Key Weapons Program Faces Defense Dept. Ax : Military: Pentagon halts building of high-tech missile. 6 other projects are targeted in plan to save $7.7 billion.

The Defense Department announced plans Friday to cancel one of its major weapons development programs and delay or cut short six others to help pay for new efforts to improve military preparedness and living conditions.

The cutbacks, which will trim some $7.7 billion from weapons programs over the next six years, were far smaller than had been expected--in part because President Clinton agreed last week to provide an extra $25 billion during the period to help finance such improvements.

Senior Pentagon officials said that if Clinton had declined to support the increases in the defense budget, the department might have had to cancel or delay up to $20 billion worth of weapons programs--a move that would have seriously impaired the military’s modernization plans.

Administration officials said the combination of actions effectively will eliminate the $49-billion gap that the Pentagon had projected between the military’s requirements and the money that Clinton previously had budgeted to meet those needs for the six-year period.

Concern over the projected shortfall is threatening to become a major political issue in January, when Republicans take control of Congress. Many key GOP lawmakers believe that the defense budget still is too low, and have vowed to increase it further.

Some analysts have expressed doubts that the Administration would be able to maintain the kind of military force needed to win two major regional wars at once--the goal that it set in 1993--without devoting substantially more money in future years.

Carole Lessure, an analyst for the Defense Budget Project, a nonpartisan defense-monitoring group, said that while the cuts announced on Friday “help in the short-term,” they “beg the longer-term question” of whether the military will be able to fulfill Clinton’s requirements.

The decisions announced on Friday include:

* Immediate cancellation of development of the Air Force’s Tri-Service Stand-off Attack Missile, or TSSAM--one of the military’s most high-technology precision-guided weapons. Savings: $2.1 billion.

* The Army’s Comanche helicopter program will be cut short. The Army had touted the helicopter as a key to its force of the future, and the Pentagon will build two flyable prototypes to perfect the technology. The aircraft will now not be put into production. Savings: $2.1 billion.

* Funding for development of the Air Force’s F-22 fighter will be trimmed by about 10%, delaying arrival of the aircraft by a few months. And the Marine Corps’ advanced amphibious assault vehicle (AAAV) will be delayed by two years. Combined savings: $400 million.

* The Navy will be ordered to slow its purchases of radar-evading Aegis destroyers to 16 between fiscal 1996 and fiscal 2001 instead of the 18 envisioned initially. It also will delay the start of its new attack submarine program for a year. Combined savings: $3 billion.

* The Pentagon will go ahead with production of the controversial V-22 Osprey--a tilt-rotor aircraft that can take off like a helicopter and fly like a fixed-wing plane. But the Marine Corps will be forced to buy fewer than it initially requested. Projected savings: $100 million.

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Two other programs that initially had been considered for possible cancellation were left essentially intact. They include the Army’s proposal to develop an Advanced Field Artillery System and the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System, or JPATS, trainer aircraft.

Except for cancellation of the TSSAM program, the bulk of the cuts appeared to be marginal. Defense Secretary William J. Perry called the reductions prudent, and said they would not interfere with development of the new weaponry that the military needs.

However, officials conceded privately that canceling the TSSAM program could prove significant in coming years. The military had been counting on it to provide a radar-evading, high-speed missile for the 21st Century.

A senior defense official said that the department would review the decision later in the decade if it appeared that the United States was failing to keep up with the missile threat from potential adversaries. For now, he said, the United States still has the technological edge.

Reaction to Friday’s decisions was predictable. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the cuts would leave the military’s modernization program underfunded. He called for alternative reductions in other areas.

Defense Department officials said that the $7.7 billion in expected savings from Friday’s announced cutbacks, plus the $25 billion that Clinton has agreed to provide, $12 billion more for adjustments stemming from new inflation estimates and $2 billion in supplemental funding, would essentially eliminate the $49-billion funding gap that the Pentagon had projected.

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