Methods for determining cost impact of designing tactical communication systems to withstand nuclear weapon effects

The costs for nuclear hardening may be determined as a function of different factors or for different stages of a program. The bases for determining these costs all involve estimating the efforts associated with each nuclear hardening activity. The author reviews how these estimates may be compiled to establish hardening costs as a function of three independent variables. The approaches are based on: the functional group costs by task (organization methodology), the phase of the program (life-cycle methodology), and on the nuclear threat (threat level methodology). Although the three approaches are discussed independently they must frequently be combined. The proposed approaches offer the contractor options for estimating and accounting for the cost impact of nuclear hardening. To assist in the application and understanding of these cost estimating approaches, typical nuclear hardening effects are discussed as a function of program phase and for different threat levels. Although the author particularly discusses tactical communication systems, many hardening design features and tasks associated with nuclear hardening would apply equally well to other military systems