task force

For the computer game, see Joint Task Force (computer game).

A task force (TF) is a temporary unit or formation established to work on a single defined task or activity. Originally introduced by the United States Navy, the term has now caught on for general usage and is a standard part of NATO terminology. Many non-military balls now create "task forces" or task groups for temporary activities that might have once been performed by ad hoc committees.

Joint Task Force

In U.S. terminology, now widely adopted, including by NATO, the term Joint implies the combination of more than one military service (i.e. some combination of Army -, Naval - and/or Air forces). Therefore a Joint Task Force (JTF) is a TF which includes more than one service.

United States DoD

A joint task force (JTF) is a joint force that is constituted and so designated by a JTF establishing authority. A JTF establishing authority may be the Secretary of Defense or the commander of a combatant command, subordinate unified command, or existing JTF. In most situations, the JTF establishing authority will be a combatant commande JTFs are established on a geographical area or functional basis when the mission has a specific limited objective and does not require overall centralized control of logistics.

Examples include Joint Task Force Bravo, Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Joint Task Force Lebanon, and Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations.

These are temprory call signs designated to paricular ship/ ships assigned to fullfil certain missions.

CTF can be read as Commander Task force while TF is Task Force. likewise the force is brokendown as following:- Task force, Task Group, Task Unit and Task element.

Canada

Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2) is the Canadian Forces' elite special forces unit, roughly equivalent to the American Delta Force or the British Special Air Service. However, it is not temporary but permanent, and does not fit with the US Combined Communication-Electronics Board system (TF 2 remains allocated to the United States). Thus while is is called a Joint Task Force, it is not technically a joint (more than one service) Task Force (temporary). It is known to have fought in Afghanistan and was part of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti.

Combined Joint Task Force

In U.S. terminology, now widely adopted, including by NATO, the term combined implies more than one nation. The UK originally started World War II using 'Combined' to denote forces composed of more than one service, which is how the Combined Operations term originated. However they soon adopted the U.S. usage, and organizations were named accordingly, for example, the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Today a Combined Task Force (CTF) is a task force which includes sub-elements of more than one nation.

A Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) is a task force which includes elements of more than one service and elements of more than one nation.

See: Combined Joint Task Force 76, Task Force Viking

Naval

United States Navy

The concept of a task force was originally introduced by the United States Navy around the beginning of 1941, as a way to increase flexibility. At the time, ships were collected in divisions, which in turn were collected in numbered squadrons, which comprised a numbered fleet. A task force could be built out of ships from different divisions and squadrons, without having to go through the paperwork entailed by permanent reorganization, and easily dissolved when it was no longer useful. The task force concept worked very well, and by the end of World War II about 100 task forces had been created.

Each task force was assigned a two-digit number. The first digit was originally the number of the fleet, while the second historically differentiated between task forces from the same fleet. It was typically abbreviated, so references like TF 11 are commonly seen. In addition, a task force could be broken into several task groups, identified by decimal points, as in TG 11.2, and finally task units, as in TU 11.2.1. Individual ships are task elements, for example TE 11.2.1.2 would be the second ship in TU 11.2.1.

Some Navy task forces in World War II:

• Task Force 11
• Task Force 16
• Task Force 17
• Task Force 31
• Task Force 34
• Task Force 38
• Task Force 61
• Task Force 80
• Task Force 88

The US Navy still uses task forces, and the Department of Defense often forms a joint task force if the force includes units from other services. In naval terms, the multinational Australian/US/UK/Canadian/NZ Combined Communications-Electronic Board mandates through Allied Communications Publication 113 (ACP 113) the present system, which allocated numbers from TF 1 to apparently TF 999. For example, the French Navy is allocated the series TF 470-474, and Task Force 473 has been used recently for an Enduring Freedom task force deployment built around FS Charles de Gaulle. Note that there is no requirement for uniqueness; for instance, there was a TF 76 in World War II, and a different one in the Vietnam War, as part of the Seventh Fleet.

Royal Navy

Earlier in the Second World War, the British Royal Navy had devised its own similar system of forces, which were assigned a letter, not a number. For example, the force stationed at Gibraltar was known as Force H, while the force stationed at Singapore in December 1941 was known as Force Z.

Army

In the United States Army, a task force is a battalion-sized ad hoc unit formed by attaching smaller elements of other units. A company-sized unit with an armored or mechanized infantry unit cross-attached is called a company team. See Team Yankee.

In the British Army and armies of other Commonwealth countries, such units are known as battlegroups.

Government

In government or business a task force is temporary organization created to solve a particular problem. It is considered to be a more formal ad-hoc committee.

See also

Some task forces have a creative name, e.g. after their commander, such as Dunsterforce

External links

• Task force article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
• http://www.jcs.mil/j6/cceb/acps/ACP113AFMC5.pdf - See Annex A, p 198-99, for current system

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