In a closed-door discussion this month with the Navy's top carrier advocates and independent analysts, U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., suggested shifting to smaller and cheaper carriers, equipped largely with unmanned aircraft. He argued the move would allow the United States to buy more ships and reduce the risk that a surprise attack would devastate the fleet.

"My concern is that we are moving to larger and larger platforms that are more and more expensive," Bartlett said in an interview, "and so we're ending up with fewer and fewer ships."

That's not necessarily a problem now, with no rival navy challenging U.S. dominance, he acknowledged. But as emerging nations such as China gain the strength to compete with U.S. forces, "I'm very uneasy" about what a Pearl Harbor-style attack would do to the fleet, Bartlett said.

The Navy's 12 carriers, each roughly 1,000 feet long and loaded with about 75 warplanes and more than 5,000 sailors and airmen, are the world's largest and most recognizable warships.

At roughly $5 billion each to build and approaching $500 million per year to operate, they also are the world's most expensive ships.

And they're about to get pricier. CVN-21, first in a series of new-design carriers, will cost more than $8 billion to build, plus $5.6 billion for research, development and design.

The ship will look much like today's flattops but will have enough electric power to support "Star Wars"-style laser weapons and launch aircraft with electromagnetic rather than steam catapults.

Like their predecessors, the new carriers will be built at Northrop Grumman's Newport News shipyard.

Bartlett's thinking carries weight on Capitol Hill because he heads the House subcommittee that oversees shipbuilding programs. He said he convened the unusual, closed-to-the-press-and-public hearing in an effort to provoke discussion about the future shape of the Navy.

"I have no idea where this dialogue will end up," Bartlett said.

His initiative comes in the wake of other questions raised about carriers by retired Adm. Stansfield Turner, a former CIA director, in the July issue of Proceedings, the monthly journal of the U.S. Naval Institute.

In an essay titled "Do We Need Carriers?" Turner argues that other, cheaper ships, equipped with large stocks of computer and satellite-guided missiles, could deliver as much combat power as a carrier without risk to pilots and other airmen.

"All weapons systems have their day and we move on," Turner said in an interview. He worries that "military people have a tendency to stay with what's tried, true and proven" without fully studying alternatives, he added.

In questioning the carrier's future, Bartlett and Turner are striking at one of the touchstones of the defense establishment. Carrier subcontractors are located in more than 40 states, giving tens of thousands of workers and hundreds of congress members and senators a stake in carrier programs.

In separate interviews last week, local U.S. Reps. Jo Ann Davis, R-1st District, and Thelma Drake, R-2nd District, both prominent carrier advocates, promised a tough fight if Bartlett tries to trim carrier funding.

Carriers also have powerful supporters in the Senate, including Virginia Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Arizona Sen. John McCain, a former naval aviator set to take the committee's helm next year.

Drake, who attended Bartlett's roundtable, said that a series of studies, including the Bush administration's "Quadrennial Defense Review" and a parallel analysis done this year by the House Armed Services Committee, have verified the continuing need for large carriers.

"I see no value in going with these smaller ships," she added.

Rear Adm. David Architzel, a former skipper of the carrier Theodore Roosevelt who now oversees carrier development for the Navy, said the service considered 76 concepts for a new carrier before settling on the CVN-21 plan. Included were designs for ships one-third smaller than today's carriers, as well as ships that would displace 120,000 tons, 20 percent more than current flattops.

"We're always open to looking at new ideas," Architzel said. "We understand the concept of developing not just the Navy of old but the Navy of tomorrow."

Even at $8.1 billion per copy, CVN-21 ships will be cheaper to build than additional copies of Nimitz-class carriers such as the George H.W. Bush, now under construction in Newport News, Architzel said.

Both the new carrier and today's flattops deliver far more combat power for the money invested than a fleet of smaller carriers would provide, he added.

Navy studies suggest that the CVN-21, with 75 warplanes aboard, will cost only 8 percent more than a smaller flattop with 55 planes, Architzel said. But with a larger deck and more room to store aviation fuel and ammunition, the 75-plane ship can generate twice as many combat sorties per day as the flattop with 55 planes, he added.

Large carriers also can operate in heavier seas, with more time between breaks to replenish supplies, Architzel said. Also, CVN-21 will rely on a variety of automated systems to do jobs now entrusted to sailors and airmen, allowing the ship to sail with about 1,200 fewer people than the 5,000-plus on today's carriers, he said.

Bob Work, a retired Marine colonel who now analyzes Navy programs at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, said Architzel and other Navy witnesses "argued quite forcefully and, I thought, effectively" on behalf of large carriers at Bartlett's roundtable.

But Work, among several independent analysts who also spoke at the session, said he thinks the Navy should cut its carrier fleet to 10 ships and experiment with smaller "escort carriers," to take on some carrier missions.

The Navy already plans to build at least four new amphibious assault ships similar to the escort carriers Work has in mind. He said the ships will be well-suited for small wars, terrorist attacks and humanitarian relief, allowing the big carriers to focus on larger conflicts.

And if the aircraft they will carry, including remote-controlled unmanned drone, perform as advertised, the escort carriers might take on some missions beyond the reach of today's flattops, Work said.

If war broke out between China and Taiwan, for example, a small carrier with drones able to fly for 40 hours would be "in the fight" as soon as it left Pearl Harbor -- even if the ship itself needed several days to reach the war zone -- Work said.

Work said the unmanned planes, plus new manned fighters that will be catapulted into the sky but land like helicopters, have the potential to transform naval aviation. If both live up to boosters' expectations, a smaller carrier may approach the capabilities of CVN-21 at a lower cost, he argued.

There's no disputing the value of big carriers, but Work worries that "the Navy's being too dogmatic," in its advocacy of CVN-21, he said. "I wouldn't argue for anything until we have a little more experimentation."

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