Uranium in anti-aircraft missile curtailed sortie for old fighter (7)
I believe the answer is:
samurai
'old fighter' is the definition.
'samurai' can be an answer for 'fighter' (samurai is a type of warrior or fighter). I'm unsure of the 'old' bit.
'uranium in anti-aircraft missile curtailed sortie' is the wordplay.
'uranium' becomes 'U' (U is the chemical symbol for uranium).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'anti-aircraft missile' becomes 'sam' (abbreviation for surface-to-air missile. I am not sure about the 'anti-aircraft' bit.).
'curtailed' means to remove the last letter.
'sortie' becomes 'raid' (I've seen this in another clue).
'raid' with its last letter taken off is 'rai'.
'sam'+'rai'='samrai'
'u' going into 'samrai' is 'SAMURAI'.
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for samurai that I've seen before include "Jap. warrior caste" , "Sudoku variant" , "Historical Japanese warrior" , "military type" , "Japanese militarist" .)
