The military services must calculate and justify their budget requests each year. The Navy must calculate budget requests for a number of specific programs. The budget for ship operations covers the costs of utilities, fuel, and component repairs. To calculate and defend a budget request, the Navy has to describe the consequences of not getting the full request.
In this analysis, the consequences of not getting the full budget request were measured as "readiness." Readiness is the ability of the ship plus crew to carry out their assigned tasks. Readiness was measured as the Training Figure of Merit (TFOM). TFOM is used by the Navy to determine when ships in a carrier strike group (i.e., unit of ships that train and deploy together) have enough training to be ready for a deployed mission. A logistic equation was used to predict TFOM. Explanatory variables included steaming hours underway and initial TFOM in the period. Data for Navy guided missile destroyers and guided missile cruisers were used.
The ultimate goal of this study was to improve the Navy's ability to carry out its budget policy, knowing the consequences of different budgets on readiness.
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