USS Boxer, Amphibious Assault Ship Carrying Hundreds of Marines, Forced to Return to Port for Repairs Two Weeks After Deploying
“That’s taking time when they go in for their upgrades, and that’s taking a little bit longer than expected”
We have been documenting the U.S. Navy’s troubles with one of its premier amphibious assault ships, USS Boxer (LHD-4). This Wasp-Class ship, per the Navy’s description, is “[t]he largest of all amphibious warfare ships [and] resembles a small aircraft carrier.” It is capable of Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing (V/STOL) fighter jet operations, meaning that because Boxer does not have launch catapults, it can’t launch classic aircraft carrier fighter jets like the F/A-18, but it can launch the venerable Harrier jump jet and the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It also carries helicopters and can launch LCACs (Landing Craft, Air Cushioned), which are high-speed, water-borne vehicles used to transport Marines to shore.
The Boxer’s mission, per the Navy, is as follows:
Modern U.S. Navy Amphibious Assault Ships project power and maintain presence by serving as the cornerstone of the Amphibious Readiness Group (ARG) / Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG). A key element of the Seapower 21 pillars of Sea Strike and Sea Basing, these ships transport and land elements of the Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) or Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) with a combination of aircraft and landing craft.
The Wasp-class LHDs provide the Marine Corps with a means of ship-to-shore movement by helicopter in addition to movement by landing craft. LHDs have been participants in major humanitarian-assistance, occupation and combat operations in which the United States has been involved.
Unfortunately, Boxer has had a miserable time getting underway in the last few years, as we reported in August of last year:
Check this out from recent military.com reporting: After 2-Year Overhaul, Navy Confirms USS Boxer Can’t Get Underway:
The USS Boxer, one of the Navy’s amphibious warships, is struggling to get to sea despite recently coming out of a maintenance period that cost the Navy $200 million and was supposed to ready the ship for the service’s newest fighter jet.
The Boxer was supposed to go to sea on July 21 but couldn’t “because of ongoing maintenance issues,” Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesman for the Naval Surface Force, told Military.com in a statement.
The Navy did not offer details on what issues specifically kept the ship in port, citing “operational security,” but Abrahamson was clear that “the Boxer’s preparation for sea trials identified additional maintenance requirements before the ship could get underway.”
The problems for the Boxer come at a time when they should be least expected — about a year after the ship left a maintenance period that began in the summer of 2020 and cost $200 million, according to a statement from BAE systems, the contractor for the work.
Boxer’s maintenance issues continued into this year, forcing the Navy to extend the Bataan ARG near Gaza, as we reported: DOD Extends Deployment of Marines Near Gaza:
Unfortunately, there is another reason for [USS Bataan’s] deployment extension, one having nothing to do with Gaza or attacks on U.S. assets:
Military.com previously reported that the Pentagon was considering this extension for the Marines and sailors aboard the Bataan group. Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, who heads the Marine Corps’ modernization efforts, told Military.com late last month that the unit was then “looking at yet another extension” because of the unprepared state of the Navy’s amphibious ship fleet.
Heckl said that Marine expeditionary forces have been prevented from deploying on time because the amphibious ships they ride on are not ready to set sail due to a number of factors, including maintenance issues.
For example, the USS Boxer, an amphibious warship that will be the heart of the next Marine deployment, has been struggling with maintenance issues for months. The ship spent more than a year at the pier, despite having just completed a two-year overhaul. Then, when it finally did get underway, it belched black smoke outside San Diego harbor.
Two weeks ago, Navy officials told Military.com that the ship, which was scheduled to deploy in November, still needs “additional advanced training” before it is fully ready to deploy.
But Bataan, having been deployed for eight months, was finally allowed to return home to Norfolk, Virginia, and arrived there on March 16, 2024, leaving a gap in Marine Corps presence near Gaza.
That means that if Bataan’s Marines were planning to assist the Israelis in rescuing Americans still held hostage in Gaza, that plan is shot.
And things just went from bad to worse, as U.S. Naval Institute News reports: USS Boxer Back in San Diego for Repairs, Pacific Deployment Stalled:
USS Boxer (LHD-4) is back in San Diego, Calif., after suffering an engineering casualty, forcing the big deck amphibious warship to return for repairs, USNI News has learned.
Boxer and elements of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit left on April 1 for a Pacific deployment that had been on hold due in part to maintenance issues on the big deck. Following the departure, Boxer operated off the coast of California recertifying Marines with MV-22B Ospreys after a grounding that was lifted last month.
“USS Boxer is returning to San Diego to undergo additional maintenance in support of its deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. Boxer departed San Diego on April 1 for an Indo-Pacific deployment and was conducting integration exercises with the MV-22 Osprey in the 3rd Fleet Area of Operations,” reads a statement from U.S. 3rd Fleet to USNI News.
“USS Boxer will resume its deployment in the near future.”Navy officials did not detail the casualty when asked but USNI News understands the casualty is related to the ship’s rudder. A defense official told USNI News the repairs could take two to three weeks based on the early damage estimates.
Marines and aircraft from the 15th MEU were offloaded from Boxer prior to its return, two defense officials told USNI News on Thursday.
The big deck is the flagship of the three-ship Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, which includes USS Somerset (LPD-25) and USS Harpers Ferry (LSD-49).
The Navy, for its part, is admitting that Boxer’s monumental maintenance issues are a problem, with Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti ordering a “deep dive” to uncover the root cause of Boxer’s maintenance problems, as military.com reports: Top Navy Leader Has Ordered ‘Deep Dive’ on Amphibious Ship Readiness After Delays with USS Boxer:
“I think there’s some good lessons learned with Boxer,” Adm. Lisa Franchetti told a small group of reporters Monday at the Navy’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference just outside Washington, D.C.
“Overall, we’re going to learn a lot through this deep dive, where we can really understand what are the challenges with amphib readiness,” Franchetti added.
A defense official told Military.com in March that the Boxer was originally supposed to deploy late last year; however, a series of delays and mechanical issues that were driven, at least in part, by poor leadership aboard the ship kept it in port for months.
Franchetti said that she ordered the inquiry, led by three-star admirals in the Navy’s operations and plans and policy offices, in February and expects they will come to her with initial recommendations on how to proceed “in the May timeframe, and that will start to outline the shape of the the deep dive going forward.”
The Boxer’s issues were documented as far back as July when the ship, fresh out of a shipyard overhaul, hadn’t set sail in more than a year.
Franchetti said that overhaul, notably retrofitting the nearly 30-year-old ship’s flight deck to support the new F-35B Lightning II strike fighter, could have been part of the issue.
And in one of the greatest understatements in Navy history, Franchetti continues:
“That’s taking time when they go in for their upgrades, and that’s taking a little bit longer than expected,” she said.
Wow.
And it gets worse yet because USS Wasp (LHD-1), the lead ship of the class, is next in line to deploy after Boxer but is having its own maintenance problems!
“We’re seeing some potential delays on Wasp. … We’re trying to look ahead to make sure that we can, I want to say … nip this in the bud,” she said.
Ship watchers spotted the USS Wasp — the same class of ship as the Boxer — depart Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, in early March only to return shortly afterward, apparently with tugs alongside it. Those social media posts also cited intercepted radio traffic saying the ship suffered an engineering breakdown with its driveshaft.
Lt. Cmdr. Dave Carter, a spokesman for Surface Force Atlantic, told Military.com that “during the underway, the ship discovered an engineering irregularity” and “returned to port to effect repairs.”
Navy watchers were not impressed:
Hey Navy to be an effective deterrent you have to be able to sail and fight, not sit alongside the pier. @USNavy
Top Navy Leader Has Ordered 'Deep Dive' on Amphibious Ship Readiness After Delays with USS Boxer | https://t.co/gnjRiV4cTH https://t.co/DOFKp2ob4K
— R T (@RDog861) April 9, 2024
Heads need to start rolling in the shipbuilding-maintenance fiasco.
Troubled USS Boxer Returns Home 10 Days into Deployment Due to Maintenance Issue | https://t.co/gnjRiV4cTH https://t.co/Ud1RSXvfpV
— R T (@RDog861) April 12, 2024
The USS Boxer deployed months late and had a TON of mechanical and leadership issues in the meantime.
One report noted that those "failures had direct, measurable impacts on USS Boxer's upcoming deployment…"
It seems they weren't all fixed now that she's coming back. https://t.co/Udiw12vWMF
— Konstantin Toropin (@KToropin) April 11, 2024
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Comments
What makes this ‘amphibious’? How does this ship operate on land?
Frogs.
The French built the Boxer?? Who knew? Then again, their shipyards might actually be efficient.
The thing is, most craft called ‘amphibious’ can either operate on land or sea or have the ability of pulling onto shore, discharging passengers and cargo, and sailing off.
This ship can do neither.
Dry dock … close enough.
HA! good one 🙂
That, or, with so many dismal COs getting fired these days, maybe someone ran it aground.
If your question is serious, the term “amphibious” merely means it was built to deploy Marines to the beach. Pay no attention to the wheels under it’s keel. 😉
Ships are a little out of date these days, what with missile and drone accuracy. Some tries at variety probably reflect that but not sure what to do.
Needed tactics have changed a lot since WWII.
I have not seen such a dismal Navy since the Carter years.
That’s because you have not seen such a dismal federal government since the Carter years. Obama was awful, and Biden is even worse.
For sure. In so many ways the Biden administration is like a painful replay of the ’70s. Any day now they’re going to bring back disco music and platform shoes.
Some disco was actually fun. Platform shoes on the other hand were very painful. What I don’t want to see is a return to ridiculous sideburns.
Like the vast majority of sequels, Carter 2 is far worse than Carter 1 ever was.
Heh, I was in the Navy during the Carter years and you’re right.
Lots of my industrial maintenance counterparts were products of the revamped Navy that happened post 1979.
So was I. It’s when preference -of-color really took off.
At least Carter was honest and didn’t hate the country like Quisling Joe.
But all the sailors know 37 different pronouns and how to properly fly the rainbow ensign now…..
It’s an amphibious transport ship, not a fighting ship.
Until we invent a teleporter the only way to efficiently transport large numbers troops and heavy equipment to any coast is going to be ships.
As the Navy’s core goal and reason for existing is to be diverse, inclusive and woke, they can accomplish that mission at port. No need to deploy.
16 inch guns now fire rainbow glitter and unicorns stand sentry.
The 16 inch guns were retired long ago with the Battleship. Best you can hope for is a 5 inch gun. Middle tech and aircraft have pretty much rendered naval guns obsolete for a surface battle. Though a battleship 16 in guns might be handy in dealing with non peer threats in a shore bombardment… assuming the enemy doesn’t have drone swarms and anti ship missiles to hit back, that could get ugly real quick.
The modern 76mm gun system reaches out a lot further than expected, and when tied in with point-defenses and proximity-fused munitions can make hash out of small inbound targets, either surface or airborne. The Navy has focused so much on big missiles and long-range Standard missiles that I’m concerned that a modern fight will find most of our ships at a great disadvantage when faced with a third-world attack made up of waves of tiny targets. (much like the Russians are finding out daily)
As far as fire support for amphibious landings, which involved battleships, cruisers and destroyer in WWII… forget it
Modern enemies have apparently forgotten how to build bunkers and install weapons systems to oppose our political whims to make landings over opposed beaches.
Swarming drones – both aerial and naval – have changed warfare in a way that hasn’t been seen since the introduction of the airplane. Amphibious warfare is hit particularly hard because in that battle space, service members/transpo equipment are exposed to both aerial and naval drones (to potentially include surface and sub-surface drones).
I think you’re right that we’re not nearly as focused on it as we should have been. There are some signals that’s changing precisely because of Ukraine, as you point out.
The Navy’s core goal is to funnel money to Naval contractors, who frequently hire former Navy officers for no particular reason, trust us.
I won’t say where I work but they’re in the news daily. Not for good reasons. Today a diversity hire with nearly two decades at the company was dumped on my team. Totally not qualified but was saved from a layoff because of skin color. We had headcount open but haven’t been able to fill it because sane people see the salary and say eff off. This person is so far below what we needed, it’s jaw dropping. I’ve been doing the work of 3 people. I’ll get to continue doing the work of 3 people. Honestly very close to walking.
BTW- I oversee a contract spend amount that rivals the cost of one of these ships.
Sounds like my days with Boeing. . .
I love the Marine wheeled vehicles extending out on each side of the flight deck. I assume they will use their cannon to provide additional firepower against boats.
Actually, yes. The Marine Corps LAV-25 has enhanced sensors and self-controlled weapons suites, allowing enhanced ship defense against small boat swarms and drones. The ship has its own defenses, but oddly enough they tested strapping a LAV to the deck at one time and found out it worked *very* well in cooperation with the rest of the weapons systems.
Two weeks isn’t bad … a well-run war shouldn’t last more than 11 days, anyway. #TwoWeeks
Interestingly, I went to the Navy’s web site about the Boxer and this is the article CURRENTLY at the top of the page:
I went there too, to find out who the Boxer was named for. No information there at all. I was hoping it was Barbara.
That’s what I was looking for. Couldn’t find it there … but it turns out the name is OLD, coming from the HMS Boxer, a British ship captured by us in the War of 1812.
Such a ship would only be good at transporting PORK…
Useful in the Middle East!
As a USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) plank owner I found that most of the chiefs were to busy getting their Surface Warfare and Air Warfare pins to provide any leadership to us junior sailors. I’d see my chief at morning quarters and that would be the last I saw him for the day.
“Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti ”
****
“Journalism degree from Northwestern and a master’s degree in organizational management from the University of Phoenix.”
****
Seems like a educational lightweight for the CNO.
“Organizational management”?? She’s one of those chicks who comes in and straightens out your closets?
There’s your core problem, right there. Not her, but whoever saw fit to abuse the Navy by putting her in that position.
It’s like appointing a bunch off bean-counters as management of an engineering firm.
She was an admiral long before that, so…
BARBARA Boxer??? Please, no.
Lol. No, thankfully. It’s an old ship name, like Enterprise, that has been reused a half-dozen times or more by the US Navy over the last 240+ years.
That is Senator Boxer, TYVM.
Yes, ma’am.
No, actually, it’s so apt. Malfunctions, misfires, exhibits incompetence, but makes plenty of smoke and loud noise.
Could be worse. It could be named after the Rebellion… Maybe it’s a name of long tradition in the Navy, but the name has been tainted by the moron Senator of the same name.
Wow, even the few things the government SHOULD be doing such as national defense it proves completely incompetent at.
Keep in mind that we’re a LHD down because the USS Bonhomme Richard burned to near destruction several years ago as she sat in port for repairs. The events that led to that fire were a comedy of errors. But, rather than face their failings head-on, the Navy chose to court-martial a young sailor because they really needed a scapegoat. The sailor was acquitted at court-martial on all counts..with little press coverage.
The military is a mess. DoD procurement and large systems maintenance programs are an even bigger mess. We’re not ready to fight China much less China and Russia at the same time, not even close.
Just “man” the ship with drag queens…I’m sure everything will be shipshape in no time! With rainbow paint schemes and glitter!
That would just be *FABULOUS*!! (make sure you say it in your head with the right sing-song effeminate tone)
Dazzle Glamouflage!
Rename it “The Raging Queen”.
I’m actually kind of wondering if the previous Dry Dock crew wasn’t a bunch of DEI hires
Reading the reports, what is in Wiki, etc., and one must conclude that Boxer is a troubled ship.
30 years old (commissioned 1995)
frequently “rode hard and put away wet” — heavy use over the years
poor leadership on board recently
poor leadership above recently
inexperienced personnel recently
poor quality work done by civilian shipyards
poor supervisor of that work by the Navy
It may be that the time has come to scrap the older LHDs and build more of the successor class LHA ships. That will take a lot of money and time.
Or we could just disarm completely as a show of good faith to our enemies and expect them to do the same. Then, we will come together and Joe will lead us in kumbaby (sic).
What could go wrong?
That was the orginal plan, more or less. There are two America-class ships in service and (I believe) another two in production. The original plan was to build 10 or 11 of them. But, I will be SHOCKED if we end up with more than six.
[Q]delays and mechanical issues that were driven, at least in part, by poor leadership aboard the ship kept it in port for months.[/Q]
“Poor leadership . . .”
The leadership probably didn’t get their pronouns properly sorted out so must now improve their “pronoun facility” by undergoing additional indoctrination.
What I wonder about, and with so many screw ups that limit our ability to project power where it might be needed if we should decide to do so, is if this is not according to some deliberate plan. For instance, after HAMAS attacked in Gaza and especially with 5 Americans held as hostage, it might have been handy to have some naval forces in the Eastern Med in the 6th Fleet where we normally keep an Aircraft Carrier Battle Group [CVBG]. I checked when Iran did the missile attacks and we had NO CVBG in 6th Fleet [very unusual] and the nearest CVBG was in the 5th Fleet area literally on the far side of Saudi Arabia. There was MIS-information out there that the BATAAN was there with the same armament as the BOXER lists and 2500 Marines. But it seems that BATAAN arrived home at Norfolk, Virgina on the 16th of March; leaving no coverage in that zone,
I’m sure that the current US government would love to be able to shrug its shoulders and say that it could not retrieve the American hostages because we had no forces there. Otherwise they might have to shoot at those they [and the Democrats] consider to be friends.
Subotai Bahadur
I am not a military person, but I’m finding the incompetence of the US military hilarious! The Army couldn’t figure out how to disengage in Afghanistan with dignity – (the Trump administration had strongly advised doing so before the seasonal Taliban army organized for the summer, but Milly Vanilly and his friends knew better) – and now the Navy is flummoxed at how to repair a ship. Isn’t there a You Tube video on that???
A couple things. First, the Afghanistan withdrawal was a multi-service operation. With respect to what happened, there were several Afghanistan exfil plans that would have produced a MUCH better end-result than the action plan that was foisted upon the Centcom by the Biden Administration. It was Team Biden’s decision to plan the exit to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11.
The way I heard it was the incoming Biden people were given several large binders of operational plans on how to disengage from Afghanistan, and the whole thing was basically thrown in the shredder.
“I am not a military person, but I’m finding the incompetence of the US military hilarious!”
It’s all fun and games until the enemy swarms over your border.
Oh, wait, that means the fun and games were finished years ago.
Exactly!
I remember when we used to have a Navy other countries feared.
This quote seems appropriate:
“I don’t know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but by God, they terrify me.” — Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
“still needs “additional advanced training” before it is fully ready to deploy.”
Which means they weren’t ready to deploy in the first place, engineering casualty or not.
Parts were made in Chiiinna🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳
It’s almost as if it was made in China.
Sad to say it, but this sort of thing is not new, it’s just gotten worse. This is the same sort of thing that killed USS JFK (CV-67), and the same sort of thing that gave birth to the LCS. My Navy used to be feared throughout the world; once we stood eyeball to eyball with the Mad Duck of the Middle East as we stepped over his Line of Death and now we surrender to Iranian cabin cruisers. I weep for what my Navy has become, and am enraged at the bastards that did it.
The Boxer is one of the last non-nuclear steam powered ships in the Navy. When 85-95% of large naval vessels were steam powered, you had a pipeline for 2 of the largest ratings in the Navy: Machinist’s Mates and Boiler Technicians. These two ratings operated the power plants. They were well trained and the training pipeline was nonstop. Once the Navy went to gas turbines & diesels, they shut down the training pipeline for steam power. They also forced a lot of women into those ratings, with no real interest, and I’m sure DEI was enforced in what was basically a White & Male chosen ratings. The work is hot, hard and dangerous. Beyond that most engineers were Northerners or Midwest.
Now the only new steam ships are nuclear & that training pipeline is wholly separate.
So now three separate engineering failures. Failed leadership, poor training.
Nothing will happen with the “deep dive” because the 3 star will want a job after service in the military complex area. BAE should be made to fix the problems without cost to the Navy.. Bidens in charge, no worries.
It seems like it was originally built in Mississippi and launched in 1993.
Not named for Barbara, the Paul Simon song, nor the dog…though it may now be a dog.
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