Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-347- A Historical Analysis of Cadre
limited training, and maintaining equipment.” 265 Under this concept, “training … would
involve individual leadership training, physical fitness, instructor training, and unit training in
the form of command post exercises. The purpose of the training would be to ensure that
the cadre is prepared to train individual reservists in the event of mobilization for war and
knows how to conduct combat operations.” 266 This is similar to the maintenance cadre units
discussed in the second paper of this dissertation. In wartime, CBO envisioned that “the unit
would be filled out with … individual ready reserve (IRR) personnel who have been off
active duty for fewer than 18 months.” 267 The CBO likened their proposal to the cadre units
that existed in Germany at the time. 268
CBO also discussed the drawbacks to their cadre plan. First, CBO was concerned
that IRR personnel would be scattered across the U.S. and “it might be difficult for all of
them to respond immediately to a mobilization call.” 269 Second, CBO worried that 3,000
soldiers might not be enough to maintain all of the equipment during peacetime. CBO’s
third concern was that “active-duty military might take an unfavorable view of assignment to
… cadre units in peacetime because there would be few if any soldiers to lead. This situation
might lead to the assignment of less than the best qualified active-duty officers to the cadre
divisions.” 270 CBO’s final concern was the need for the army to “revamp its personnel
policies significantly in order to build up the pool of IRR personnel who have had active-
____________
265 CBO (1990), p. 16
266 CBO (1990), p. 16
267 CBO (1990), p. 16
268 See discussion of German cadre from GAO (1991) in Section 9.8.3.
269 CBO (1990), p. 17
270 CBO (1990), p. 17