Mr Gates said the Joint Armament Command would close, the use of alfresco contractors would be cut and the cardinal of generals and admirals reduced.
He has said that he wants to acquisition accumulation of about $100bn (£63bn) in the aggressive account in the abutting bristles years.
Mr Gates said he capital to chargeless up spending for frontline requirements.In a Pentagon account conference, he said the aggressive had developed bulky and cher afterward the agitator attacks of 11 September 2001.
"I'm not annoyed with the advance fabricated to abate our over-reliance on contractors," Mr Gates said.
The Joint Armament Command, based in Virginia, employs 5,000 bodies and trains troops from the altered casework to assignment together.
Calling the US aggressive "top-heavy", Mr Gates, who was appointed by George W Bush in 2006, said he would acclaim eliminating at atomic 50 positions for generals and admirals.
And he recommended acid the cardinal of abutment contractors by 10%.
"I demand to re-emphasise that this calendar is not about acid the department's budget," he said.
"It is about reforming and about-face priorities to ensure that, in boxy bread-and-butter and bread-and-butter times, we can focus defence assets area they belong, in America's angry forces, advance in approaching capabilities, and best important, on our men and women in uniform."
The US Department of Defense will absorb added than $700bn this year, says the BBC's James Reynolds in Washington, added than any added aggressive account in the world.
Political reaction
 Mr Gates's antecedent pledges to ameliorate the account accept encountered annealed attrition from associates of the US assembly who await on aggressive spending for jobs in their constituencies.
His latest advertisement additionally brought abrupt political reaction.
"At the end of the day, Secretary Gates and his aggregation will accept to argue associates of this board that these efforts will not abate our nation's defence," said Buck McKeon, the chief Republican on the House Armed Casework Committee.
Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner said he could see "no rational basis" for eliminating the Joint Armament Command, based in his state.
"In the business world, you sometimes accept to absorb money in adjustment to save money," he said.
President Barack Obama accepted Mr Gates' advertisement as allotment of efforts to "reform the way the Pentagon does business".
"The funds adored will advice us sustain the accepted force anatomy and accomplish bare investments in modernisation in a fiscally amenable way," he said in a statement.