defense.