A force structure is the combat-capable part of a military organisation which describes how military personnel, and their weapons and equipment, are organised for the operations,[1] missions and tasks expected from them by the particular doctrine of the service or demanded by the environment of the conflict.
The totality of the force structure committed to any given military operation, mission or task is called an order of battle.
Another important part of the force structure planning is how the command structure is organised within the order of battle will not reflect the force structure, but the forces command hierarchy and their relative deployment within the Theatre of Military Operations, during operational manoeuvre, or in the Tactical Area of Responsibility.
David Glantz in his When Titans Clash provides an example of how the Red Army after three years of retreats, massive losses, steep learning curves, maturation and regaining the initiative identified this process of change in force structure by The 1944 Field Regulations of the Red Army, or Ustav, formalised their experiences of 1943, including the artillery and the air offensives for the ground forces.
[2] This reflected a continuation of the a steady growth in mechanised force structure pursued by the Red Army since the 1930s, and when "Khalkhin-Gol demonstrated the viability of Soviet theory and force structure".