M-47 Dragon

The M47 Dragon was a U.S. shoulder-fired, man-portable anti-tank guided missile system developed to give infantry a medium-range answer to armored vehicles and hard targets. It used wire guidance and a reusable tracker/launcher with disposable missile rounds.

Dragon required the gunner to keep the sight on target while the missile flew, with correction commands sent through trailing wires. This gave infantry better standoff precision than unguided rockets, but exposed the operator during missile flight and demanded steady tracking.

The system filled a key U.S. and allied infantry anti-armor role before more capable fire-and-forget weapons became available. Its limitations in guidance burden, backblast, and hit probability helped drive later replacement by systems such as Javelin.