AR 350-2, which establishes policies and procedures for the Army’s Opposing Force (OPFOR) Program, defines opposing force as “a plausible, flexible military and/or paramilitary force representing a composite of varying capabilities of actual worldwide forces, used in lieu of a specific threat force for training and developing U.S. forces.” As a training tool, the OPFOR must be a challenging, uncooperative sparring partner, capable of stressing any or all warfighting functions and mission-essential tasks of the U.S. force.

AR 350-2 designates the TRADOC G-2 as “the responsible official for the development, management, administration, integration, and approval functions of the OPFOR Program across the Army.” That AR also tasked the TRADOC G-2 with producing the FM 7-100 series manuals and related materials to support the use of OPFOR and realistic and relevant operational environments (OEs) in training Army wide.

Within the TRADOC G-2 organization, TRISA-CTID now provides a comprehensive array of tools (see figure 1) for designing the appropriate OPFOR and other conditions for a training exercise. The Training Circular (TC) 7-100 series (formerly the FM 7-100 series) describes the doctrine, organizations, and equipment of such an OPFOR and how to combine it with other operational variables to portray the qualities of a full range of conditions appropriate to Army training environments.

TC 7-101, Exercise Design, is meant to be used in conjunction with the 7-100 series as well as the other publications listed in figure 1. These tools can be found on the TRISA-CTID AKO. Together, these tools outline an OPFOR than can cover the full spectrum of military and paramilitary capabilities against which the Army must train to ensure success in the types of OEs it can expect to encounter now and in the clearly foreseeable future.