CIRIT
Contents
Description
The Roketsan Cirit is a Turkish laser-guided air-to-ground missile. It was introduced in Update "Drone Age"
Vehicles equipped with this weapon
General info
The missile is currently exclusive to the T129.
| Missile characteristics | |
|---|---|
| Mass | 15 kg |
| Guidance | Laser |
| Maximum Speed | 480 m/s |
| Missile Guidance Time | 45.0 s |
| Firing Range | 10.00 km |
| Guaranteed Launch Range | 8.00 km |
| Explosive Mass | 1.19 kg TNTeq |
| Armour Penetration | 290 mm |
Effective damage
The Cirit has a small HEAT warhead that offers up to 290 mm of penetration at 0°, 251 mm at 30°, 145 mm at 60° at all ranges. Successful penetration is likely to cause critical damage to crew and components only in the compartment that is impacted, like the hull, engine compartment and turret. Hitting fuel tanks or ammunition storage can cause a fuel explosion or ammunition detonation. Very lightly armoured vehicles like SPAA and open tops can be destroyed in one hit by a missile.
There is a very small amount of splash damage dealt by the CIRIT, all but the weakest of armour will not take any noticeable damage.
Comparison with analogues
- L-UMTAS - The L-UMTAS is another Turkish laser-guided air-to-ground missile. It is a bigger missile with a larger HEAT tandem warhead. The penetration is higher at 1100 mm at 0°. The missile also flies in a top-down attack mode allowing the user to exploit weakly armoured roof armour. However, the missile is quite slow and takes time to climb, which results in a long time to hit the target.
- Hydra-70 M247 - The Hydra-70 is a dumb fire rocket found on most western helicopters with a warhead comparable to the CIRIT in penetration. The Hydra has better performance at close range with higher speed and the ability to launch many rockets in a short time.
- BGM-71D TOW-2 - The TOW-2 is an ATGM with a shorter range than the CIRIT, but has better penetration. The TOW is SACLOS guided and can only be fired one at a time while the laser-guided CIRIT can be fired in groups to increase damage to the target.
Usage in battles
The CIRIT missile is best used at range to accurately take out high-value targets such as SPAA and other lightly armoured vehicles with anti-air capabilities. The destruction of air defence allows you to use slower munitions with better penetration, like the L-UMTAS, on harder targets.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- The 8.0 km maximum range is outside the effective range of all SPAAGs, increasing survivability during engagements at this range.
- Ability to fire multiple missiles at one time while tracking the same target.
Cons:
- Low maximum penetration makes the missile a poor choice against MBTs.
- Several SAM-based SPAA can engage targets at 8km and beyond.
- Not a true fire-and -forget, the missile requires constant guidance to successfully hit the target.
History
Examine the history of the creation and combat usage of the weapon in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the weapon and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Weapon-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />.
Media
Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.
See also
Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:
- reference to the article about the variant of the weapon;
- references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.
External links
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
