Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-100- A Budgetary Analysis of Cadre
soldier costs $100,000 per year. It is likely the actual cost is not exactly $100,000 120 , but the
order of magnitude is correct, which is all that matters to calculate the magnitude of the cost
savings from a cadre augmented force. Jaffe (2006) estimates the relative cost of a reserve
soldier to an active duty soldier to be 28 percent. The following sections describe how we
use this estimate to calculate the annual cost savings from trading AC and RC BCTs for
cadre BCTs. Equipment costs are not considered in this paper, but are discussed in the
second paper of this dissertation.
A.2.1—The Cost of Trading AC BCTs for Cadre BCTs
To calculate the annual cost of an AC BCT, we multiply the cost of an active duty
soldier by the number of soldiers required to increase the size of the force by one BCT. The
expansion of six BCTs required 65,000 personnel. This means expanding the force by one
BCT requires 10,833 soldiers. The actual number of personnel assigned to a BCT is only
around four thousand. 121 The remaining soldiers are required for support units such as
Combat Support (CS) and Combat Service Support (CSS). The ratio of deployed combat
forces to support forces is usually about 1:1.6. 122 This estimate is consistent with this ratio,
though slightly higher. If we assume the number of soldiers needed to field and support a
BCT is 10,833, then the annual cost of an AC BCT with support is $1.08 billion per year.
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120 New York Times Editorial Board (2006) estimates the cost of an active duty soldier to be $150,000 and
Jaffe (2006) estimates the cost to be $120,000. These higher estimates would lead to larger cost savings from a
cadre augmented force. Donnelly and Kagan (2008b) estimate the cost of expanding the Army by one soldier
to be $275,000, though this includes the costs of the army “raised, trained, and equipped according to its
doctrine.” [Donnelly and Kagan (2008b), p. 140-141]. The costs in this paper do not include equipment.
121 See Appendix A of Paper II.
122 Williams (2001), p. 195, Fastabend (1997). The ratio of support to combat personnel in conflicts since
World War I: World War II (1.7 to 1), Korean War (1.5 to 1), Vietnam War (1.8 to 1), Persian Gulf War (1.4 to
1). [CBO(1997), p. 10]