Plot summary

In World War II France in early September 1944, units of the 35th Infantry Division are nearing the town of Nancy when one of the division's mechanized reconnaissance platoons is ordered to hold their position when the Germans counterattack. The outnumbered platoon is also hit by friendly fire from their own mortars. Their commanding officer, Captain Maitland (Hal Buckley), is preoccupied with visiting his uncle "The General" and stealing a yacht.Kelly (Clint Eastwood), a former lieutenant who has been demoted to private following a disastrous assault some time earlier, captures Colonel Dankhopf (David Hurst) of German Intelligence. When Kelly notices his prisoner has a gold bar in his briefcase, he gets him drunk to try to get information about the gold. Before he is killed by an attacking German Tiger tank, the drunken Dankhopf blurts out that there is a cache of 14,000 gold bars, worth US$16 million ($270 million today), stored in a bank vault 30 miles behind enemy lines in the town of Clermont. When their position is overrun and the Americans pull back, a Tiger I tank kills Dankhopf.The next day, the unit receives orders to pull back further. Maitland leaves with his yacht and tells his Master Sergeant to take a R&R vacation for 3 days while holding their position. Kelly recruits the rest of his platoon, including skeptical Master Sergeant "Big Joe" (Telly Savalas), to sneak off and steal the gold. Eventually, others have to be recruited (or invite themselves) into the scheme, such as an opportunistic supply sergeant "Crapgame" (Don Rickles); and a Sherman tank commander, "Oddball" (Donald Sutherland). Oddball suggests that his three unattached M4 Sherman tanks join the caper. Moriarty (Gavin MacLeod) is the tank mechanic in Oddball's team.Oddball claims that his tanks are the fastest in Europe, they have elongated the tank barrels to make them look like a 90 mm gun, instead of the 72 mm they are. They fire paint in their ammunition, which paints a pretty picture and scares the living daylights out of their enemies. Mulligan (George Savalas) manages the mortar unit and is drafted to provide mortar cover as Kelly's unit approaches their target town. Big Joe is against the idea, but the whole unit sides with Kelly and says that the risks are the same, but this time they are fighting for themselves.The expedition successfully breaks through a German-held town during a mortar barrage that has been arranged by Mulligan and is on time and on target for a change. Meanwhile, Major General Colt is demanding his Generals that they push through enemy lines and force a German surrender. Colt orders all bridges in the area to be blown off, so that German Panzer divisions cannot attack allied forces by surprise.Kelly decides that his infantrymen and Oddball's tanks and crew will proceed separately and meet near Clermont. The Shermans fight their way through the German lines, destroying a railway depot in the process, but the bridge that they must cross is blown up by Allied fighter-bombers. Oddball contacts an engineering unit led by Sergeant Bellamy (Len Lesser) to build a bridge for the crossing, and the engineers in turn bring in even more men to supply support.An American fighter plane mistakes Kelly's group for the enemy, strafing their vehicles and destroying them with rockets, forcing them to continue on foot. They walk into a minefield, and Private Grace (Michael Clark) is blown up when he steps on a mine. Forced to engage a German patrol that arrives to investigate the explosion, the last two men still trapped in the minefield, PFC Mitchell (Fred Pearlman) and Corporal Job (Tom Troupe), are killed before Kelly's team can eliminate the German soldiers.In infantry men link up to Oddball's tanks, who brings the entire support column with him. Now, they have an army. When intercepted radio messages of the private raid are brought to the attention of enthusiastic American Major General Colt (Carroll O'Connor), he misinterprets them as the efforts of aggressive patriots pushing forward on their own initiative and immediately rushes to the front line to exploit the "breakthrough". Meanwhile the engineering unit gets left behind at a bridge which is heavily protected by German forces. Kelly loses 2 tanks but gets one tank across the bridge. Kelly makes a spot decision to use the remaining tank to mount at attack on Clermont.Kelly's men race to reach Clermont before their own army. There, they find it defended by three Tiger tanks with infantry support. Kelly smartly maneuvers his troops and the Sherman tank inside the town without the Germans getting a whiff of their movements or plan. This enables Kelly to launch a well-coordinated, surprise attack from very close ranges. The Americans are able to dispatch two of the Tigers and most of the German infantry, but as they prepare to take on the last tank, which is parked right in front of the bank, Oddball's last Sherman breaks down and cannot be repaired. Powerless to defeat the tank, Kelly offers the German tank commander a share of the loot. After the Tiger blows the bank doors off, the assembled crew finds the gold cache.After dividing the gold, each gold share amounting to US$875,000 (more than $14.8 million today), the men go their separate ways, just managing to avoid meeting the still-oblivious Colt, who is delayed by celebrating town residents.