Overview
- BAE Systems received a firm‑fixed‑price $149.8 million Selected Restricted Availability contract for the Wasp‑class amphibious assault ship Boxer on Wednesday, and the deal could rise to roughly $180 million if all options are exercised.
- Work will be carried out at Naval Base San Diego under an SRA, a scheduled maintenance window that allows contractors to perform concentrated repairs, upgrades and testing before the ship returns to service.
- Boxer’s SRA is intended to fix recurring readiness shortfalls after a series of maintenance delays that disrupted the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit’s 2024 Indo‑Pacific deployment and produced multi‑year availability problems between 2020 and 2024.
- The Navy plans to use longer lead times and revised planning for complex big‑deck availabilities, a reform Vice Adm. Brendan McLane said was needed because the old 120‑day planning window was insufficient for these ships.
- BAE has not disclosed a public scope list or completion timetable, but the work will draw on the company’s San Diego shipyard capacity and could directly affect future MEU deployments by restoring Boxer’s aviation, propulsion and amphibious systems.