Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-170- An Operational Analysis of Cadre
operations.” 36 In essence, the cadre prepares for its wartime duties as best as they can
without having junior personnel to train. We begin by assuming that the cadre leaders in a
maintenance unit would be in the AC and then discuss how and why we might consider
retaining leaders in the RC.
The maintenance cadre unit has only two advantages when compared to the other
cadre duties examined in this section. First, leaders are constantly training for their wartime
mission, albeit without junior personnel. This allows them more time to hone both their
mobilization plans and their leadership skills. Other cadre organizations discussed in this
section assign other duties; this can distract leaders from core unit tasks. Second, leaders of
maintenance cadre units will “know” the equipment that they will use in wartime. Most other
cadre organizations we examine would assign contractors to perform maintenance; this
reduces the familiarity that leaders would have with the equipment.
The maintenance cadre unit has two major disadvantages: high cost and reduced
leader proficiency. As discussed in the previous chapter, if the cadre’s only duties are to
maintain the unit, one hundred percent of the peacetime cost of cadre leaders is assigned to the
cadre unit. Other cadre organizations discussed in this chapter assign a fraction of these
costs to other accounts. Proficiency is also a concern with maintenance cadre units because
although they have more time to focus on training for their wartime mission than other
cadre units, they still lack junior personnel to train. The “command post exercises” proposed
by CBO only go so far in replicating a real life combat situation. In order to fully practice
maneuvers, the cadre leaders need junior personnel to direct. Lacking these personnel,
training exercises become more like “busywork” than a training experience. Other types of
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36 CBO (1990), p. 16