Black Ops

Black Ops are the elite light infantry forces of the U.S. Army and SRPA.

Overview
Black Ops are the military arm of the Special Research Projects Administration, as depicted in Resistance 2, they are almost always seen in SRPA facilities. They commonly wield the M5A2 Folsom Carbine in battle. They are apparently divided up into teams, it's assumed they are grouped into squads of five members (except for Salvage Teams, which vary), this is not known for sure though. If they are grouped into squads of five, a platoon is likely to have twenty five members, though this is only assumed.

In appearances, they distinctively wear helmets, gas masks, and airtight suits, apparently to keep Crawlers or any other Chimeran vectors from penetrating their bodies and infecting them with the Chimeran virus. However, it appears that despite their gear, Black Ops can fall victim to Spinners, who would be able to spin the normal Black Ops soldier into a cocoon as seen in Bryce Canyon, where Nathan Hale and Victor Company discovered the remains of Dr. Fyodor Malikov's Black Ops escort.

Resistance: Fall of Man
Following or prior to the events of Operation Deliverance, Black Ops soldiers have been dispatched in Chimera-occupied England and have been apparently conducting secret U.S. operations to learn more about the Chimera, while remaining discrete from British and regular American forces.

Nathan Hale only encountered the presence of Black Ops from finding their corpses, along with weapons such as the XR-005 Hailstorm and the XR-003 Sapper. Radio messages or an encrypted Morse code message can often be heard from the deceased soldiers' radio headset. It is revealed from these coded messages that the Black Ops have been trailing Hale since the beginning of Operation Deliverance. Following the aftermath of the Battle of London, a Black Ops squad confronted Nathan Hale at gunpoint and extracted him out of England.

Black Ops seen in Fall of Man wear specialized airtight suits, green armor vests, helmets with gas masks, backpacks with what seem to be their air supply and apparently providing energy or even a signal for their chest-mounted video cams to transmit to HQ, silver armguards, various pouches on their utility belt (likely for ammo), black leg pads, black assault boots, and two ammo pouches strapped to their right thigh.

A Black Ops skin can be unlocked for multiplayer by completing the game's single player campaign on Superhuman difficulty.

Resistance 2
The Black Ops play a much larger role, serving in most battles Nathan Hale fights in Resistance 2. As revealed in the after credits of Fall of Man, the Black Ops purposely extracted Hale for his induction into the Sentinel Program.

Like in Fall of Man some Black Ops are found dead with weaponry that the player may use such as the Splicer. They wear a more streamlined uniform giving the soldier better maneuverability in combat. As noted below, they don't appear to wear airtight suits, and instead wear olive drab uniforms complete with armor vest, leg pack, hip pack, backpacks with the chest-mounted video cams and possibly a radio, white leg pads, white armguards, and green boots.

In the game's competitive mode, the Black Ops suit is unlocked at level 10 and the Black Ops helmet at level 12.

Resistance 3
Corpses of Black Ops appear in New York City in the years following SRPA's botched mission in attempting to attack the city's Chimeran tower. Nevertheless, their multiplayer skin can be acquired and used, as a pre-order bonus, which has now been made available for public purchase on PSN. It is interesting to note however that throughout the campaign and while never actually seen in game radio broadcasts and collected intel mention units of unidentified dark clad military personell moving through Chimera territory and aiding with the evacuation of civilians. A radio transcript can also be heard during the end credits, elaborating on a group of soldiers bearing a similar description to SRPA's black ops defending a civilian field hospital in Charleston against a Chimera onslaught. This suggests that SRPA and to a lesser extent the US Army is still operating albeit in a signifigantly diminished capacity.

Resistance: Burning Skies
Black Ops troops participated alongside regular Army troops in the failed defense of the SRPA base at Ellis Island. By the time Tom Riley and Ellie Martinez arrived at the base, most of them were killed. They also defended the Union City Protection Camp and evacuated the civilians to the radio tower after the Chimera broke into the camp; while most of the Black Ops troops died in the defense, one surviving Black Ops soldier directs Tom to the radio tower to find his family.

List of known Black Ops

 * Com One
 * Com Two
 * X-Ray One
 * X-Ray Three
 * X-Ray Four
 * X-Ray Five
 * X-Ray Six
 * X-Ray Twelve
 * Corporal Phillips
 * Sergeant Mathison
 * Private Osborne
 * Foxtrot One Hundred and Twelve
 * India Eighty Two
 * Keystone Six
 * Victor One
 * Victor Two
 * Victor Three
 * Victor Four
 * Victor Nine
 * Victor Thirteen
 * Victor Twenty
 * Omaha Nine Alpha
 * India Six Delta
 * Blue Three Foxtrot

List of known groups

 * Keystone Company
 * Oscar Company
 * Victor Company
 * X-Ray Squad
 * Yankee Company
 * Salvage Team Alpha
 * Salvage Team Bravo
 * Salvage Team Charlie
 * Salvage Team Delta
 * Salvage Team Fox-Trot
 * Research Team Delta

Trivia

 * The Black Ops were voiced by Steve Blum in Resistance: Fall of Man, and Travis Willingham, Rick Pasqualone, David Paul Olsen, and Grant George in Resistance 2.


 * In the original development of Resistance: Fall of Man (known as I-8 at the time) Nathan Hale accompanied the Black Ops as they did suicidal raids through cities and towns, but this idea was scrapped after the developers realized that the story didn't really have a plot. Insomniac also used Black Ops for testing their new Chimeran creatures in the making of both games.


 * Interesting to note is that their uniforms change from RFOM to R2. The soldiers are slimmer in Resistance 2 compared to those in Resistance: Fall of Man. No explanation was given for the sudden change, but it can be presumed that the Black Ops have varying uniforms depending on the environment and area of operations.
 * Though it can be noted that the Black Ops that surround Hale don't actually get on the VTOL and those in the new uniforms stay on the VTOL.


 * The Black Ops are considered the redshirts of Resistance 2 as they are often killed in scripted events that emphasize the dangerousness of new enemies. For example, a Black Ops soldier was gruesomely ripped in half when the Chameleon was first introduced.


 * In Resistance 2's Online Co-op, Special Ops were originally going to be Black Ops and dress in their suits.


 * Though it's rarer than their Hybrid counterparts, in Resistance 2 Black Ops can explode into a mixture of blood and body parts if hit by a grenade.


 * The way Black Ops soldiers support Sentinels is similar to how Army Rangers support Delta Force and other elite CT units in real-life.


 * Even though they can supposedly be infected by Spinners, in Resistance 2 when they walk past them, the Spinners will not attack the Black Ops or try to infect them. Also it would be hard for the Spinner to pierce the suit and infect the soldier. Another account of Black Ops NOT being infected is when they slaughtered the Spinners at the Lincoln Memorial in Resistance: The Gathering Storm.