To inform the U.S. Army's decisionmaking process surrounding commonality in military equipment, RAND was asked to assess the advantages and disadvantages of commonality and how to best manage their trade-offs. This report presents analyses of the effects of commonality on costs, capabilities, and training and offers a decisionmaking aid that designers, developers, and procurers could use to inform their decisions about commonality.

July 2019 Printed in BLACK AND WHITE The Army's Weapon Systems Handbook was updated in July 2019, but is still titled "Weapon Systems Handbook 2018." We are printing this in black and white to keep the price low. It presents many of the acquisition programs currently fielded or in development. The U.S. Army Acquisition Corps, with its 36,000 professionals, bears a unique responsibility for the oversight and systems management of the Army's acquisition lifecycle. With responsibility for hundreds of acquisition programs, civilian and military professionals collectively oversee research, development and acquisition activities totaling more than $20 billion in Fiscal Year 2016 alone. Why buy a book you can download for free? We print this so you don't have to. We at 4th Watch Publishing are former government employees, so we know how government employees actually use the standards. When a new standard is released, somebody has to print it, punch holes and put it in a 3-ring binder. While this is not a big deal for a 5 or 10-page document, many DoD documents are over 400 pages and printing a large document is a time- consuming effort. So, a person that's paid $25 an hour is spending hours simply printing out the tools needed to do the job. That's time that could be better spent doing mission. We publish these documents so you can focus on what you are there for. It's much more cost-effective to just order the latest version from Amazon.com. SDVOSB If there is a standard you would like published, let us know. Our web site is usgovpub.com

In recent years, the Army, and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) more broadly, has become increasingly interested in commonality the sharing of common parts across different entities. Commonality has implication for procurers, designers, developers, trainers, logisticians, and operators. Commonality offers many advantages and disadvantages; the trade-offs are sometimes difficult to discern and implement. To gain an understanding of the potential benefits and burdens (full life-cycle costs, training, and sustainment) of commonality, the U.S. Army Capabilities Integration Center asked RAND Arroyo Center to assess the consequences of "system and component commonality." Consequences are difficult to discern when there is confusion about the subject. As we began to examine existing literature on commonality, we realized that there is considerable confusion about what commonality is and why it matters. This report recommends a new, more rigorous lexicon for describing system commonality and component commonality and presents a common language for the Army and other services to share. This report provides definitions for common and eight related concepts.

Volume 5, Deep Maneuver: Historical Case Studies of Maneuver in Large-Scale Combat Operations, presents eleven case studies from World War II through Operation Iraqi Freedom focusing on deep maneuver in terms of time, space and purpose. Deep operations require boldness and audacity, and yet carry an element of risk of overextension - especially in light of the independent factors of geography and weather that are ever-present. As a result, the case studies address not only successes, but also failure and shortfalls that result when conducting deep operations. The final two chapters address these considerations for future Deep Maneuver.