Allowance  Lists Allowance lists include all nonconsumable items and supporting materials needed on the ship. They serve to limit the quantity and type of such items as equipment, controlled equipage, and repair parts that may be carried aboard at any one time. Ships normally are required to carry a full allowance but may not normally exceed the allowance. Exceptions occur when demand for repair parts warrants an increase and the type commander approves,  or  for  specified  categories  of  material  when the  type  commander  and  cognizant  systems  command or  bureau  approve. The  supply  department  uses  allowance  lists  to determine responsibility for materials and to maintain custody  records  and  accountability  for  items  of controlled  equipage.  Allowance  lists  also  serve  as authority to procure and replace allowed equipment. These lists provide valuable identification data not immediately  available  from  other  sources.  You  should use allowance lists as the first source of information on stock  numbers  of  items  known  to  be  in  the  ship’s allowance. Allowance lists for consumable supplies are merely guides to the range and quantities of material that probably will be required to operate a given type of ship. A  ship  may  exceed  quantities  of  individual  items  shown in these lists without submitting a request for change in allowance. COSAL.— The COSAL is a technical and supply management document that enables ships to achieve maximum  operating  capability  for  extended  periods  of time  without  external  logistical  support. The   COSAL   is   technical   because   it   contains nomenclature,  operating  characteristics,  specifications, parts lists, and other technical data on all installed equipment  and  machinery,  and  nomenclature  and characteristics of the equipage and tools required to operate and maintain the ship and its equipment. The COSAL is a supply management document because  it  tells  the  supply  officer  how  much  and  what kind of material to stock in the storerooms, and the allowance of equipage items that must be carried aboard ship. Supply personnel use computers to prepare the allowances  of  material  to  be  carried  in  the  storerooms and material required in the operating spaces from the hundreds  of  APL/AELs  that  apply  to  an  individual  ship. The  preparation  of  these  allowance  lists  takes  into account all of the installed equipment on board, the quantity of each item of that equipment, the failure rate of parts, and the relative importance of these parts to the operation of the equipment. Of course, the COSAL will not provide parts for every equipment breakdown. This would  require  the  ship  to  carry  a  spare  set  of  all equipment and machinery, which is impossible. The Ships’ Parts Control Center (SPCC) publishes the  COSAL,  which  covers  hull,  mechanical,  electrical, ordnance, electronics, nuclear weapons, and nuclear power  plant  equipment.  The  COSAL  includes  an introduction  section  that  gives  detailed  descriptions  of its various parts and their contents, and information that will be helpful when using them. The COSAL does not include ship’s store stocks, resale  clothing,  bulk  fuels,  subsistence  items, expendable  ordnance,  or  repair  parts  for  aircraft.  These items are covered by separate outfittings and load list. Allowance requirements for nuclear weapons, guided missiles,  and  certain  fleet  ballistic  missile  (FBM) equipment  are  included  in  special  supplements  to  the COSAL. The COSAL is divided into parts and sections as follows: Part I Summary  of  effective  allowance  parts/equipage lists  (SOEAPLs) Index-Section  A,  Noun  Name Index-Section  B,  Service  Application Index-Section   C,   APL/AEL   to   Equipment Identification  Code  (EIC) Index-Section D, EIC to APL/AEL Index-Section  E,  Work  Breakdown  Structure  to APL/AEL Part II Section   A–APLs Section B–Circuit symbol data for all electronics APLs (microfiche only) Section  C–  AEL Part III Section  A–Stock  number  sequence  list–storeroom items  (SNSL–SRI) Section B–Stock number space items (SNSL-OSI) sequence   list-operating 5-5