US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has announced a $78bn (£50.3bn) military budget cut, in part by scrapping a $14bn amphibious fighting vehicle.
The cuts are part of a five-year spending plan for the defence department and go beyond the $100bn in internal savings already announced.
Those savings will be redirected to other defence programmes, but the new cuts reduce the overall defence budget.
The plan comes as a new Congress takes office amid concerns about the deficit.
Much of the roughly $178bn in defence cuts will come through reduced administrative costs, new organisational efficiencies, and slashed personnel costs, which the defence department called a "vigorous scrub of bureaucratic structures".
The Pentagon's budget is expected to be $553bn in 2012, reflecting roughly 3% growth. After that, growth would slow and would be essentially flat in 2015 and 2016, the Pentagon said. BBC News
