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More than 1,000 Royal Navy staff will learn they are being made redundant later as part of a first round of military job cuts.
Of about 1,020 job losses, a third are compulsory. Some 810 sailors applied for redundancy and 670 were accepted.
The navy is cutting numbers by 5,000 to 30,000 by 2015, as part of 22,000 armed forces cuts designed to help save £5bn.
Defence Secretary Liam Fox said the MoD had to share the blame for the cuts having "helped create the problem".
Earlier this month about 920 soldiers and 930 RAF personnel were told they were being made redundant, in the first tranche of cuts announced in last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review.
The next round of redundancies is due in March. The Ministry of Defence is also shedding 25,000 civilian staff over the next four years.
Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Dr Fox reflected on the actions of military chiefs under previous government, saying: "I think the MoD consistently dug a hole for itself that it eventually found that it could not climb out of.
"It is irritating to hear some of those who helped create the problem criticising us when we try to bring in a solution."
A "complete breakdown of trust" between the military and the government over ballooning costs reached its zenith towards the end of Gordon Brown's premiership, the defence secretary said.