PACER Forge is the capstone field exercise of U.S. Air Force Basic Military Training, a continuous simulated combat deployment that every recruit must complete during week six to graduate. It runs at the Chapman Training Annex of Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, and it is the final test before Airmen and Guardians earn their place in the force.1U.S. Air Force. Forging the Next Generation: BMT Leads the Way
The name is an acronym: Primary Agile Combat Employment Range, Forward Operations Readiness Generation Exercise.
PACER Forge Is Not the PACER Court System
If you arrived here looking for federal court records, this is the wrong page. Public Access to Court Electronic Records, the judiciary’s docket system, lives at pacer.uscourts.gov and has no connection to the military exercise beyond three shared letters. Everything below is about the Air Force training event.
What the Exercise Is and When It Happens
PACER Forge takes place in week six of an approximately seven-and-a-half-week BMT pipeline.2U.S. Air Force. Basic Military Training Week 6 The Air Force introduced it in 2022 to replace Basic Expeditionary Airman Skills Training, known as BEAST Week, which had been the culminating BMT event since 2006. Leadership concluded BEAST leaned too heavily on pre-deployment checklists and not enough on the fast, unpredictable operations the service now expects.1U.S. Air Force. Forging the Next Generation: BMT Leads the Way
PACER Forge is designed to feel like a deployment itself, compressed and accelerated, so the experience sticks long after graduation.
What Trainees Do During PACER Forge
The exercise originally ran 36 hours. In 2025, the Air Force rolled out PACER Forge Provisional, stretching the event to 57 hours and adding earlier intelligence briefings, more scenario injects, and an airfield-centric environment where trainees work in small, dispersed teams. More than 800 trainees completed the first iteration of the extended version.3Air Education and Training Command. A New Chapter in Readiness: PACER FORGE Provisional
Once on site, trainees live in a field environment and work through escalating combat scenarios that can hit at any hour. Typical activities include:
- Building defensive fighting positions
- Setting up command and control tents
- Performing post-attack reconnaissance sweeps
- Practicing self-aid and buddy care
- Reporting damage or unexploded ordnance
- Reacting to simulated enemy force scenarios
Attacks come day and night. Trainees are expected to apply everything they learned in the previous five weeks under continuous pressure, and they rotate through leadership roles as they go. PACER Forge Monitors act as overall organizers, similar to a dorm chief, while Tactical Deployment Leaders run element-level teams. Military Training Instructors from the 319th Training Squadron serve as cadre, running scenarios and evaluating performance.4Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force Military Training Instructor Career Paths – Chapter 9 Cadre of PACER FORGE
Why the Air Force Runs It This Way
PACER Forge exists because the Air Force’s operating concept has changed. The service is shifting away from large, fixed bases toward networks of smaller, dispersed locations it can activate quickly during a crisis. That concept is called Agile Combat Employment, and it demands personnel who can operate independently with limited support.5U.S. Air Force. Air Force Introduces MCA Training Framework
Supporting that shift is the Multi-Capable Airman initiative, which trains service members to perform tasks outside their primary specialty. Rather than relying on a large team of narrow specialists at a well-stocked base, the Air Force wants small teams where everyone can pitch in across multiple roles. PACER Forge introduces that mindset early: trainees rotate through jobs, respond to problems outside their comfort zone, and learn to collaborate under resource constraints.5U.S. Air Force. Air Force Introduces MCA Training Framework
The 37th Training Wing, which oversees BMT, has described the goal as inculcating a warfighter mindset from the moment recruits arrive, then reinforcing it every training week so they can demonstrate it during PACER Forge.637th Training Wing. BMT Modernization The jump from 36 to 57 hours is the latest adjustment, and Air Force leadership has signaled the exercise will keep evolving as operational demands change.
Who Has to Complete It
Every Air Force and Space Force recruit must complete PACER Forge before graduating BMT. There are no exemptions for specific career fields or physical profiles short of a medical disqualification. Whether a new Airman will eventually work a desk or a flight line, the service wants them to know what operating under simulated combat conditions feels like before they leave San Antonio.