Warfighting functions, combat functions and DOTMLPF, compared.

The warfighting functions are the US Army's grouping of related capabilities and activities, set out in ADP 3-0. The Army counts six: command and control, movement and manoeuvre, intelligence, fires, sustainment and protection. Some formulations add information as a seventh, which is why the count is quoted inconsistently.

The joint equivalent is the joint functions, which JP 3-0 also numbers at seven by treating information separately. A capability described in one scheme therefore carries a different label in the other, and the label travels with the document rather than with the capability.

NATO combat functions are the six columns of a FORCE capability map: command and control, ISR, fires, protection, mobility and sustainment. They follow Allied Joint Doctrine and stay fixed between engagements, which is what makes two assessments comparable.

The two sets overlap but do not map one to one. NATO holds ISR as its own function where the US Army places intelligence; NATO separates mobility where the US Army speaks of movement and manoeuvre. A passage assigned to one is not automatically assignable to the other, and FORCE records which frame the source document used.

DOTMLPF asks what a capability requires: doctrine, organisation, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities. Written DOTMLPF-P, it adds policy. It is a checklist for delivering a capability, not a scheme for classifying one.

So it answers a different question. Combat functions and warfighting functions sort a capability by the effect it produces; DOTMLPF sorts the preconditions that have to exist for it. FORCE draws the same line between a capability and the enabler it depends on, which is the distinction DOTMLPF exists to keep visible.

A frame decides what a passage is counted as; it does not decide how the counting is done. The eight stages a FORCE analysis runs, the check each one carries and the figures behind the relevance tiers are set out separately.