Hi All,
The Academy M113 kit comes with a Dragon AT missile launcher to be mounted on the commanders cupola. But I can't find any reference to them fitted to OIF vehicles. Does the US Army still use Dragon? also before the ITV Tow vehicle, there was a variant with the Tow launcher mounted on the top cargo hatch. Can the launcher still be mounted there?
Tom

Tom,
i havnt seen one of those launchers since I first got into the Army back in 1990. Unfortunately, no, the dragon is not being used , at least not by the ACTIVE DUTY Army. As far as the National Guard, we still have the Dragon in our inventories. As a matter of fact, I have a couple of Dragon Trackers in my vault and a Dragon LET(Launch Effects Trainer) sitting up on my shelf.

Agree with Epi, the Dragon Launcher mounted on the M113 cupola was not widely used and hasn't been mounted since mid '80s to early '90s. I have never actually seen one mounted in my 11 years of active duty service. Also, the Dragon is being replaced by the Javelin. There are some Dragons still out there in the active force, but not many (none as mounted in the Academy M113A2 kit).

Dragons are pretty much out of USMC use, too, believe it or not. The Javelin is light-years ahead of what the Dragon provided. I had never even known that it could be mounted on a vehicle, I had only ever seen it as a man-pack system...I learned something new today!

John,
All it was was a cradle for the tube to sit in and a shield on a pintle. It really wasnt that fancy.

Back under the old H-series MTOE, the scout platoon in armor and mechanized infantry battalions were equipped with three M113A2 and three M901 improved TOW vehicles (ITV).

The M113A2 used the Dragon medium anti-tank weapon either mounted in the cupola or mounted at the back cargo hatch. This gave all six vehicles some offensive capabilities against armored vehicles. Actually, while on the move, the Dragon-equipped M113A2 had better counter recon capabilities to deal with the enemy BMPs and BRDMs in a meeting engagement. The Dragon could be fired quickly from the short halt whereas the ITV needed to stop, raise the hammerhead and then fire the TOW.

Of course, this practice ended when the scout platoons transitioned to the M3A1/A2 in the late 80s and early 90s.