A row has broken out over Alex Salmond's defence plans for an independent Scotland after he said it would involve a single airbase, one naval base and a large armed brigade.

The first minister said on Thursday evening that a Scottish defence force would be broadly similar to the UK government's proposals for the military forces which would be based in Scotland under the current defence review.

But he faced charges of hypocrisy after it emerged that in an independent Scotland that would involve just one airbase, only months after Salmond led a cross-party campaign to retain three RAF bases in Scotland.

In addition, the Scottish government would retain Faslane submarine base on the Clyde, after attempting to force the UK to remove Trident nuclear weapons and its entire nuclear submarine fleet from Scotland. All the UK's submarines are due to be sited at Faslane from 2017.

It would also take control over the three army regiments associated with Scotland: the Royal Regiment of Scotland, the Scots Guards and the Scottish Dragoon Guards tank regiment. Under the defence review, Scotland will also have a single RAF base, at Lossiemouth.

Salmond's comments were a riposte to an attack by Phillip Hammond, the UK defence secretary, who described the Scottish National party's proposals as "laughable".

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's World at One, Hammond said the UK military forces were tightly integrated and interdependent, and not easily separable. An independent Scotland would also have to help bear the multibillion-pound costs of moving Trident out of Scotland.

"The idea you can sort of break off a little bit, like a square on a chocolate bar, and that would be the bit that went north of the border, is frankly laughable," he said.

But in his own interview with the BBC, Salmond said: "The configuration of the army in Scotland, the mobile brigade, which is the outcome of the defence review, looks exactly like the configuration you'd want for a Scottish defence force – so that's one naval base, one aircraft base and a mobile armed brigade."

He added: "The great argument in favour of having a Scottish defence force is twofold – one, you wouldn't have to have the biggest concentration of nuclear weapons in western Europe situated in Scotland, which many people support the removal, and secondly, of course, we'd have the right to decide whether or not to participate in international engagements."

The Scottish government's detailed proposals for defending an independent Scotland are due to be published in the runup to the independence referendum due to be staged in the autumn of 2014; pro-UK parties believe its defence policies are among its weakest policies.

The SNP, which would take Scotland out of Nato's military command structure, argues that independence will free Scotland from involvement in controversial conflicts such as the invasion of Iraq and the Afghanistan war, which were deeply unpopular in Scotland and contributed to Labour's slump in popularity.

It also believes that forcing the UK to withdraw Trident from the Clyde submarine base will be highly popular: many opinion polls suggest a majority of Scots dislike being home to the UK's nuclear weapons fleet.

Angus Robertson, the SNP's defence spokesman at Westminster, argues that an independent Scotland would be entitled to 10% of the UK's military forces because Scotland currently provides 10% of its funding.

He dismissed the idea that Scotland had any liability to help pay for Trident's removal out of hand. "Why should we? If London really cared so much about nuclear weapons systems perhaps they would have considered public opinion in Scotland decades ago," he said.

But defence experts argue the Scottish government's approach is misguided because they have failed to first analyse Scotland's defence needs, and then decide what forces are required. It would be unable to afford either of the two new aircraft carriers being built in Scotland, and would be highly unlikely to afford the Typhoon fighters currently based at Leuchars.

The costs and logistical difficulties of removing nuclear weapons and submarine from the Clyde submarine base would be immense, and likely to take at least a decade: all the UK's active nuclear warheads are stored at Coulport near Faslane, and both bases have complex docking and weapons-handling facilities.

Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, told the Herald that Salmond's proposals were "bizarre".

He added: "After denouncing Tory defence policies, the SNP have suddenly announced it is the best they can threaten if Scotland was independent. This raises huge questions about separation. Scotland knows that leaving the UK would be a huge blow to Scottish defence communities."