When I was in the army I use to rail against contractors all the time, until I got transferred to a maint. center for communications equipment. The equipment you get there is usually the result of a failed attempts by trained personal to fix things, but were trying do it in the field, without the proper reference materials, equipment, or parts. There units were issued all of these, but after several deployments, books get lost or destroyed, tools walk, etc... Half the times the equipment was fried by its own protection systems being tripped because it wasn't dissembled correctly, making the issue they wanted to fix a moot point.
So some PFC just destroyed a $40,000 system because a Capt. was up his ass about fixing it right now, he has no ability to push back, nothing that can be done but to follow the order to the best of his abilities. If he destroys it, well if the capt. is a dick, he gets written up, and charged for it. If not, the equipment is still fried, and has to be replaced.
With a contractor, they are outside the chain of command, and can tell the capt. to pound sand, and tell them the equipment will need to be shipped and fixed properly. And reminds the capt. that there are several dummy switches that without the right tools, and training, the equipment will fry itself, and if this is discovered to be the case, the indecent will be turned over to CID (army detectives) for investigation and that he should make arrangements to source a replacement from supply ASAP.
Seeing the straight don't give a fuck of these guys could exercises, in relation to what is best for the equipment and not the commands ego was amazing, and made total sense why on the high end equipment this method was used.