New fad: IR countermeasures

It used to be that only two US defense companies made infrared countermeasures for jamming shoulder-fired surface to air missiles: Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems, and both relied heavily upon the same systems supplier -- Selex. That was back when the only targets for MANPADS were military aircraft and the only shooters anybody worried about wore military uniforms.

Those days are bye-bye.

You can't go a week now without seeing a new defense company jump into the IRCM market. First, it was Raytheon, which has been adapting the AIM-9X IR seeker into a pointer-tracker called Scorpion. Last week, General Dynamics announced it was developing its own IRCM technology called CMAPS. Finally, on Monday, the world learned that ITT is also jumping into the game, developing a new IR pointer-tracker that lacks a name.

The guess here is that the complexity and high-cost of military-oriented IRCM systems has created a potential sweetspot in the market for cheaper, simpler systems, especially for the VIP business jet market.