Armed with charts, graphs and expert testimony, witnesses picked apart the Pentagon's rationale one-by-one as they argued against closing or scaling back Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Brunswick Naval Air Station and a Defense Finance Accounting Service center in northern Maine.

Congressional leaders from Maine and New Hampshire said closing the Navy's best-performing shipyard would not deliver promised savings and, instead, would reduce the Navy's capability to handle unexpected submarine repairs.

Portsmouth contributed an additional 60 weeks of submarine operation time by returning submarines to the fleet ahead of schedule, while 124 weeks of operation time have been lost by the other shipyards, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe said during the regional hearing.

"The faster and better our submarines are repaired and upgraded, the sooner they will return to the fleet and the more effective they will be," added Maine Sen. Susan Collins.

The Pentagon's computer model indicated that closing the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard could save $760 million more than shuttering Portsmouth over 20 years, Collins said. The savings would have been even greater if the Navy had taken into account Kittery's greater efficiency versus other submarine depots like Pearl Harbor, she said.

During his testimony, New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch said the Department of Defense ignored his state — where 40 percent of shipyard workers live — in calculating the economic impact of closing Portsmouth. And shutting down the yard, he said, would mean the loss of 12,000 total jobs in Maine and New Hampshire.

"The highly specialized skills of these workers are unmatched, but they are not easily transferable to other industries," Lynch said.

During his opening remarks New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg said that one witness, retired Navy Rear Admiral William Klemm, was forbidden by the Department of Defense from testifying.

Later, an audience full of shipyard supporters cheered when Lloyd W. Newton, a retired Air Force general on the Base Realignment and Closure commission, promised to seek out what Klemm had to say.

The Pentagon has proposed closing the shipyard as well as the Defense Finance Accounting Service center in Limestone, Maine. The Pentagon also wants to move all patrol aircraft and half of the military personnel from Maine's Brunswick Naval Air Station, which is the last active military air base in New England.

If those decisions stand, Maine would be surpassed only by Connecticut in terms of economic impact with a direct loss of about 7,000 jobs.

BRAC Commission Chairman Anthony Principi said after the hearing that data presented so far indicated Portsmouth was more efficient than Pearl Harbor, a point the commission made last week when it asked the Pentagon why the Hawai'i shipyard had not been targeted for closure.

Supporters of the Brunswick Naval Air Station contended the Navy focused solely on cost savings from moving P-3 Orion patrol aircraft and military personnel to Florida's Jacksonville Naval Air Station because Brunswick's strategic value as the last active military airfield in New England is beyond question.

The Pentagon overstated personnel savings, ignored higher mission costs for patrols over the North Atlantic, and made unrealistic assumptions concerning the timing of military construction at Jacksonville, Snowe said.

Cutting to the core of the Navy's case, she said the proposal would save far less than the $239 million over 20 years that the Pentagon contends. An independent analysis indicates savings of only $56 million the same period, Snowe said.

"We can only conclude that the driving force for false savings was overwhelming," she said.

Maine officials spent the last hour of the hearing making their case for the Defense Finance Accounting Service center in Limestone.

Though small — the center employs only about 350 people — shuttering the Limestone center would strike a devastating second blow to a rural community that's only just recovered from the closing of Loring Air Force Base in the early 1990s.

It would be more efficient for the Pentagon to expand rather than close the center, Democratic Rep. Michael Michaud argued. Limestone could accomodate an increase in employees without any new construction, he said, making the center an attractive choice as the Pentagon moves to consolidate defense finance accounting operations around the country.

"There are many options for the future of DFAS that should all be on the table," Michaud said. "The (Department of Defense) has created only one option for the future."

At the close of the more than four-hour hearing, Maine Gov. John Baldacci painted a grim portrait of his state's future if all of the Pentagon's recommendations are endorsed.

"The recommendations would amount to a federally-induced recession in Maine," he said.