Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-160- An Operational Analysis of Cadre
Table 2.4— Percentage of Enlisted Personnel Retained in Cadre Units Planning for
Increased Wartime Promotions
+6 BCTs +9 BCTs +18 BCTs CadreMix
E-6 62 % 75 % 87 % 86 %
E-7 77 % 85 % 92 % 91 %
E-8 56 % 71 % 85 % 84 %
E-9 85 % 90 % 95 % 94 %
Increasing promotion rates and decreasing promotion intervals for enlisted
personnel reduces the number of NCOs that would need to be retained in peacetime cadre
units. Increased enlisted promotion rates in the first two years of a war will also decrease the
number of privates in the force because they are promoted more rapidly. However, the cadre
augmented forces discussed in this dissertation assume that enlisted recruiting will increase in
the first years of a war, which will offset the decrease in the number of privates created by
higher promotion rates. However, this increases the size of the wartime end-strength
expansion required to fill-out cadre units because some junior personnel that would have
gone to fill junior positions in cadre units are needed to replace junior personnel in the
existing force who have been promoted. This adds to the risk of relying on increased
promotions to create new leaders for cadre units.
2.3.3—Structure and Cost
We used the promotion results for officers and enlisted personnel discussed above to
determine the peacetime structure and cost of a cadre BCT that relies on increased wartime
promotions to fill some officer and NCO positions. 24 We assume that these units retain no
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24 This analysis does not take into account the feasibility and cost of training the additional officers and NCOs
who are promoted. Winkler et al (1999) find that only about 63 percent of the capacity of the NCO training
system is used [Winkler et al (1999), p. 14]. Therefore, the cost of additional training using existing facilities will
likely be much smaller than the personnel costs we are considering here. It is also likely that the army will
shorten the length of these courses in wartime as it has for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan [Bender (2007b)].