Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-22- A Budgetary Analysis of Cadre
1.1.1—Peacetime Cadre Units
In peacetime, the major concerns regarding cadre units are equipment, structure, and
organization. We ignore equipment costs in all calculations performed in this paper due to a
lack of data. However, in the worst case, a cadre unit would have a full set of equipment and
therefore would have equipment costs no higher than those of an AC unit. In the second
paper of this dissertation, we explore options that would allow cadre units to retain less
equipment than AC units in peacetime. This would decrease the cost of a cadre augmented
force beyond those calculated in this paper.
The essence of cadre is maintaining only leadership in the force and retaining
additional junior personnel as needed. Thus, choosing a cadre peacetime structure requires
choosing how many and which leaders to retain. In this dissertation, we explore options
ranging from retaining all officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs), which comprise
43 percent of a full-strength unit, to relying on increased promotion rates and activation of
senior personnel in the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) in wartime, which reduces the
number of personnel required in peacetime to 13 percent of a full-strength unit. We also
explore different possible organizations for cadre units. In all cases, we assume that active
officers and NCOs would be rotated through cadre leadership positions as they are through
regular staff and line positions. For leaders assigned to cadre units, we consider options
ranging from retaining cadre leaders on active duty with their cadre units to retaining leaders
in the reserves. The structure and organization of a cadre unit will determine both its cost
and its readiness. In our base case analysis, we assume that cadre units retain 25 percent of
their personnel during peacetime and that they will be assigned some other duties beyond
simply maintaining their cadre unit. CBO (1992) estimated the cost of this type cadre unit to