Gordon Brown has overruled services chiefs and told them to delay replacing ageing weapons, vehicles and aircraft to plug a £2 billion black hole in the defence budget.
The heads of the armed forces had suggested cancelling two programmes outright to preserve the rest of their replacements from "salami-slicing".
The prime minister is understood to have vetoed individual large-scale cuts for fear of negative publicity. A total of at least eight programmes will now be delayed. The highest-profile postponement will be the Future Rapid Effects System (Fres), a new generation of armoured vehicles that was due to come into service next year but which has been repeatedly put back.
Procurement chiefs who predicted that the budget for 2008-11 was so bad it was heading for