Talk:Opposing force

Language

"The language sounds like a combination of Cyrillic and Persian."

"Cyrillic" is not a language. --82.139.47.117 11:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I've tweaked the wording of this section, but it could do with attention from somebody who knows the game. --Calair 02:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

There, "a Cyrillic language" happy? No need to remove it. --Griffon2-6

'Cyrillic' is an alphabet. (Technically, a family of closely-related alphabets.) 'Cyrillic language' describes how a language looks when printed, not how it sounds, so it still doesn't make sense - it's like saying "The language sounded like a combination of Times New Roman and Zapf Chancery".

Where does this description as 'Cyrillic' originally come from? If it's a linguist or the creators of the game, a cite would be nice. If it's just somebody on the Internet trying to say that it sounds a bit like Russian or maybe Serbian, better to go with 'Slavic'. --Calair 00:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Less U.S.-centric

The article didn't make a clear distinction between the general idea of enemy forces in war games and the specific U.S. term OPFOR. I've made it slightly more general.

The Canadian Forces uses the term "Enemy Force". General principles should be discussed first, and specifics of particular militaries' training procedures should go into more specific sections. —Michael Z. 2006-08-03 19:30 Z

Re. recent edits: the term may well have been coined in the USA, but both 'opposing force' and 'OPFOR' are now used by other countries (see for instance examples[1][2] of both terms being used in an Australian context) and similar concepts are used by other forces, regardless of names, so I agree with Michael that this article should not be limited in scope to the US military. Perhaps the whole article should be moved to 'simulated enemy' as a term with less specific regional associations? --Calair 11:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with moving the article. Just as the "executive car" article is Euro-centric to that term (the term is not used to describe US cars, nor is "saloon" - a term used in the article), the US uses OPFOR, not "simulated enemy" and the article deserves to be here, respectfully. "Simulated enemy" can have a link to OPFOR - and a link to other pages to describe the way Canada or Australia or other countries describe it, if need be. Thanks. Rarelibra 14:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

As per my comments on your talk page: IMHO, the concept of a simulated enemy (or whatever we choose to call it) is a fairly basic and important one to modern military training, and there should therefore be an article that covers that concept. As things stand, creating separate pages for each armed force that uses the idea would result in a lot of low-content pages duplicating one another's content; unless and until the content expands significantly, it would make more sense to have a single article covering the concept, with the USA's OPFOR being a major part of that article but not the sole focus. --Calair 15:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

You have some good points. As far as the 'simulated enemy' is concerned, "opposing force" it is not. I think we're dealing with a few different things here. As far as a page for "opposing force" - if you want to include non-centric things and definitions, then the fact that this page is more "OPFOR" focused means that we can take the content and move it to an "OPFOR" article that explains the definition of OPFOR as 'opposing force' (and quite possibly tie back in to an "opposing force" or "simulated enemy" page). That I would agree on, and if you agree, then I will take the content and move it to the "OPFOR" page (and cancel the redirect)... leaving you free to do what is needed with the "opposing force" page, whether that means incorporating the content into the "simulated enemy" page, etc. But I want to say this - the "OPFOR" page is, and will be, quite separate from "simulated enemy" (it can be linked, I think)... and needs to stay as original and unique content.... without any entry of "enemy forces", etc. Rarelibra 17:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. If you're happy for 'OPFOR' and 'opposing force' to be separate pages linking to one another, there may not be a need for further moves. I've edited the two pages to distinguish them accordingly (OPFOR probably needs further overhaul, but I'm not the person to do that). See if it looks reasonable now? --Calair 02:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Resource on China's Cyberwarfare

Regarding the PRC Blue Army, the unofficial name used by the People's Liberation Army for specialist OPFOR units during training ... China is playing catch-up in many fields of military science, but it is the world leader in one critical defence arena: cyber warfare. in Volume 5, issue 47 October 2011 Monocle magazine. 97.87.29.188 (talk) 20:37, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

External links modified

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Dubious image removed from article

I have removed a file of dubious authenticity from this article (File:OPFOR_Soldiers.jpg). Although the original uploader claimed it was simply a picture of soldiers training at Fort Polk, further investigation leads to mention of "Operation Cajun Fury", a recently deleted hoax article. Perhaps it's just a case of "applied factogenesis"? Either way, I've removed the image until it can be verified. ElKabong888 (talk) 15:48, 27 March 2018 (UTC) Seems that Operation Cajun Fury was not a hoax, so I have added the image back to the article for the time being. --ElKabong888 (talk) 13:20, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

New York Guard

While I understand that Breitbart News is not generally considered reliable for Wikipedia, the source in question

(1) was simply an individual discussing his personal experience, rather than a piece that had literally anything at all to do with politics, and

(2) the source is LITERALLY only used to say "this organization participated in this activity." So I don't see how the claim about political bias/conspiracies could be possibly be construed from this article specifically.

This is one of those situations where the scalpel, rather than the hammer, is the instrument needed. It is wasteful to lose out on valuable information since this specific article has none of the problems associated with the news source as a whole, and since there is no other source (as far as I can tell) that can back up the same information. Since the scope is so incredibly narrow, and is ONLY verifying four words ("the New York Guard"), I think that unless there is opposition to this argument, and for the reasons above, a very narrow exception should be granted to allow this source for the sole purpose of allowing these four words to be re-added. Et0048 (talk) 03:05, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Is the image OPFOR_Training.JPG useful for this article?

See File:OPFOR_Training.JPG. It doesn't really seem to show much – just the backs of some people, a vehicle, some containers and telephone poles. There's nothing really to suggest that it has something to do with the concept the article talks about. Should it be removed from the article? Regards, DesertPipeline (talk) 15:39, 28 June 2021 (UTC)