Desert Lightning News April 7, 2017

Vol. 10, No. 4 Serving Southern Arizona’s military community, including Davis-Monthan Air Force Base April 7, 2017 AN AEROTECH NEWS AND REVIEW PUBLICATION • WWW.AEROTECHNEWS.COM
Staff Sgt. Eric Fullmer, 563rd Operations Support Squadron, scans through a window while acting as an oppositional force member Feb. 22 at the Playas Training and Research Center, New Mexico. OPFOR is a role designed to simulate downrange threats and complicate training objectives with the ultimate goal of creating a realistic training environment for units preparing to deploy. Airmen from the 563rd OSS fill this role in support of numerous joint exercises each year utilizing aircraft-threat emitters, vehicle-mounted simulation weapons and waves of ground troops.
DM OPFOR bolsters joint training
Story and photos by Staff Sgt. Ryan Callaghan
23d Wing Public Affairs
Insurgents slowly approach a bazaar, hugging a wall as they creep down an empty street. Armed with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47s, they are on the hunt for U.S. troops rumored to be in the area. In an adjacent field, an MV-22 Osprey kicks up a thick cloud of dirt as it lands. Excited by the target, the insurgents scale the wall only to be quickly neutralized by a force of waiting Marines.
563rd Operations Support Squadron, and the lonely village they patrolled wasn’t in Afghanistan, but New Mexico. The attack was part of a Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force certification exercise held at the Playas Training and Research Center, in Playas, New Mexico.
Acting as a realistic opposition force, also called OPFOR, is how the 563rd OSS vigorously challenges units as they prepare to deploy.
“Supplying people and equipment to play in these exercises is a direct
investment into the readiness of our guys going downrange,” said Capt. Jer-
emiah Burleson, 563rd OSS weapons and tactics flight commander. “Our
The insurgents survived, because they were actually Airmen from the
See OPFOR, Page 14