The decision to deploy the National Training Center's resident OpFor does not imply the Army is backing away from the need to keep world-class opposing units at its combat training centers, said Gen. Dan McNeill, the head of the U.S. Army's Forces Command.
Earlier this year, the Army announced the mobilization of two battalions and one engineer company from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment-also known as the Blackhorse-which serves as a professional "enemy" force at the National Training Center, at Fort Irwin, Calif.
Their deployment is scheduled for the beginning of next year, said officials. Although the regiment volunteered to fight in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the Army turned it down, said McNeill. The last time the Blackhorse saw combat was in the Vietnam War.
Nevada National Guard troops from the 1st squadron 221st Cavalry Regiment are expected to fill in for the OpFor at NTC, said a FORSCOM spokesperson. These troops regularly have worked alongside the Blackhorse as part of the OpFor during exercises in the Mojave Desert, which should ensure that the training quality will not be degraded once the 11th ACR goes to war, said the spokesperson.
Meanwhile, two companies from the 1st battalion of the 509th Infantry Regiment already are fighting in Iraq. Also known as the Geronimo, the unit acts as the OpFor for light and special operations training at the Joint Readiness Training Center, based at Fort Polk, La. The 509th Infantry has not seen combat since World War II. Geronimo headquarters staff stayed behind to train the 1st battalion of the 131st Infantry, from the Illinois National Guard, which is taking over the OpFor role, said McNeill.
The deployment of the Army's elite training forces-usually undefeated by the soldiers training with them-could allow the Army to change the units' structure down the line, said McNeill.
"If we wanted to change the Blackhorse structure somewhere [for example], this looks like it may be a good opportunity," McNeill told reporters at the Army's infantry conference at Fort Benning, Ga. "It would seem a no-brainer not to take some of the best trained forces we have and not put them in the fight."
Since some change in their formations already took place by deploying these forces, more change "is in the back of my mind," said McNeill. However, he cautioned that he does not have anything "etched in stone."
Given the opportunity, McNeill said that he would change the Blackhorse structure "a little bit," so that it is more slewed towards a normal table of organization and equipment unit. The table of organization and equipment is a document that prescribes the wartime mission, capabilities, organizational structure, and essential personnel and equipment requirements for military units. Each TO&E is identified by a unique number that should remain the same throughout the life of the organization.
If the Blackhorse becomes part of the TO&E structure, it will not "necessarily exclude it from being an opposing force," he said. But since this idea is just in its incipient stage, in the "process, it may occur to us that we still need something that looks like a unique opposing force," he added.
A change would ensure that in the case of another significant emergency, "regardless of how the force is shaped and what it is called, we can use it," he explained. "If we can do so without significant detriment to training the forces, I think we would probably allow it." The Army needs to become joint and expeditionary, and understand that deployments are "a way of life," he said.
McNeill defended his decision to deploy both the Blackhorse and Geronimo, by saying that these units are some of the best forces in the Army, and "there ought to be a place for them in the fight."
The two OpFor units are one of the "major reasons for the high quality of Army forces in the field today," military historian Frederick Kagan wrote in an editorial published in the Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine. "Both units have served as OpFor for more than a decade, and they have become the premier training units in the world."
According to Kagan, units replacing them will not be able to match the OpFor's level of skill and experience for a long time. "As a result, the level of training in the Army will be degraded, and Army forces deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan will be less well prepared. This decision is incredibly shortsighted."
Not so, argues McNeill. A nucleus of the traditional OpFor is staying behind to help with the training of the replacement units. These units will be monitored constantly to ensure they are performing up to standards, said McNeill.
"We are going to watch them like a hawk to make sure that they are a world-class OpFor," he said. For example, the commander of the Geronimo headquarters and the commander of the 131st Infantry have been like "hand-in-glove," at Fort Polk, he said. "They performed remarkably well. We walked them through a little training piece, let them know what is required of them in terms of tactics, techniques and procedures, and they picked up on it." Their period of adaptation has not slowed down the training of regular troops going through the combat center, he contended.
Whatever troops end up representing the OpFor, they have to be able to emulate the tactics of the insurgent forces in Iraq and the fighters of Afghanistan. "We are facing an enemy that I call reactive," he said. "You are going to need an opposing force at combat training centers that can change, can react, can stay tied to trends on the battlefield and does not take some long period to make changes in the way they do tactics, techniques and procedures."
These training units should take little time to change their tactics, he said. "If they are not flexible, if they are not capable of reactive type stuff, they will not produce the training venues for our forces that we need in the fight," he said. "That to me says, you need a world-class OpFor. You need a thinking OpFor that can, on the fly, morph and. look like the contemporary environment."