The US Army uses the task force/team organization when it fights.
For example; the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division in the 1980s fielded four combat battalions: 2-6 INF, 3-34 ARM, 4-34 ARM and 2-81 ARM, supported by 3-1 FA.
All of the combat battalions have roughly the same Headquarters Company layout (HQ, Scouts, Mortars, etc) the difference would be in the task organization of the line companies.
2-6 INF, with A, B, C and D companies, would release two of its rifle companies. One would be attached to, say, 4-34 ARM and 2-81 ARM, both of whom would release a single tank company to 2-6 INF.
You would then have:
Task Force 2-6 INF with its on A & B Companies, C Co, 4-34 ARM and D Co, 2-81 ARM. This would be referred to as a balanced task force.
4-34 ARM would have its own A, B & D Companies and C Co, 2-6 INF and would form a armor-heavy task force.
2-81 ARM would have its A, B & C companies and D-2-6 INF. Ditto as an armor-heavy task force.
So 2nd Brigade would have 3-34 ARM (often referred to as pure, cherry or virgin), Task Force 2-6 INF, Task Force 4-34 ARM and Task Force 2-81 ARM.
Taking TF 2-81 ARM as an example, the battalion commander would split a rifle platoon from D-2-6 INF and attach it to, say C Co, who would release a tank platoon to D Co.
TF 2-81 ARM would then field A & B Companies, and Team Charlie (tank heavy) and Team Delta (infantry heavy). They would not necessarily keep the company letter...anybody remember Team Yankee?
So how are the redlegs effected? 3-1 FA would remain intact, simply tasking a battery to support one of the battalions. Depending on the operation, one of the line battalions may have priority of fire, in which case they would have full claim to the entire artillery battalion, with each battalion supporting itself with its own mortars until their attached battery was released back to them.
The whole concept of Task Force and Teams, in the US Army is very flexible. It is not unusual to form two task forces today, and 24-hours later, break them up or even detach the company to another battalion. It also does not follow the rather tidy example I showed above. I have seen infantry battalions lose three of their rifle companies to tank battalions, picking up more tank companies and even examples of releasing C & D companies and picking up A & B companies from the tanks.
Now, in the 1980s, the Infantry Battalions still used E Company as a holding for the battalion antitank systems. Normal operations would have E Company splitting up, attaching its line platoons to the various line companies. If that company was detached to another battalion, normally, its E Company attachment would follow along. But it was not unusual to see that attachment returned to E Company prior to the cross attachment.
Confused?
Yes it is a flexible, chaotic system in writing, but the training was constant with almost every field exercise involving cross-attachment. In the field, battalions could reform with minimal wastage of time. In Desert Storm, the task forces would hit one Iraqi unit, reform in between combat and hit a second Iraqi unit with a different organization. It could be tailored almost at will for specific tasks (breaking the initial front lines) and then reconfigure for pursuit operations.
So it works.
Hope this helps!
As far as the USMC organizations, it was always an article of faith in the Army, that Marine cross-attachment took the form of two platoons of Marines, holding hands and skipping towards the nearest enemy machine gun!!!
With a salute and a wink towards the Marine members of the forum!!!!!
