Composition of TF34

[Legbreaker]

Something to bear in mind is that ONLY ships located in Europe will be a part of the task force. There's no way to get ships with empty fuel tanks from the US and back again, given the oil is located (presumably) somewhere around Bremerhaven.

We know USS John Hancock was the flagship of the operation, and so we can presume it would have a fairly full complement of crew (drawn from survivors of other ships to round it out as necessary). Weapons, ammunition and general repair level might not be up to prewar scratch, but as one of the few fighting ships still floating, chances are it's going to have received a substantial share of available naval resources (mostly salvaged from other more heavily damaged ships).

We also know the USS Tarawa was at least floating in Summer 2000 (Naval & Aviation handbook - the notes from the colour plate showing the Osprey). Given the Tarawa is a far more capable C3 ship than the John Hancock, it's not much of a leap to believe it's either immobilised from actions during the Marine landings in July, or (my personal belief) sunk of the Polish coast.

From the Last Submarine trilogy, we also know there's no submarines in the task force. Also, given the USS John Hancock is the flagship, it's logical that no larger warships are included. My guess is the bulk of the task force consists of civilian freighters and passenger ships (cruise liners, ferries). As a point of interest, the RMS Queen Mary was refitted for WWII and carried up to 15,000 troops at a time (holds the record of 16,082). It's peacetime capacity was 2139 passengers and 1101 crew.
Provided a similar size ship was available, it's conceivable only about a dozen ships (although more likely about 20) would be needed to transport the 40,000 members of TF34.