Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-172- An Operational Analysis of Cadre
maintaining a maintenance cadre unit in the RC are: (1) leadership skills may erode quickly 40
and (2) cadre units would compete with existing RC units for prior service leaders.
Overall, we have seen that the maintenance cadre unit is unattractive because it is
expensive and reduces leader proficiency more than other cadre organizations. One way to
increase proficiency and reduce the cost of cadre units is to assign them other duties during
peacetime. 41 The next two sections explore the possibility of assigning other peacetime tasks
to leaders of separate cadre units.
3.1.2—Domestic Training Cadre Units
In the previous subsection, we saw that the major problems with maintenance cadre
units are high cost and low leader proficiency. One way to solve this problem is to assign the
cadre unit another peacetime task besides maintaining equipment and training for
mobilization. Cadre leaders could be “dual-hatted,” responsible for both preparing their own
unit for mobilization and performing some other duty for the Army. 42 One possible role for
cadre leaders is training. We might consider using cadre leaders to perform either Basic
Combat Training (BCT), or Advanced Individual Training (AIT). AIT is sometimes included
in the same training course with BCT in a course called One-Station Unit Training
(OSUT). 43 Cadre leaders could be responsible for BCT, AIT, or OSUT, depending on the
needs of the Army. We call this second type of separate cadre organization a domestic
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40 See Bodilly et al (1986) for a review of the literature on skill erosion.
41 This assumes that other tasks would be more relevant to leader development than simply maintaining the
unit and its mobilization plans.
42 Dual-hatted cadre leaders would be on active duty since their tasks are well beyond what a reservist could
reasonably perform when not mobilized.
43 One Station Unit Training is common for combat arms military occupational specialties, especially Infantry.