ABSTRACT
There are, of course, many possibilities to divide the various technical services into
chapters and subchapters. Finding a logical division of service types is difficult, as
there is no generally accepted categorization of technical services and as nearly all of
them have in some way or the other to do with computers. Necessarily there is quite
a bit of overlap. In the following three smaller chapters various military technical
services, which are performed by private companies will be explained in respect to
their historical development, their nature, their importance or relevance and with the
help of examples. As the field of military technical services is huge and also not very
transparent, it is only possible to give a very general overview. It is therefore not
within the scope of this book to give a complete catalogue of all technical services
performed by private companies and all contracts awarded. These empirical chapters
are rather an attempt to sketch the role and relevance of technical service contractors
in information age warfare. This will highlight the intimate connection between
technological change and the urge to transfer more responsibility to the private
sector, which is a development that has now been going on for more than 50 years
and runs parallel to the use and spread of computers.
