The Navy's top officer says that she ordered a “deep dive” into maintenance and readiness issues following the amphibious ship USS Boxer's monthslong deployment delay that finally ended last week.
“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.
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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 investigation, 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…
