The M-47 Dragon was manufactured jointly by McDonell Aircraft that was in charge of the support systems, Kollsman that produced the aiming system and Raytheon that manufactured the missiles. It is estimated that total production was about 50,000 missiles.Dragon can be divided into the launcher tube, the guided/aiming system and the missile. The launcher was made in fiberglass and has a support bracket to be able to fire while sitting. Guidance system consisted of an 6-fold viewfinder, an IR sensor, a mini-calculator and the safety and firing control.The missile was composed by the explosive charge, motor and avionics. The explosive charge was of HEAT type, the engine consisted of 60 small rocket engines that had their exhaust nozzles around the missile and turn on successively to maintain a stable speed and the course ordered by the server.On the back of the missile were the guide elements that include a decoder, a calculator, a gyroscope, a battery, the cable reel and a thermal energy emitter tuned to the same frequency as the IR sensor of the launcher.Spanish Marines was one of the users of the M-47 Dragon missile and had it in service until the 21st century. However, the current composition of modern armour plates, Dragon was relegated to destroy bunkers and against some armoured vehicles, but were ineffective against last generation main battle tanks.Here we see another Spanish Marine in the 80s exercising with the Dragon. The Dragon had its baptism of fire in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and later it has been used in almost all Wars waged in the Middle East since then to the present. Nevertheless, its current effectiveness against heavy armour is more than questionable except in very favorable conditions.
