Urban Warfare Project

Liam Collins, Jayson Geroux, John Spencer, and Amanda Zhao | 10.28.26 The Battle of Shanghai occurred from August 13 to November 11, 1937, and was the first major battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). Following Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the...

Liam Collins, Jayson Geroux, and John Spencer | 11.26.25 Authors’ note: Many of the details included in this case study were learned during a 2019 trip to Mumbai by two of the authors, Liam Collins and John Spencer, during which they had the opportunity to interview...

Liam Collins, Jayson Geroux, and John Spencer | 09.26.25 Authors’ note: Many of the details included in this case study were learned during interviews with Azerbaijani soldiers during multiple research trips to the site of the battle. Also of note, many cities and...

Liam Collins and John Spencer | 09.11.25 Authors’ note: Some details included in this case study were learned during interviews. Those marked with an asterisk (*) came from interviews with Yoav Gallant, the commander of the operation. Those marked with a dagger (†)...

Liam Collins and John Spencer | 04.25.25 Authors’ note: Many of the details included in this case study are drawn from interviews with Azerbaijani soldiers conducted during a research trip to the site of the battle in March 2025. Also of note, while many towns and...

Liam Collins and John Spencer | 02.21.25 Authors’ note: Some details included in this case study were learned during interviews with Ukrainian soldiers and others directly involved in the Battle of Kyiv, including during five research trips to the country in 2022 and...

John Spencer, Liam Collins, and Jayson Geroux | 01.14.25 The Battle of Sadr City occurred from March 23 to May 12, 2008, during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Sadr City is a densely populated neighborhood in Baghdad’s northeast. It is a diamond-shaped area of twenty-five...

Liam Collins, Jayson Geroux, and John Spencer | 12.17.24 The battle of Aachen, Germany occurred October 2–21, 1944 during World War II, though fighting within the city did not start until October 12. The city is two kilometers east of the Netherlands-Belgium-Germany...

Liam Collins, Jayson Geroux, and John Spencer | 10.03.24 The Battle of Mogadishu occurred on October 3–4, 1993. Mogadishu is the capital of Somalia, sitting along the coast of the Indian Ocean, and at the time of the battle it had been ravaged by two years of civil...

John Spencer, Jayson Geroux, and Liam Collins | 05.23.24 The Battle of Marawi occurred from May 23 to October 23, 2017. Marawi is the capital city of Lanao del Sur province on the island of Mindanao, the Philippines’ second-largest island. The city is located on the...

John Spencer, Jayson Geroux, and Liam Collins | 07.25.23 The Second Battle of Fallujah occurred from November 7 to December 23, 2004 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. As noted in Urban Warfare Case Study #6 on the First Battle of Fallujah, which took place earlier in...

John Spencer and Jayson Geroux | 10.28.22 The First Battle of Fallujah occurred between April 3 and May 1, 2004 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The city of Fallujah is situated on the Euphrates River in al-Anbar province of Iraq, forty-three miles west of Baghdad. It...

John Spencer and Jayson Geroux | 02.26.22 The battle of Ortona occurred between German and Canadian forces from December 20 to December 27, 1943, during World War II (1939–1945). A coastal town in central Italy, Ortona sits on a plateau overlooking the Adriatic Sea....

John Spencer and Jayson Geroux | 01.13.22 The battle of Suez City occurred on October 24–25, 1973 during the Arab-Israeli War (also known as the Yom Kippur War), which began on October 6 of that year and ended on October 25 Suez City is located at the very northern...

John Spencer and Jayson Geroux | 11.04.21 The Battle of Hue  took place in the former Republic of South Vietnam and occurred from January 31 to March 2, 1968. Hue was bisected by the Perfume River (Hương, in Vietnamese), which flowed from southwest to northeast out to...

John Spencer and Jayson Geroux | 09.15.21 The Battle of Mosul began on October 16, 2016, ending when a final pocket of defending forces was cleared on July 20, 2017. The city is located in northern Iraq’s Nineveh province. Its seventy square miles are bisected by the...

John Spencer and Jayson Geroux | 06.28.21 The Battle of Stalingrad (modern-day Volgograd) occurred from August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943 during World War II (1939–1945). The city is in the southwestern region of what was then the Soviet Union. The majority of the...