From the boost library documentation I read this:

Conceptually, smart pointers are seen as owning the object pointed to, and thus responsible for deletion of the object when it is no longer needed.

I have a very simple problem: I want to use RAII for pointer attributes of a class that is Copyable and Assignable.

The copy and assignment operations should be deep: every object should have its own copy of the actual data. Also, RTTI needs to be available for the attributes (their type may also be determined at runtime).

Should I be searching for an implementation of a Copyable smart pointer (the data are small, so I don't need Copy on Write pointers), or do I delegate the copy operation to the copy constructors of my objects as shown in this answer?

Which smart pointer do I choose for simple RAII of a class that is copyable and assignable? (I'm thinking that the unique_ptr with delegated copy/assignment operations to the class copy constructor and assignment operator would make a proper choice, but I am not sure)

Here's a pseudocode for the problem using raw pointers, it's just a problem description, not a running C++ code:

// Operation interface
class ModelOperation
{
    public: 
        virtual void operate = (); 
};

// Implementation of an operation called Special 
class SpecialModelOperation
:
    public ModelOperation
{
    private:
        // Private attributes are present here in a real implementation. 

    public: 

        // Implement operation
        void operate () {}; 
};

// All operations conform to ModelOperation interface
// These are possible operation names: 
// class MoreSpecialOperation; 
// class DifferentOperation; 

// Concrete model with different operations
class MyModel 
{
    private: 
        ModelOperation* firstOperation_; 
        ModelOperation* secondOperation_;  

    public:

        MyModel()
            : 
                firstOperation_(0), 
                secondOperation_(0)
        {
            // Forgetting about run-time type definition from input files here.
            firstOperation_  = new MoreSpecialOperation(); 
            secondOperation_ = new DifferentOperation(); 
        }

        void operate()
        {
            firstOperation_->operate(); 
            secondOperation_->operate();
        }

        ~MyModel() 
        {
            delete firstOperation_; 
            firstOperation_ = 0; 

            delete secondOperation_; 
            secondOperation_ = 0; 
        }
};

int main()
{

    MyModel modelOne; 

    // Some internal scope
    {
        // I want modelTwo to have its own set of copied, not referenced 
        // operations, and at the same time I need RAII to work for it, 
        // as soon as it goes out of scope.  
        MyModel modelTwo (modelOne); 
    }


    return 0;
}