The M47 Dragon: How a wire-guided missile system changed infantry anti-tank combat forever

Wars & Conflicts · Published 15 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Before the Javelin, the U.S. military relied on the M47 Dragon to neutralize hardened targets. This man-portable, wire-guided system allowed a single soldier to track a missile in flight by simply keeping a crosshair on the objective, fundamentally altering how infantry squads approached armored threats on the battlefield.

Developed from the U.S. Army's 1960 Medium Anti-tank Weapon program, the M47 Dragon was designed to counter Soviet armor like the T-55 and T-72. It entered service in 1975, initially issued as a squad-level weapon. The system utilized a sophisticated tracking control assembly that monitored a pyrotechnic flare on the missile's tail. A computer automatically calculated the missile's position relative to the gunner's line of sight, sending steering corrections through a physical wire trailing behind the projectile.

The weapon evolved through several iterations to maintain relevance. The original M222 missile could penetrate 330 mm of armor, but the 1988 Dragon II upgrade boosted this to 610 mm. The Dragon III further refined the platform with a tandem shaped charge and a faster motor, reducing flight time to 1,000 meters from 11 seconds to 6.5 seconds. While the U.S. military retired the system in 2001 in favor of the FGM-148 Javelin, the technology persisted elsewhere.

The Dragon's legacy continues through the Iranian-manufactured Saeghe. Developed by the Defense Industries Organization, the Saeghe is a reverse-engineered variant that includes copies of the Dragon II and III. These systems have appeared in various global conflicts, demonstrating the enduring nature of the original design. Although the U.S. destroyed its remaining stocks by 2009, the Dragon remains a significant case study in the transition from manual aiming to automated, wire-guided infantry support.

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