M47 Dragon Anti Tank Guided Missile

The M47 Dragon (developmental designation FGM-77) is an American shoulder-fired, man-portable anti-tank missile system.

The M47 Dragon has since been phased out in US service, in favor of the newer FGM-148 Javelin system.

It used a wire-guidance system in concert with a high explosive anti-tank warhead and was capable of defeating armored vehicles, fortified bunkers, main battle tanks, and other hard targets. While it was primarily created to defeat the Soviet Union's T-55, T-62, and T-72 tanks, it has since seen action up into the current era including the Gulf War. The U.S. Armed Forces officially retired the weapon in the late 1990s - however stocks of the weapon remain in arsenals.

In use by the U. S. Army, the U.S. Marine Corps, as well as many foreign militaries, the design was first fielded in 1975. The effective range of the Dragon was about 1000 meters, with the rocket traveling 100 meters per second, guided by an infrared sight. The operator had to remain kneeling and had to guide the missile into its target, which exposed him to enemy fire.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• M47
• Dragon
• Anti
• Tank
• Guided
• Missile
• missiles
• US
• Army
• USMC

[OlderG0ds]

@GunsOfThePhoenix Some of us like to masturbate to military hardware, thank you very much.

[Cla0016]

@GunsOfThePhoenix The uniforms and voice quality lead me to believe this video is from the early 80s. Most of the weapon demo videos from that time have the same weird porno music.

[Guynumber7]

@Gloomshadow100 the Sagger came 20 years before the Dragon. It was used in 1973 Yom Kippur, and it was already mostly obsolete by then. The soviets had Fagot and Konkurs, and Saxhorn by then, more advanced SACLOS systems (which has a longer range anyways)

[MRcrapweasel007]

holy... shit that can shoot VERY far... most rockets are heavier than that...

[Polaf3456]

Dude those guys got that thing set the fuck up!

[alanheath]

I fired a bazooka once. Carl Gustav. The racket it made was singing in my ears for days. It was worse than going to a rap concert.

[YESMAN977]

wat the hell the black guy carrys it and sets it all up for the white guy to shoot it?!

[Gloomshadow100]

@Kiwigrunt yeah. "fire and forget" was a long way off at this time and a constant thrust motor would have burned the control wire off, so the missle had to be slowed down alot so the gunner had time to track the missle to the target. It worked and it had a 85% hit rate for a first time shooter at 500M and closer. The sagger had a Minimum range of 500M, it couldnt hit anything closer than that. and it was fucking nearly impossible for a first time user to hit with. You can google "sagger" and see

[Kiwigrunt]

@Gloomshadow100

thanks for the first hand experience, ive only ever fired 2 in training but i guess tryin to compare with the javelin is a bit unfair considerin the technological gap.

[Gloomshadow100]

@Kiwigrunt we didnt have any problems with the Dragon, my unit shot a lot of them back in the 90s and they were easy and realiable.I shot one and as long as you kept the target in the crosshairs it would hit, every time. Its not "modern" but it was fucking really good back in its day. The Soviet Sagger missle was ALOT harder to use and alot heavier. I heard that scoring a hit with a Sagger was tough as hell. The Dragon was easy.

[Thespeakerofmanytru8]

This voice over guy sounds like the TV info voice on Starship Toopers. I keep expecting him to say "The Dragon is a medium anti-tank missile.......want to know more?"

[Modderriffic]

@26mikenike fertilizer