[zrail]

At least in terms of aircraft I think you have some camp tinted glasses on. Aircraft, vehicles, ships, and equipment of all sorts has always been developed by private industry. Often in very close partnership with the military, of course. Any manufacturing capacity directly owned by the US Government has always been extremely specialized. Think Los Alamos and Oakridge vs Boeing.

[kepler1]

Of course they were developed largely by industry in putting designs into execution and production, but decades ago, the in-house knowledge to spec and actively participate in the detailed technical/engineering design stages still existed in large measure within the military.

Think of most aircraft types up to the 70s -- people in the military (engineers, designers) worked side by side with Grumman, Northrop, etc. in the designs and saying what kind of technical envelope was possible. Actually drawing up designs.

In large part (generalization of course, except for some pockets of expertise) the Pentagon is a bunch of project managers. Skilled I'm sure, but the depth of technical knowledge that used to exist has largely moved to the contractors. And this migration/dispersal of responsibility -- which notably caused a loss of single-minded direction in creating aircraft/ships that meet a specific desired need, driven by deep expertise -- has led to the hugely expensive but bland/mediocre/too many chefs in the kitchen projects that you often think of today. Just my opinion of course.