Nowadays, most wars are fought in populated areas, therefore the aim of this thesis is to present the objective and characteristics of urban defense operations, the organization of the battlefield and the types of urban defense tasks, together with the challenges that military operations in urban areas bring. But before that, it is necessary to present the legal basis on which the task of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Croatia is based and the doctrine that covers land operations, which also include urban defense operations. At the end, the case study of the Battle of Vukovar is presented, which does not serve as a chronological review of the battle itself, but serves as a good example that shows the previously mentioned features of urban warfare and proof of all the aforementioned assumptions of urban warfare, namely: weaker defenders can more easily resist superior ones. to attackers, complex terrain causes numerous dangers, snipers are one of the key weapons, in urban defensive warfare the emphasis is on antiarmor combat, as well as many others, and one of the more important items is the need to systematize the lessons learned about urban warfare and their doctrinal treatment.