Enlarge By Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP Defense Secretary Robert Gates, seen here during a Pentagon news briefing in March, has proposed a $534 billion budget that includes weapons cuts.

The budget proposal, Gates said, "profoundly reforms how this department does business" in defense acquisition. It seeks to balance the needs of troops in combat while modernizing for future threats, he said.

If approved by Congress, the plan for the 2010 budget year starting Oct. 1 will cut money for a variety of programs, including:

• The presidential VH-71 helicopter, the cost of which has doubled to $13 billion, Gates said. The original plan sought 23 helicopters for $6.5 billion.

• The F-22 fighter, which costs $191 million each. Gates is asking for four more F-22s, which would bring the fleet to 187 aircraft. The Air Force originally wanted 750 when the jet was developed in the 1980s.

• About $87 billion worth of vehicles in the Army's Future Combat Systems program, a combination of manned and unmanned air and ground vehicles, weapons tied together by a sophisticated computer network.

Gaining congressional approval won't be easy, says Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute. Members of Congress will be reluctant to approve budget cuts that affect jobs in their districts, Thompson said. Lockheed Martin has touted how 90,000 people in 44 states build the F-22.

"Congress will ultimately decide, for example, whether to buy more F-22s," Thompson said.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who leads the House subcommittee writing the defense budget, commended Gates for balancing the Pentagon's "wants with our nation's needs."

Gates said he was committed to developing advanced aircraft and called for increasing spending on the F-35 joint strike fighter from $6.8 billion to $11.2 billion next year. He said he wants a total of 2,443 F-35s.

Roadside bombs revealed the vulnerabilities of Humvees and prompted Gates to push for $25 billion for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, which are "being used to good effect" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He noted that the Army's system does not include a role for MRAPs.

Some programs would grow under the budget proposal, which is up from $515 billion in the current year.

Gates wants to add $2 billion to improve intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance programs and "maximize production" of the Reaper and Predator drones. He wants 50 Reapers and Predators, plus support systems, for both wars, up from 34.

He recommends that the number of brigade combat teams — the units involved in frontline fighting — be reduced from 48 to 45. Each brigade has 3,500 to 5,000 troops.