page_title: United States Air Force Basic Military Training
section_title: Fifth Week
hierarchical_section_title: United States Air Force Basic Military Training / Training schedule / Fifth Week
caption_attribution_description: Trainees use hand signals as they take a knee during a tactical drill movement down an improvised explosive device lane.
context_page_description: United States Air Force Basic Military Training is an eight-week program of physical and combat training required in order for an individual to become an enlisted Airman in the United States Air Force or member of the United States Space Force. It is located at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
context_section_description: During Week Five, trainees will be sent to the BEAST on the Medina Annex. The BEAST, or Basic Expeditionary Airman Skills Training, is the final test in BMT. This represents the culmination of all the skills and knowledge an Airman should possess. These skills and tactics the trainees have learned will be put to test in realistic field training exercises and combat scenarios.
  It is a 5-day exercise that will test all of the CBRNE skills that the trainees were taught in the fifth week of training. The trainees will also be taught basic combatives as well as engaging in pugil stick battles utilizing the rifle fighting techniques they were taught. The trainees are required to wear body armor and helmets, as well as two canteens and an M16. The site has four zones, called Reaper, Phantom, Vigilant and Sentinel, that simulate self-contained forward operating bases. Each zone is a ring of 10 field tents for barracks, centered around a three-story observation tower and a hardened briefing facility that serves as an armory and bomb shelter. The zone is defended by five sandbag defensive firing positions and trainees control access to the zone through an entry control point.
  The trainees will also visit CATM where they will fire and qualify using an M16A2 rifle. During the actual firing, trainees will fire at a man-sized target at 75 yards, 180 yards and 300 yards in the standing, sitting, kneeling and prone positions. A total of 24 rounds will be fired during the qualification, the targets must be hit at least 17 times in order to become qualified with the weapon and those who hit the targets at least 22 times qualify for the Small Arms Expert Ribbon.
  Trainees will train on their SABC, FEST and CBRNE skills to have a grasp on the basics of conducting UXO (Unexploded Ordnance) sweeps, helping a downed or injured Airman and doing the PAR and SALUTE reports they were taught during their CBRNE course the week prior. They will be taught how to identify potential threats and who to report them to in their chain of command. BEAST week will be almost entirely devoted to scenario training. As they take advantage of more field time to hone their newly acquired infantry skills, the trainees also will have more hands-on instruction in buddy care, culminating in an evaluation for each zone to see which zone has the won the coveted title of BEAST excellence which is announced at the culmex ceremony on Friday afternoon. The BEAST site includes a 1.5-mile improvised explosive device (IED) trail littered with simulated roadside bombs. Trainees learn to spot IEDs and then use the trail in training scenarios. For example, under one scenario trainees make their way down the "lane" in tactical formation, trying to identify IEDs from the other debris such as soda cans. At the end of the trail, trainees are broken into teams of two "wingmen" and negotiate a combat-obstacle course (low-crawl, hide behind walls, roll behind barriers, strike dummies with the butt of your rifle, high crawl 60 yards through deep sand up a 40 percent grade). Trainees will also go participate in a CLAW mission during BEAST week. CLAW stands for Creating Leader Airmen Warriors. The CLAW mission consists of traversing a "simulated" river using the instructions and supplies on hand which stresses teamwork. They will then move in staggered tactical formation to another checkpoint where they will work on their SABC skills, then they will go through the combat obstacle course that was mentioned above. The biggest test is the village in which the Chalks of Trainees will have to either rescue a "downed" Airman and evacuate the training dummy or they will have to neutralize the targets and "simulated" gunners in the village while sustaining as few casualties as possible. Teamwork is stressed, as the majority of tasks are completely impossible without it—each group must succeed or fail as a whole. The others will result in failure unless every trainee passes through together, requiring the team to aid its fellow trainee(s) who struggle in the accomplishment of the given mission. On th
caption: Trainees in use hand signals as they take a knee during a tactical drill movement down an improvised explosive device lane
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "081217-F-1830P-034\n\n\nBasic trainees armed up in body armor use hand signals as they take a knee during a tactical drill movement down an improvised explosive device lane Dec. 17 as part of the 5-day deployment exercise called the Basic Expeditionary Airman Skills and Training, or BEAST, which kicked off Dec. 15 at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. The BEAST is the newly built complex added into the extended, 8.5 week Basic Military Training curriculum that began Nov. 5. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Desiree N. Palacios)", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2008:12:18 08:13:03", "Image ExifOffset": "708", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "846", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8089", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2700", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1792"}