OPFOR

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It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Opposing force. (Discuss)

This article is about the US military unit. For the game see Half-Life: Opposing Force.

OPFOR Soldiers at Fort Polk, LA.

OPFOR (abbreviation for opposing force) is US terminology for a military unit tasked with representing an enemy, usually for training purposes in war game scenarios. Training aircrews use aggressor squadrons for simulated air combat and air-to-ground attacks. (While this article is concerned only with the above usage, 'OPFOR' may also be used to describe a genuine hostile force - see opposing force for more information).

At a basic level, a unit might serve as OPFOR for a single scenario, differing from its 'opponents' only in the objectives it is given. However, major armies commonly maintain specialized OPFOR groups trained to accurately emulate real-life enemies, in order to provide a more realistic experience for their training opponents. For instance, during the Cold War, US OPFOR units employed Soviet military doctrine and simulated Soviet equipment; since the fall of the USSR, US OPFOR units have become more flexible to represent a wider range of opponents, and have regular units stationed at Fort Polk, Louisiana (Joint Readiness Training Center or JRTC), Fort Irwin, California (National Training Center or NTC), and Hohenfels, Germany (Joint Multinational Readiness Center or JMRC). There are also a number of various US military installations and/or major units that have their own local versions of OPFOR used for training exercises.

OPFOR can also coincide with 'Red Teaming' activities. Once the Analytic Red Team develops adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) it will be the OPFOR that makes use of those TTPs in wargames and exercises.

To increase the realism of training exercises, OPFOR units often use blank ammunition, coupled with a simulation system such as the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) that attaches to real weaponry (whether a rifle, machine gun, tank, etc.) in order to simulate a real combat environment. Sometimes the military unit may use paintball weapons during their training, and sometimes they may use "sim" rounds, a type of Plastic bullet.