How 13 Men Beat 60 on D-Day (Band of Brothers' Real Attack)

On D-Day, four German guns behind Utah Beach were shelling the road off the sand. Lieutenant Dick Winters of Easy Company had twelve men. About sixty defended the guns. This is how thirteen men took them: one group shoots, one group moves, and you go in from the side. First the rule, from the Army's 1942 rifle company manual. Then the fight at Brécourt Manor, on a model of the real ground, with every man and every line of fire. 0:00 Four guns behind Utah Beach 0:34 The order 1:04 The ground 1:36 The obvious attack 2:17 The rule, from the 1942 manual 3:23 The real attack 4:37 Why 60 could not fight as 60 6:20 The count 6:56 Four ways it fails 7:42 What came of it Sources Dick Winters, interview with Christopher J. Anderson (HistoryNet) and filmed interviews Dick Winters, Beyond Band of Brothers (2005) FM 7-10, Rifle Company, Rifle Regiment (War Department, 2 June 1942) U.S. Army, Regimental Unit Study No. 3: 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment in Normandy Drop The positions of the guns and machine guns are a reconstruction. German losses are the usual count. Music: "Interloper" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Heights: EU-DEM, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service.