DVIDS – News – Northern Strike 23-1 “OPFOR” builds readiness, challenges visiting models

CAMP GRAYLING, Michigan — The muzzle flash of an M240 machine gun chatters brightly in opposition to a snow-covered embankment. Beneath, navy automobiles pulling discipline artillery weapons grind to a halt as Troopers duck and start to return hearth. A pickup truck blocks their method. From behind it, a person in tiger-striped camouflage fires a weapon that appears like a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

“CONTACT,” somebody yells.

Right now, Northern Michigan is a twenty-degree snow globe. And that is an ambush.

The scene is a part of Northern Strike 23-1, an Army Nationwide Guard-sponsored train held Jan. 20-29 on the Nationwide All-Area Warfighting Middle in Northern Michigan. The Humvees are pushed by Troopers from the Wisconsin Nationwide Guard’s 1-One hundred and twentieth Discipline Artillery Regiment, whereas the M240 and RGP launcher (utilizing blanks) are fired by members of the Michigan Nationwide Guard’s Northern Strike planning group, who function opposing forces (OPFOR) on this battlefield state of affairs inject.

“The purpose of OPFOR is to present you a practical coaching occasion in order that the unit can construct readiness,” mentioned Sgt. 1st Class Todd Teuling, opposing forces supervisor for the Northern Strike planning group. “The large factor is the ingredient of shock, as a result of they don’t understand it’s coming.”

Teuling explains that all through the 18-month planning cycle for the train, Northern Strike workers work with the models from around the Division of Protection who plan to take part, gathering enter on the kind of coaching they should accomplish. That is typically decided by upcoming deployment or mission necessities.

Teuling’s viewers for Northern Strike 23-1 is roughly 600 personnel from throughout the energetic and reserve elements of the U.S. Army, Air Drive and Marine Corps. They’ve all traveled to Northern Michigan due to the geography, assets, and accessibility of the Nationwide All-Area Warfighting Middle, which incorporates Camp Grayling and Alpena Fight Readiness Coaching Middle. The train is designed to construct readiness in near-arctic situations whereas coaching to fulfill targets of the Division of Protection’s arctic technique.

Throughout execution, Teuling and different members of the Northern Strike planning group don tiger-striped fatigues and be part of civilian contractors to hold out the state of affairs injects, including unpredictability to the coaching expertise with many simulated weapons and techniques that drive taking part models to react and make real-time choices underneath stress.

“We attempt to cater to what the models need, after which we take that request and mould it right into a state of affairs based mostly on what we now have to work with right here on the bottom,” mentioned Tueling. “We will put completely different components into it, whether or not it’s [small] unmanned aerial automobiles, simulated chemical assaults, machine gun hearth, oblique hearth, small probes and heavy assaults.”

All of this, added to the already difficult situations of Northern Michigan in January, makes the Northern Strike winter train a trial of resilience for these coaching right here.

“You don’t get to select the enemy, the situation, or the climate when it’s time to battle, so it’s a must to prepare in all situations,” mentioned U.S. Army Maj. Rustin Billings, One hundred and twentieth FA brigade hearth assist officer, Wisconsin Nationwide Guard. “A whole lot of the troopers construct that character piece when it’s a pure factor it’s a must to overcome; it’s not synthetic.”