What are some good lessons learned from NTC?

I learned during my time there (1997-2000), as part of the OPFOR, that when BLUFOR units would return....more often than not the new Leaders and Commanders would make the same mistakes as their predecessors. It seemed that AAR's were never read or information/experience was never passed on the the replacement Commanders.

Understand you are in a tank company but something's to consider
- LTC (Join to see) has some good advice for you.
- ensure your TMDE, especially for your Maintenace team, won't drop out of calibration during NTC. Your unit calibration coordinator can pull your units listing from the TMDE lab and check this. Don't dump it all the week before.
- take special care on your 1750s for containers in case something is lost in transit.
- two gunneries (if they still do them) are important, what used to be the STAMIS gunnery for the sustainment systems and MILES gunnery. If you don't zero your miles you won't hit anything.
- who,ever is doing your LOGSTAT: it is critical that it is right and on time. You will basically need fuel every twelve hours.
- if your unit task organizes and they split up your tank platoons, don't forget that maintainer expertise and spares/parts need to be cross attached too. Same goes for when you recieve bradleys.
- SOPs. Use them. Capture the things that could stand to be SOPs that aren't.
- pre combat checks, pre combat inspections.
- the unit that wins the counter recon fight is the one that usually is successful. I am unsure how the OPFOR is using recon assets in the contemporary DA rotations, but the terrain lends itself to the whole kit bag of recon. The terrain is generally canalized to the passes. There is little to obscure day and night observation and targeting. Dismounted Recon Teams (affectionately referred to as Dirts) are hard to find and they are very effective if resupplied or operating off caches. Popular scout sets are pieces of high ground that cover multiple pieces of key terrain and avenues. They tend to be employed in overlapping sets in case some are compromised. The wadis and goat paths are prime for sneaking wheeled and tracked Recon elements with little visible or audible signature.
- there was a tendency way back when for units to be hyper focused on the breach in the offense. A TTP was to build a very elaborate defense at a random spot just to get a unit to breach...for no apparent reason. Can you easily bypass and not break your momentum?
- recovery is going to be very important. Ensure your crews are prepared for recovery. Turning your equipment at the unit maintenance collection point will be critical.
- Most Hooah thing I ever heard about was a UMCP about to be over run, quickly towed tanks up into a firing position and Got them turret power so they could fight. Might be worth having the conversation with the BMT.
- pay special care and have your leaders validate the transition between force on force and live fire. Nothing is a bigger distractor than validating all the training/sim ammo is turned in and the live is issued and vice versa once live ammo turns up in the wrong spot.

As a Army Reserve Company Commander I went to NTC in 2013 to support a AD BCT. My advice is to include reserve enablers in all aspects of the training event, particularly the LTP. I personally got the most benefit from the LTP, as far as establishing connections with the BCT staff and get an idea from the BCT Commander on what they expected from me and my Soldiers.