I thought the toilet seat thing was explained long ago. Some of those bills were essentially money laundering for covert ops with extremely high security clearances. $50 for a seat, $1200 to pay salaries.
Some of it is also the logistics chain. A commercial enterprise can get away with purchasing a screw. A military airplane tracks the screw from its lathing, to rod forming, to steel production, to iron production + coke production, to iron ore and coke inputs. All this so that when a certain part fails all related parts can be checked for similar failures.
Apple is the only commercial enterprise I am aware of that attempts to have similar supply chain controls, and their products aren’t cheap.
Apple is the only commercial enterprise I am aware of that attempts to have similar supply chain controls, and their products aren’t cheap.