The Defense Department‘s inspector general has recommended the U.S. Navy assess whether to continue or cancel the development of the Knifefish surface mine countermeasure unmanned undersea vehicle.

DoD IG said Tuesday the requirements developers of Knifefish and the Littoral Combat Ship program — Expeditionary Warfare Division N95 and Surface Warfare Division N96, respectively — did not coordinate to establish Knifefish capability requirements.

Lack of coordination led to engineering change proposals to redesign Knifefish and that move added $2.3 million to program costs, the IG found.

The Knifefish program office compressed developmental test schedules and combined test events due to lack of funds which might lead to uncorrected design problems, according to the audit report.

The report stated the Navy has yet to demonstrate Knifefish’s capacity to detect, classify and identify bottom and buried mines and failure to meet minimum requirements could result to program reassessment or modification of production increments.

The IG noted Knifefish might not be ready for initial production decision in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017.

Knifefish’s program office has received $91 million out of an estimated $842.5 million budget to cover research, development, test, evaluation, procurement, operational and maintenance efforts.

DoD IG asked the directors of Expeditionary Warfare Division N95 and Surface Warfare Division N96 to jointly develop Knifefish capability requirements associated with the communication interface, launch and recovery operations between Knifefish and LCS.

The IG also recommended for the director of Expeditionary Warfare Division N95 to coordinate with the LCS program executive officer to determine whether to continue the development of Knifefish or use the remaining $751.5 million program funds for other purposes.

Knifefish is designed to serve as a self-propelled, untethered and autonomous UUV that will be launched and recovered from LCS.

The U.S. Air Force is looking to retrain more than 1,900 enlisted personnel to support approximately 95 understaffed career fields, Air Force Times reported Sunday.

Stephen Losey writes the service branch’s Non-Commissioned Officer Retraining Program also needs to retrain 292 enlisted soldiers out of 20 overstaffed Air Force specialty codes.

The report noted that most retraining opportunities are for first-term enlisted soldiers that seek to join the security forces career field that has 145 slots open under the 3P011A dog handler field and 82 slots on the 3P011B combat arms security forces.

“Training seats are at a premium and most AFSCs are at or near max capacity… Correspondingly, our retraining opportunities are limited and focus on balancing the inventory between AFSCs,” said Brian Kelly, Air Force director of military force management policy.

The service branch has developed a program called the Air Force Work Interest Navigator which uses data from inquiries on interests, skills and work histories to create a list of jobs that might suit each candidate and compare interests to entry-level AFSCs.

Rear Adm. Douglas Small has assumed the role of program executive officer for integrated warfare systems at the U.S. Navy and he will be in charge of the acquisition, delivery, development and life-cycle sustainment of integrated combat systems for the military branch’s submarines and surface combatants.

He relieved Rear Adm. Jon Hill during a change-of-office ceremony held Thursday at the Washington Navy Yard, the Naval Sea Systems Command said Thursday.

Small previously held positions at the military branch’s PEO IWS, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division and Missile Defense Agency as well as onboard the USS Camden and USS Iwo Jima.

“I am deeply humbled by the opportunity to carry on [Hill’s] work,” Small said.

The Defense Department appointed Hill as deputy director of the MDA in October following his stint with the PEO IWS where he managed programs to develop, sustain and deliver surface ship combat control systems, electronic warfare and naval gunnery systems for the U.S. Navy.

The U.S. Navy has finalized its plans to expand warfare training off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and Northern California after a review that involved the National Marine Fisheries Service‘s confirmation that it will cause minimal impact on marine life, Navy Times reported Sunday.

Phuong Le writes the service branch pushed through with its plan to expand training through the use of sonobuoy devices and sonar testing after the review determined exercises will not affect endangered orcas and other marine mammals.

The report noted that the devices send out underwater sonar signals that air crews use in during training to detect submarines and the service branch noted that it will work to follow guidelines and implement measure to address potential effects on marine species.

Sheila Murray, a spokeswoman with Navy Region Northwest, told Navy Times the service branch works alongside government partners and the public in a push to mitigate certain challenges.

Analysts say they expect Congress to remove caps on defense spending once President-elect Donald Trump advances his proposal to equip the military with more warfighters, new ships and fighter jets, Defense News reported Thursday.

Joe Gould writes analysts, however, believe that in order to pursue plans to build up defense capabilities, Trump would need to deal with Republican “fiscal hawks” who are not in favor of deficit spending as well as Democrats who seek parity in spending between defense and non-defense programs.

Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, said Trump’s plan to fund an increase in weapons spending based on then-President Ronald Reagan’s strategy to reduce “waste, fraud and abuse” at the Defense Department is a “fantasy,” according to a report by Anthony Capaccio for Bloomberg.

According to his campaign website, Trump would fund his national defense rebuilding plans through a complete audit of DoD, reduction in duplicative bureaucracy, elimination of unwanted federal initiatives and collection of unpaid taxes.

Eaglen said such objectives “cannot yield $55 to $60 billion per year in new money to reinvest.”