NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Base Realignment and Closure commission gave a big vote of confidence to the submarine fleet Wednesday, voting to keep open the sub base in Groton and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine.

If only the commission could have given them some submarines.

While supporters of undersea warfare cheered Wednesday’s news, the submarine fleet’s future remains uncertain. Navy shipbuilding projections show it dwindling from 54 subs into the 30s.

“You find yourself in a position, you’ve just got a lot of parking spaces you’re not going to use,” said former U.S. Rep. James V. Hansen of Utah, the only BRAC commissioner to vote in favor of closing the Groton base.

The Navy builds one submarine a year or fewer. It needs to increase production to two a year to keep pace with the old submarines that go out of service, said Neil Ruenzel, a spokesman for Electric Boat, which builds submarines in Groton.

“You’re going to have a submarine base that’s not going to have any submarines. You’re going to have a repair facility without any submarines to repair,” said John Pike, a military analyst with globalsecurity.org. “Maybe they can carve scrimshaw. The reality is you’ve got too many shipyards chasing not enough submarines. They’re just going to be standing around twiddling their thumbs for some time.”

Had Groton and Portsmouth closed, congressional officials said it would have been much harder to boost submarine production.

“If you’re going to destroy the submarine capital of the world, it means you no longer need submarines to protect the nation in future wars,” U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn., said. “I don’t buy that, and I don’t think the commissioners buy that.”

But simply keeping the bases open doesn’t guarantee new subs will be built, officials agreed.

“What do we need to do? We’ve got to convince people of the importance of building two a year,” said U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. “We’ve got a case to make here, to prove the value of it, and that’s the next step.”

That’s why, within hours of hearing that Groton and Portsmouth had been spared, Gov. M. Jodi Rell called on Congress and President Bush to boost submarine production.

“At no time in the future do we want to see New London on that list,” she said.

The debate is expected to begin late this year or early next year, when the Pentagon releases its Quadrennial Defense Review, its four-year review of the nation’s military strategy. That should signal whether the Pentagon remains committed to reducing the size of the fleet.

If submarine production doesn’t increase, Pike said, Groton and Portsmouth will find themselves on a future BRAC list.