OSR MILITARY COSTING REVIEW BOARD (MCRB) MEETING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79B00972A000100380003-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 22, 1998
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: January 10, 1969
• Content Type: MFR

Approved For Release 20&7/02/23: CIA-RDP79B00972AO00100380003-7
10 January 1969
SUBJECT: OSR Military Costing Review Board (MCRB) Meeting
1. On 6 December the MCRB met and was briefed by
Ion the current efforts and future
plans of the Technical Resources Branch (PA/T) of OSR in cost ing_
Soviet R&D activity.
using US experience is currently underway in PA/T. Preliminary
results from this methodology are encouraging, but considerable
refinement of the technique is required and PANT intends to call
upon the individual forces branches in OSR for technical support
in this effort.
ons systems.
3. A first attempt at deriving an independent military R&D
estimate by applying the ratio of R&D to procurement spending
discussed the nature of PA/T's present
estimates of Soviet R&D expenditures and how these estimates are
derived from published Soviet budget data. He also pointed out
that these estimates were not accepted with overwhelming confi-
dence by other members of the intelligence community or by DoD,
and that he feels the number one priority of PA/T is to attempt
to either verify the level and trend of these estimates or to
develop a new set of data of better credibility. Approaches in-
clude: (a) developing independent estimates of R&D unrelated to
budget announcements, (b) developing new divisions of total R&D
expenditures among civil R&D, space, and military RDT&E, and (c)
within both the space and military R&D estimates to further di-
vide these into expenditures by missions and even specific weap-
4. PA/T is also attempting to refine the overall military
R&D estimate that. results from summing the R&D estimates of the
individual forces branches for their categories of weapons plus
Excluded iron automatic
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Approved For Release 2007/02/23: CIA-RDP79B00972AO00100380003-7
 Approved For Release 2007/02/23: CIA-RDP79B00972AO00100380003-7
PA/TIs estimate of non-weapon related military R&D expenditures.
This methodology also may be useful with more work by PA/T, but
at present the results do not appear too satisfactory.
5. The community-wide effort to develop a Working Invento-
ry of Research Organizations (WIRDO) centered in FTD.and supported
by DIA, NSA, NPIC, and CIA was also discussed. This effort to
pull together all of the data on the 2500 Soviet R&D establish-
ments into one computer-stored holding has some long-run promise
of contributing to an estimate of total R&D manpower and possibly
expenditures, perhaps by military mission. Any useful results,
however, are at least a year or more away.
6. Finally,. PA/T is attempting to develop some correlations
between a number of Soviet published statistical series -- numbers
of scientific workers, volume of scientific publications, numbers
of patents applied for and issued, and investment data -- and
Soviet expenditures for R&D. It is also hoped this approach may
shed some light on the relative efficiency of Soviet R&D efforts
as compared with the US. This area again looks promising but will
require additional work.
%, Chief,
Programs Analysis Division, OSR
Distribution:
Original & 1
- SR/PA
1
- D/OSR
1
- DD/OSR
1
- SR/SF
1
- SF/0
1
- SF/D
.2-SR/TF
1 -TF/N
1 - TF/A
1 - TF/G
1 - PA/M
1 PA/C
25X1 1 - PA/T
1 - U/SI
OSR/PA bkg/x6233
Approved For Release 2007/02/23: CIA-RDP79BOO972AO00100380003-7