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Army Readiness Reporting Systems

1945-2003

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THE ADMIRALTIES: OPERATIONS OF THE 1ST CAVALRY DIVISION, 29 FEBRUARY–18 MAY 1944

William M. Donnelly

Special Publications
CMH Pub 70-130, Paper
2018; 190 pages, tables, illustrations

GPO S/N: 008-029-00649-9

Between the end of World War II and the start of the Kennedy Administration, the U.S. Army adopted and discarded a variety of readiness reporting systems, and then from 1964 to 2003 it revised AR 220-1 sixteen times. These cycles were at first driven by a tension between quantifying readiness and relying on the commander's judgment, and then, after the adoption of AR 220-1, by a tension between limiting the system to updating unit status and using it to manage resources. Furthermore, after the Vietnam War, the Army began expanding its concept of readiness from tactical units to the entire service. The quest for an ever more comprehensive measurement of readiness had several unintended consequences, the most serious of which was the corrosive pressure on commanders' integrity when the system became a de facto report card on their performance.

* View this publication online.