10 Major New Weapons Systems Put on Hit List : Defense: Services are told to prepare for possible delay or cutbacks in the programs because of budget restrictions.

Ten major weapons programs, including the Air Force’s proposed new F-22 jet fighter, have been targeted for possible delay or cutbacks as the result of worsening budget problems, the Pentagon said Monday.

Defense officials said it has become apparent that the military may not be able to meet its budget limits under current requirements and that the individual services have been directed to prepare for possible retrenchment, including cancellation, of some programs now on the books.

In a memorandum made public Monday, Deputy Defense Secretary John M. Deutch cited the need to cover a 2.5% pay increase voted by Congress this year and to help finance improvements in military readiness and “other areas.”

The two-page memo asks the services to submit proposals for cutting or delaying the 10 programs or replacing them with less-expensive alternatives.

Listed for possible cancellation are the Army’s plan to develop the Comanche helicopter and an advanced field artillery system, and the Air Force’s joint primary aircraft training system and a new precision-guided missile system.

The sweeping proposal also raises the possibility of killing three other Navy and Marine Corps programs--the Navy’s push for a new attack submarine for the year 2001, and the Marine Corps’ bid for the V-22 Osprey helicopter and for an advanced amphibious assault vehicle.

And the military is being asked to review the possibility of delaying two other big-ticket programs--the Air Force’s proposed F-22 jet fighter, and the Navy’s current program to buy new radar-evading Stealth guided-missile destroyers.

It was not immediately clear whether all of these reductions and cancellations ultimately would be made. Deutch set a deadline of Sept. 7 for the services to submit their new proposals. He said that final decisions would be made later on.

The new cutback orders, which apparently came as a surprise to the individual services, marked the most striking indication yet that the Clinton Administration may be unable to meet its defense budget targets for the coming fiscal year without making drastic reductions.

The Administration had insisted last year that even with the pay raise and other requirements, it would be able to come close to its projected defense-spending levels. Critics have challenged those assumptions.

A Defense Department official said Monday that Deutch’s memorandum was designed to alert the services early to the fact that the Pentagon will have to make some “very tough” decisions in next year’s budget so that they can come up with alternative cuts, if necessary.

Reaction from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps was uniformly negative. Officers warned that the services already have been stretched thin by previous budget cuts and that cancellation of new programs could hurt future readiness.

Military officials said that all four services are likely to mount vigorous campaigns to persuade Deutch and Defense Secretary William J. Perry not to go ahead with the proposed reductions. “This really is bad stuff,” one senior military officer said.

Deutch’s memo provided no estimates on how much the military might be able to save if it followed the plan that he outlined. However, Steven Kosiak, analyst for the nonpartisan Defense Budget Project, estimated that it could save up to $20 billion over five years.

The debate over how much the Administration is likely to fall short of being able to meet its defense budget targets has intensified. The Pentagon initially estimated that it would be $50 billion short over five years, but officials later revised that to $21 billion.

But Congress’ watchdog agency, the General Accounting Office, estimated recently that the Administration could find itself as much as $150 billion short over five years. Other estimates have fallen somewhere in between.

Even so, analysts point out that there is no certainty that the cuts will be accepted by Congress. Lawmakers already have forced the Administration to continue some weapons programs that it wanted to cut, such as the Seawolf submarine and B-2 bomber.

And as recently as Aug. 1, Vice President Al Gore told workers at the Textron Aerostructures plant in Nashville, Tenn., that the Administration would be committed to building the Marine Corps’ proposed V-22 Osprey helicopter on schedule, as Clinton promised in 1992.

The delays that Deutch proposed in the Navy’s guided-missile destroyer program would slow production of the radar-evading vessels to an average two or 2 1/2 ships a year instead of the three vessels now being built each year.