Heavy Opposing Force (OPFOR). Operational Art Handbook

Army Traning and Doctrine Command Fort Monroe, VA, 1994. — 442 p.This Operational Art handbook is one in a series of six Training and Doctrine Command Pamphlets which documents the capabilities-based Opposing Force (OPFOR) model. This model was developed to provide a flexible training threat which can be tailored to represent a wide range of potential threat capabilities and organizations. The model features a heavy and a light OPFOR package, each containing three documents: an organization guide, an operations handbook and a tactics handbook. The capabilities-based OPFOR model represents a break from past practice in two principal respects. First, while the heavy and light packages are based on the doctrine and organization of foreign armies, they are not simply unclassified handbooks on the forces of a particular nation. The OPFOR packages are composites which were deliberately constructed to provide a wide range of capabilities. Second, the packages are not associated with a fixed order of battle but, rather, provide the building blocks from which a large number of potential orders of battle can be derived. The capabilities-based OPFOR model will become the basis for the forces and doctrine used by the OPFOR units at the Combat Training Centers (CTC) and in the TRADOC Common Teaching Scenarios. The heavy and light packages were designed to accommodate the existing CTC OPFORs at the time of publication with relatively minor changes but have the flexibility to adapt to the changing training requirements of the force-projection Army. (KAR) p. 3