The Library
of

Cold War Weapon System Costs

This Site Provides: An open library of historical cost estimates and data for weapon systems and related components planned, developed, procured, and operated during the Cold War by the U. S. and its Allies.  All military, other government agencies, and comparable commercial systems are included.

Sources: The cost estimates in general were based on popular trade magazines and newspaper clippings, research reports and cost and budget studies by prominent organizations, and U.S. Congressional Hearings.

Conversion: This Library was started in the 1960s and by 1980 contained about 1000 handwritten card records organized into 18 broad categories of like mission systems and related equipment and programs familiar during the Cold War. Cost estimates and supporting information on these card records are now being converted into a computerized format and presented in this Web site in a series of PDFs. This Library also includes an INTRODUCTION, a section presenting a brief non-technical tutorial, called BACKGROUND, about cost estimating during the Cold War, and a section, called DATABASE PDFs, presenting the converted records. Cost estimates for individual systems (e.g., F-15, Atlas, Enterprise Aircraft Carrier, TTC-39 Communications Switch, and Titan IIIC Launch Vehicle) can be reviewed by clicking on the appropriate broad category "Click Here" PDF title and PDF number and browsing through the records.

Object of the Library: The estimates and data were collected originally to assist cost analysts and estimators in private and government organizations.  They are being provided in this Library at this time as a public service for historical research and educational purposes.   

Contact Us: If you need additional information, contact us by email by clicking on Heuston Consulting

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The Library
Of
Cold War Weapon System Costs

Prepared by Heuston Consulting, Inc., April 2009.

INTRODUCTION

This LIBRARY provides cost estimates of cold war weapon systems, including aircraft, missiles, satellites, ships, communication systems, and some ground support systems. It also includes some comparable commercial systems of the same time period. The kinds of costs for these systems may include research and development, procurement, facilities, operations, and training. Each entry includes in addition to the cost figures, a discussion, the source of the data, the date of the source, and the date recorded.

The costs were collected over forty years ago by hand from numerous public sources and maintained in old fashioned card files. Computerized data storage procedures were not available in those years for this effort. The data were used as backup for weapons system research and as a statistical basis for projecting total life cycle costs for entirely new military systems. They were also used as inputs for preparing statistical Cost Estimating Relationships, which relate types of costs of weapon systems to physical parameters of the equipment, hardware, and performance. They were also used as a basis of ball-park checking of more fundamental cost estimates of labor, material, and overhead prepared by engineers, manufacturing foremen, and management experts of private defense contractors.

The cost references are excerpts from magazines, newspapers, government documents, and other public and private sources. They have been updated this year, 2009, from material publicly available from Web references.

BACKGROUND

The dates of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies are pegged by some historians between the mid 1940s and the early 1990s. During this period the costs of military weapon systems became of great interest not only within the U. S. government, but to the general public, press, and defense contractors. These systems were being studied and proposed to counter the predicted threat of nuclear war with the Soviets. Analyses were made to compare many alternatives that might achieve planned military goals, including alternative operational quantities and alternative deployments. The objective was to help top level defense management decide which was the best alternative.

The art and science of estimating military effectiveness and costs of proposed future weapons that might take 10 years to develop was unknown in the 1950s. Military department budget planning was on a year to year appropriations basis and segmented into such independent categories as equipment, facilities, and personnel, among others. It was not possible to examine the total long term consequences (military combat results and the economic costs) from research and development to operational deployment and retirement of specific new kinds of missiles, aircraft, and other systems. New analytical methodology was badly needed and was initially promoted by the Air Force and its non-profit research contractors. The overall methodology was often known as "Systems Analysis," and more generally as cost-effectiveness analysis or cost benefit analysis. It eventually took on formal procedural requirements for programming and budgeting by all of the Department of Defense and its contractors.

During these early years, government and its research contractors were able to collect and analyze useful historical cost data, some classified and some unclassified, upon which to project these future total life cycle weapon system costs for research and development, equipment production and procurement, and operations under various planning options being considered by the military and the administration. The cost estimating technique was sometimes called "parametric cost estimating" with the use of statistical cost models and "Cost Estimating Relationships (CERs)." Methodology is by now well documented by DoD, the military services, NASA, DISA, and many government departments and agencies.

Private contractors, on the other hand, were limited to their own proprietary pricing and contract data and had to bid and offer analytical estimates in their solicited and non solicited reports to the government with much less supportable cost estimates and methodology. A few contractors had their own statistical cost estimating models, based on their previous production programs, but these were usually focused on micro models of detailed equipment specifications of size, weight, specific material, electronic complexity, fabrication methods, and labor cost-quantity learning curves. The contractors often were hard pressed to find suitable historical cost sources of analogous systems in the general market place in order to gain general insight and project their gross dollar estimates of system costs.

As a consequence, public sources of estimates appearing in trade journals and the general press became valuable and much sought after inputs to these cost effectiveness studies by engineers in private companies, even if they had some uneasy feelings about the authority and accuracy of the public press data.

Now in 2009, a lot of information about cost estimating and Cold War weapon systems can be found in standard search engines. However, cost estimates of specific systems, particularly the smaller systems, are almost impossible to find on the Web.

This LIBRARY offers a historical database for researchers and cost analysts. Current military systems, of course, are very different than those in the Cold War, and cost estimators are probably not faced with the same kind of estimating problems. Using these data directly in CERs now is pretty academic. However, these historical records need to be preserved in a computerized database for Internet reference. They are offered free in this Web site as a public service

Summary of Categories and Conversions of Systems in the Library Database

* In addition to the 1184 cost references shown above in this library, about 200 were
omitted for the following reasons:

1. The specific organization, company, or agency responsible for publishing the
   referenced cost estimate was not clearly identified on the handwritten card.
2. The hand writing was not clear enough. Only a few cards were typed.
3. The card had 40 year old abbreviations that could not be interpreted.
4. In a few cards, the source of the cost estimate is identified only as a person to
   person communication, an internal memo, a personal telephone call to somebody
   unspecified.
5. The estimate is referenced to some other source, without telling explicitly which
   organization it came from, and after 40 years there is no way to identify the
   company or the report. Although most of these types of cost estimates look
   official, interesting, and probably important, it was decided to leave these out of
   the digital converted references.
6. Several cost reference cards and some with a single titled system consisted of
   many cards that are so long and detailed that it was difficult and time consuming to tabulate all the facts and figures. We tried but gave up, and in some cases,
   provided only a total program cost without supporting details.
7. A few cards are copies of charts and graphs and some are with cost estimating
   relationships in graph form that are not reproducible.

If anybody is searching for Cold War cost estimates and related data that can’t be found
in this library, please contact Heuston Consulting, Inc. Although our web library is free
and consultation is free to some extent, a small fee will be charged for any additional
search service. There are ways to check the validity and quality of these estimates and to
expand the data for systems in these early years of history. We will be happy to help. We
have stored away several of the original cost research reports that the publishing
companies have now said they can not find.

If you have any comments, corrections, or cost estimates you wish to contribute to the
library, please contact us by email at heuston.consulting@dcranch.com. Use our special
PayPal account "Buy Now" icon below for payments for special extra search requests.
We will respect your private non-disclosure requests, if appropriate, and any caveats that
may have been on the original reports.

Library Updating

This Library is being renewed and revitalized step by step, piece by piece, and category by category.   Organizations are being contacted to check on the availability of old and new cost data about the cold war.  These organizations include the RAND Corporation, RAND’s Air Force Project RAND, Aerospace Corporation, Mitre Corporation, Institute for Defense Analysis, Boos Allen Hamilton, Defense Technical Information Center, the Government Accountability Office, House and Senate Appropriations Hearings, Library of Congress, Naval Post Graduate School, Armed Forces Journal, The National War College, Army War College, and the Air University.  Several Web search engines are also being accessed. 

Organization of the Database

The computerized cost database is being organized and converted into PDF's for easier browsing into the following levels of detail:

1. The major card catalog categories are the original 40 year old categories, and appear a bit outdated.  They may be changed in future updated versions of this site.
2. The secondary level sub-categories, where appropriate, are grouped into broad types of weapon, such as, "Bombers," and "Fighter Aircraft and Others" within "Military Aircraft," and "ICBMs," and "IRBM’s," and "Other Missiles" within "Missiles."
3. The third level lists the cost references by specific weapons, for example, Atlas, Titan, and Minuteman within "ICBMs," and B-52, and B-1 within "Bombers."  In other words, each weapon system may show from one to about ten cost references published by various organizations (e.g., Aviation Week, Interavia, Missiles and Rockets, Senate Appropriations Committee Hearings, the RAND Corporation) at various months and years from 1950 to 1990.

What is a "Cost Reference"?

A Cost Reference is a single composite data entry in this Library, which presents a cost estimate or estimates about some piece of equipment or total system, either military or commercial, that was planned, developed, tested, procured, operated, or cancelled during the Cold War. The estimates may be a simple cost per unit or total program cost depending on the amount of cost element details in the original source document. The "Discussion" material that follows the estimates will usually explain the context of the estimate, that is, what went into the figures, what is included and excluded, and comments about the figures or the acquisition problems. These Cost References are either quotations or paraphrased, and are usually excerpts from specific pages of the original published source, which are always indicated.

Two examples of cost references are shown below just as they appear in the "Military Aircraft," and "Missile" PDF No. 1 and 2. The first line shows the cost reference number (e.g., AM89, and M123) with the title of the system ("Helicopter Maintenance" and "Titan III-3X). The second line shows the cost data or reference to any following data. The third line shows any backup or supporting information. At the bottom is the explicit source, organization, and page number. The forth line is the date recorded. The remaining PDFs follow the same format. You can see that there is a wide variety of cost data, amount of detail, and supporting discussions in the PDFs.

AM89 – Helicopter Maintenance
            Cost – as follows for Army, Navy, and Air force
            Discussion – see table below

For Navy and Air Force, See the Full Cost Reference in the Military Aircraft PDF#!.
Source – DoD 1964, House Hearing, Subcommittee of Appropriations Committee, 88th Congress, 1st Session, Part 4, p 209.
            Recorded – November 15, 1963.

M123 – Titan III-3X
            Cost – Development = $44.7 million
Discussion – Our estimate based upon the preliminary work done with the contractors, however, is $44.7 million.  This includes fabrication and launch of the first vehicle.
            It does not include the modifications to launch facilities and ground equipment.
Our estimate for these alternations, including installation and checkout of all the equipment, comes to $26.8 million.
This adds up to $71.5 million, which is the amount programmed for fiscal years 1965-1966.
Source – Hearings, Committee On Aeronautics & Space Science, Senate, 89th Congress, 1st Session, January 26, 27, 1965, p 128.
Recorded – January 4, 1966.

DATABASE PDFS

COLD WAR COST ESTIMATING GUIDES

Presented below is a list of cost estimating guides, instructions, and methodologies used during the Cold War.  These are few of the more interesting and historical ones from military departments and agencies that were unclassified and not restricted. 

If copies are needed, please contact the original publishing organization.  It is assumed that estimators and analysts will naturally obtain updated versions for any current costing projects.

These have been added to our Cold War Cost Library web site at this time to make sure readers don’t get the impression that all costing was done based solely on popular magazine articles referenced in our historical database. 

1. "Cost Estimating Procedures," 17 April 1972, Air Force Systems Command Manual, AFSCM-173-1, Headquarters Air Force Systems Command, Department `of the Air Force.

2. "USAF Cost and Planning Factors Guide," 31 May 1979, AFP 173-13, United States Air Force.

3. "Instructions and Formats, Contractor Cost Study," 1963, United States Air Force, Air Force Systems Command, DCS/Comptroller, Directorate of Cost Analysis.

4. "Research and Development Cost Guide for Army Material Systems," Department of the Army Pamphlet No. 11-2, April 1976, Headquarters, Department of the Army.

5. "Investment Cost Guide for Army Materiel Systems," Department of the Army Pamphlet No. 11-3, April 1976, Headquarters, Department of the Army.

6. "Operating and Support Cost Guide for Army Materiel Systems," Department of the Army Pamphlet No. 11-4, April 1976, Headquarters, Department of the Army.

7. "Standards for Presentation and Documentation of Life Cycle Cost Estimates for Army Material Systems," Department of the Army Pamphlet No. 11-5, May 1976, Headquarters, Department of the Army.

8. "Investment Costing Guide," Army Weapon Systems, 1 May 1975, DCA-R-S, Directorate of Cost Analysis, Office of the Comptroller of the Army.

9. "Defense Communications Agency Cost and Planning Factors Manual, March 1983, DCA Circular 600-60-1, Defense Communications Agency.

10. "Life Cycle Costing Procurement Guide", (Interim), LCC-1, July 1970, Department of Defense.

11. "Casebook Life Cycle Costing in Equipment Procurement," LCC-2, July 1970, Department of Defense.

12. "Life Cycle Costing Guide for System Acquisition," (Interim), LCC-3, January 1973, Department of Defense.

13. "Cost Effectiveness Program Plan for Joint Tactical Communications," Volume III, Life Cycle Costing, June 1976, TTO-ORT-032-76B-V3, Joint Tactical Communications Office, Fort Monmouth, N.J.

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Disclaimer: Heuston Consulting, Inc. is not responsible for the quality and accuracy of any of the cost references and other data contained in the database of this LIBRARY. Please use the data at your own risk. Every effort has been made to transcribe as accurately as possible handwritten records to digital format. Copyright obligations and any other restrictions, if they existed at time the sources were published, have been respected by including the titles, dates, and page references. No additional details are known at this time.