Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-30- A Budgetary Analysis of Cadre
Using the RC cost relative estimate from Jaffe (2006), the relative cost of a cadre unit
retaining four to five percent of its personnel in peacetime would be about four percent
(0.15*0.28=0.04). However, the analyses in Paper II of this dissertation show that many
more officers and NCOs might need to be retained in a cadre unit given the grade structure
of BCTs. If cadre units maintain a greater number of full-time personnel in peacetime, then
the relative cost of a cadre unit will increase. The CBO report elaborates:
“But a cadre unit manned in peacetime with enough active personnel to provide 25
percent of normal manning would entail about 70 percent of the costs of a selected
reserve unit.”
- CBO (1992)
Using this estimate, we calculate the cost of a cadre unit relative to an AC unit to be about
20 percent (0.7*0.28=0.2). We use this cost estimate as our base case in this paper. Chapter
Four explores the sensitivity of cost savings from cadre to cadre peacetime costs. The
second paper of this dissertation discusses cadre unit designs and their cost differences in
more depth.
1.3.3—Rotation Guidance and Deviation
The analyses in this paper assume that the DoD will try to adhere to the 2007
rotation guidance (not actual practice, which is 1:1 or more for the actives) in the future.
This means that the DoD will try to provide AC units with two years at home for every one
deployed and RC units with five years at home for every one deployed. We assume that
cadre units will be deployed like AC units once they are mobilized. Chapter Six explores the
sensitivity of the results derived in Chapter Two to assumptions about future rotation
guidance.