Editing Directional Infrared Counter Measures (section)

{{short description|System to protect aircraft from heat seeking portable missiles}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{More citations needed|date=April 2020}}

[[File:C-17 missile countermeasures laser turret.jpg|thumb|Northrop Grumman AN/AAQ-24 DIRCM]]
'''Directional Infrared Counter Measures''' ('''DIRCM''') are a class of [[anti-missile]] systems produced to protect [[aircraft]] from [[infrared homing]] missiles, primarily [[Man-portable air-defense system|MANPADS]] and similar simple systems.

Earlier [[infrared countermeasures]] like [[flare]]s or hot block systems that produce random flashes of IR light are semi- or omnidirectional. This results in the missile seeker receiving relatively little IR energy due to the [[inverse square law]]. DIRCM systems instead aim their IR output directly at the missile using some source of tracking information and a trainable emitter. This allows a relatively small device to overwhelm the missile seeker by focusing all of its output on it.

Examples are produced by many aerospace companies, such as 
[[Aselsan]], [[Leonardo S.p.A.]], [[Elbit Systems]], [[Northrop Grumman]], [[ITT Corporation]], and [[BAE Systems]]. A Russian example is the 101KS-O.