4-42. In large-scale ground combat operations, generating and maintaining combat power is essential to success. Commanders combine and apply the elements of combat power to produce overwhelming effects throughout operations. In short, a warfighting function is a set of capabilities, whereas an operation is designed to produce an outcome that uses the capabilities provided by the warfighting function. Within most of the warfighting functions, there are tasks that can be used as a task to some formation (type of unit), which when combined with the when, where, and why constitute a mission to be executed by that unit—that is, it becomes an operation for that unit.