I’ve made two updates to my collection of un/declassified “OPFOR” manuals in the past. For this third volume, it’s (vastly) more substantial to the point where I’ve had to break the collection into three folders for size and organization reasons. I figured that, after all my searching, I couldn’t not share them. So here they are.
Fake Countries
The past collections of declassified American, British, and Australian manuals have been folded into “fake countries”. Added to the list of fake countries includes:
- A version of the Decisive Action Training Environment, one of the most recent standing exercise concepts.
- More Circle Trigon Aggressor manuals, including the 1955 version (which is by far the most detailed of them) and the 1973 version (the last one before they ditched the goofy helmets in favor of an openly Soviet stand in).
- The first installment of said Soviet stand-in, the 1977 “Opposing Forces Europe”.
- The fabled FM 30-104, “Handbook on Aggressor Insurgent War” manual, written during Vietnam and dealing with unconventional forces.
- Various post-1991 OPFOR manuals, including an organization guide that details brigade-corps similar to the GENFORCE “mobile forces” or real reformed post-Soviet models, and an idealized pseudo-Iraq/California overlay called “Samara”.
The “fake countries” can be accessed here
Real Countries
A big addition: This is un/declassified assessments of real, as opposed to fictional/stand-in countries. As with all intelligence documents, they must be taken with a big grain of salt, but remain very useful. The countries with documents of them include…
- USSR/Russia. This includes the classic FM 100-2 series on the Soviet Army, a more nuanced British report on Soviet tactics that was one of the final made before the USSR’s collapse, and several on contemporary Russia.
- An early Cold War study of Soviet client states.
- A pre-Gulf War (optimistic) assessment of the Iraqi Army by the NTC.
- Early and late Cold War assessments of the Chinese PLA.
- Assessments of post-millennium Iran and Syria.
- Assessments of both 1980 and modern North Korea.
- 1977 assessment of Cuba.
The “real countries” can be accessed here.
Misc..
In addition, this final section houses the equally valuable documents I nonetheless felt didn’t really belong in either previous section.
- Official Soviet field regulations of the early-mid Cold War captured and translated by the CIA, now declassified.
- Large doctrinal musings from Chinese and Soviet officers.
- The three-volume “Voroshilov Lectures” on strategic and operational matters.
- A study of the possible incorporation of Warsaw Pact minor countries into Soviet plans.
- Several studies on the potential future organization and tactics of an (intact) future USSR.
- Though not an OPFOR piece per se, a US study on “Tactics and Technology for the 21st Century” that perfectly encapsulates 90s defense thinking.
The miscellaneous section can be viewed here.
Hope these are interesting and stimulating.