The fighting is over in the Defense Department's annual budget war. And giant Westinghouse Electronic Systems Group, which was scarred earlier this year by the cancellation of the Navy A-12 aircraft program, has to count itself among the victors.

"We feel good about it," Richard A. Linder, president of Westinghouse's Linthicum-based defense complex, said of the $270 billion Pentagon spending bill recently signed by President Bush. "All of the major programs we are involved with came through about as we expected."

This doesn't mean that there weren't some anxious days for Maryland's largest industrial employer, which has about 12,800 workers in the state.

At one point in the budget process, its biggest program, the F-16 fighter plane, was in trouble. The Senate shot down the administration's request for 48 additional Fighting Falcons.

But by the time the last shot had been fired, Congress signed off on a $1.07 billion check to General Dynamics Corp. for the full order of 48 F-16s. Westinghouse, which produces radar housed in the fighter's nose, estimates that this will send between $45 million and $50 million in new orders its way.

That's good news for Westinghouse -- and for Maryland, where one in 20 jobs is linked to military spending.

The defense budget is watched closely by many major Maryland companies, and by hundreds of smaller suppliers and subcontractors. These days, the budget is drawing even more attention: Pentagon spending will shrink by about 30 percent, when adjusted for inflation, by the end of the decade, the Electronic Industry Association says.

Some defense industry stock analysts warn that the cuts could be even greater -- and contractors might be getting the bad news soon. "We believe a major overhaul [of the defense budget] will be forthcoming following the 1992 presidential election," Paul H. Nisbet, an analyst with Prudential Securities, said in a recent industry report.

This doesn't bode well for the estimated 1,400 Maryland companies involved in the development or production of a wide assortment of war equipment, including handguns, nerve gas detectors, torpedoes, cruise missiles, uniform jackets and submarine tracking devices. On any given day, these companies are working on contracts totaling more than $17.5 billion.

Maryland ranks ninth among the states in receiving money from Pentagon prime contracts. The number of contracts being worked on in Maryland, and the dollar value of these contracts, have risen steadily in recent years, according to Defense Department figures.

Still, within the past year, Westinghouse, Martin Marietta Corp., AAI Corp. and Grumman Corp. have laid off more than 6,000 workers. Westinghouse alone has laid off 2,500 workers this year.

Mr. Linder said that "there are absolutely no plans for any more layoffs."

"I'm optimistic" about the work force remaining stable, he added, "but in this business, you never say never. These are dynamic times, and something unexpected can pop up at any time."

One big winner in the new defense spending bill was the 'D government's "star wars" missile defense system, and this is good needs for the state.

Congress awarded another $4.15 billion to the Strategic Defense Initiative office and approved deployment as early as 1996.

SDI's list of contributors includes more than 50 state contractors and reads like a Who's Who of Maryland business. Some examples: Westinghouse, Bendix Field Engineering Corp., Martin Marietta, Computer Sciences Corp., Booz Allen & Hamilton and Fairchild Space Co. The Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland also are involved.

One casualty of reduced defense spending is the F-14 Tomcat, the twin-engine jet fighter that was the real star of the movie "Top Gun." This doesn't bode well for Grumman's struggling plants in Glen Arm and Salisbury.

Grumman had hoped to win approval for upgrading about 20 late-1960s vintage F-14As by replacing the engines, electronics and some structural components. This would have provided additional work at Salisbury, where workers produce wiring harnesses used in the plane, and at the machine shop in Glen Arm. Due to declining orders, these plants have eliminated 216 jobs this year, about 30 percent of their combined work force.

But Congress terminated the Tomcat program, and the last plane is due off the line in May.

Susan Vassallo, a spokeswoman for Grumman at its headquarters in Bethpage, N.Y., said there is no plan to close the Maryland plants. The company, she said, "is doing its best to find new work to keep both facilities viable."

All things considered, Maryland seems to have faired pretty well in the budget process.

Westinghouse received $139 million to continue its work on the SQY-1 anti-submarine warfare system. The electronic system, being developed at Westinghouse's Sykesville plant, is designed detect, track and destroy the new generation of silent submarines.

SQY-1 could become a $5 billion program and could create 500 new jobs at the Carroll County complex.

Westinghouse's airship program also seems to have picked up new support -- and a big chunk of money. The giant craft -- nearly double the size of the Goodyear blimp -- is being developed to hover over a fleet of ships and use long-range radar to spot enemy planes or ocean-skimming cruise missiles in time for the Navy to take defensive action.

Congress pumped $30 million into the blimp program.

"At first, there was not widespread support for the airship concept," said John Steele, a spokesman for Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which approves the funding for military program. "But once the facts and benefits were known, those who were skeptical soon saw the airship as an effective and inexpensive approach to air defense."

So far, the government's talk about reducing the size of the military has not resulted in any cutback in orders for the Beretta 9mm semiautomatic pistol, which is replacing the military's vintage Colt 45.

Jeffrey Reh, contract manager for Beretta U.S.A. Corp. in Accokeek, in Prince George's County, said the company has shipped more than 250,000 pistols to the military and has orders in hand for deliveries into June 1993. Beretta admits, however, that orders for a civilian version of the weapon, sold to police departments across the nation, have been hurt by declining municipal budgets.

Martin Marietta "fared pretty well" in the budget negotiations, said Albert Kamhi, spokesman for the company's Middle River and Glen Burnie operations. "We didn't lose anything. It was not a bad year for us; all of our programs were left intact."

At Middle River, Martin produces a missile-launching system for use on Navy destroyers, tail sections for the Air Force's new C-17 cargo plane and a section of the Patriot missile launcher. The company also is involved in developing underwater and land-based robotic systems for the military.

Martin's Glen Burnie plant makes towed arrays, which are tube-like units filled with electronic listening devices that are dragged by surface ships or submarines to detect and track enemy vessels.

The budget also includes $10 million for continued research on a "friend or foe" electronic system that can tell fighter pilots which aircraft are enemy planes. This gives some hope to the people at the Bendix Communication division of Allied Signal Inc. in Towson that the government may upgrade equipment now in use on planes.

Bendix was on the verge of winning a $4.5 billion contract to produce an improved identification system for the Air Force two years ago, but the Pentagon scrapped it. The cancellation was a major blow to Bendix: Instead of hiring an additional 1,000 workers, it laid off about 500.

One part of the budget that remained firm, according to Col. Charles D. Bartlett, the Army officer who heads of the Defense Contract Management Area Operation Office in Towson, is research and development spending. And in Maryland, there are a high number of defense research and development companies.

Still, Maryland has not been immune to Pentagon cuts.

This was made evident recently when Colonel Bartlett's office, which oversees the implementation of military contracts with companies in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, posted an opening for four engineers.

"We received about 700 applications, most of them from the defense industry," Colonel Bartlett said. "This is due entirely to the cutback."