Posted on 04/21/2024 9:47:12 AM PDT by Drew68
The two dry docks large enough to accommodate a big deck amphibious warship in San Diego, Calif., are currently occupied, complicating the repairs of USS Boxer (LHD-4), USNI News has learned.
Boxer came back into port last week with one of its rudders damaged after leaving earlier this month on deployment. As of Friday, the Navy was assessing how to repair the rudder to allow the 45,000-ton capital ship to return to sea, a service official told USNI News. The service would prefer to fix the rudder underwater with the understanding that the replacement repair could take up to two to three weeks, USNI News previously reported.
Complications could arise if the big deck needs to go into dry dock. The dry dock large enough to accommodate Boxer at BAE Systems’ San Diego repair yard is occupied by an availability for Littoral Combat Ship USS Oakland (LCS-24). The nearby General Dynamics NASSCO dry dock is occupied by guided-missile destroyer USS Chung Hoon (DDG-93), which is undergoing an availability to install the AN/SLQ-32(V)7 Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program Block 3. Moving either of the warships would extend both availabilities, USNI News understands.
The Navy is considering using a dry dock in Portland, Ore., at a shipyard owned by Vigor Industrial, but the service would have to remove ten feet of the Boxer’s mast so the big deck could travel under a bridge on the Willamette River to reach the yard, two sources familiar with Navy deliberations told USNI News.
As of now, Boxer is at the pier at Naval Base San Diego.
Boxer returned to San Diego on April 11 after leaving on a delayed Amphibious Ready Group deployment with the embarked 15th Marine Expeditionary Group.
Boxer is the flagship of the three-ship Boxer ARG, which also includes USS Somerset (LPD-25) and USS Harpers Ferry (LSD-49). The deployment is the first for the Marine’s new Amphibious Combat Vehicles.
The deployment of the Boxer ARG and the 15th MEU has been split due to the big deck’s maintenance woes. Somerset left San Diego in January on its own with elements of the 15th MEU aboard. Harpers Ferry departed San Diego on March 19.
Having Boxer sidelined has forced the Navy and Marine Corps to retool several planned engagements in the Western Pacific, including Cobra Gold off Thailand earlier this year and the bilateral Balikatan exercise with the Philippines. Boxer was supposed to be a key asset in the drills with Manila that are billed as the largest in 30 years. This year’s exercises follow increasingly aggressive moves from China against Armed Forces of the Philippines’ resupply mission to the AFP’s base on Second Thomas Shoal, USNI News previously reported.
Well, there was supposed to be a "peace dividend" after the Cold War...
$880 billion a year just doesn’t buy what it used to....
Why was it damaged?
If ONLY the Navy had been warned, repeatedly, that their infrastructure was a disaster waiting to happen.
Exactly. LBNSY had a beautiful dry dock run by a well trained crew.
"Ongoing maintenance issues" is the official statement. Unofficially, problems with the ship's rudder.
It's my totally uninformed opinion that these ships aren't getting the dry-dock and maintenance time that they truly need and are being returned to the Fleet in a degraded state of readiness.
Perhaps the lack of dry docks contributes to this?
More here:
Another unintended consequence and lack of foresight when we closed the shipyards in Long Beach, Mare Island, and Philly.
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And all the other ones before that. Meanwhile, China cranks out ships like no tomorrow.
I think you misspelled intended.
Wen America was till America, the CNO would have said fix it now, and lo it would be fixed.
Not so totally uninformed as you think.
As a 20 year shipyard safety manager, let me offer a little tip; if you are a shipyard, and you have a vacant drydock, you are losing an incredible amount of money and probably will not be in business very long. Drydocks of that size cost butt loads of money to maintain in general, and even more to meet Navy standards which they must to drydock Navy ships.
The service would prefer to fix the rudder underwater with the understanding that the replacement repair could take up to two to three weeks, USNI News previously reported.
Complications could arise if the big deck needs to go into dry dock.
Yep. Navy DD standards are a lot different and most commercial DDs only go that far if they have a contract to dock a Navy asset.
We can't even comprehend how bad this is. China has over 200 times the shipbuilding capabilities as the United States. That's such an unimaginable disparity. China has 50+ dry docks alone that can handle an aircraft carrier. Fifty!
China's Navy is Using Quantity to Build Quality
The navy just needs a few more DIE Admirals to fix all their problems.
The military isn't about earning a profit but about maintaining warfighting readiness. This means, there should probably be some budget set aside to maintain reserve dry dock space to accommodate unplanned maintenance on Naval warships.
Since there doesn't seem to be, I can only imagine the Boxer will have to wait until a currently dry-docked ship can be made seaworthy enough to be moved. I'd imagine these things take a lot of money, planning, and time.
And if the ship currently occupying dry dock space is another Naval warship (and it probably is), the cycle of degradation continues.
Again, this doesn't bode well for military readiness.
What is wrong with the drydocks in Bremerton?
What is happening to the US is planned obsolescence. Someone somewhere is planning for North America to be a prison continent for the worlds malcontents. They will have them working the fields to feed the elite.
Think of how strong and brave the Natives were at one time, but they were overwhelmed. 100+??? a day are being flown into the US, under a policy instituted in the last days of the Trump Presidency by Congress. There are likely 15-20 million foreigners in our country. What other reason is there than, they want to replace us. It is too slow to educated Liberty out of the minds of Americans, so they import servants.
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