Battleship (game)

Battleship is a two-player strategy guessing game in which each player hides a fleet of ships on a grid and takes turns calling out coordinates to locate and sink the opponent’s ships.

Battleship is a two-player strategy guessing game where each player hides a fleet of ships on a grid and takes turns calling coordinates to locate and sink the opponent's fleet. The first player to destroy the entire enemy fleet wins.

What it is

Battleship is a classic board game of naval combat. Each player has a hidden 10×10 grid and a fleet of five ships. The objective is to sink all of the opponent's ships before they sink yours. The game is turn-based: players call out grid coordinates, and the opponent reports a hit or miss. A ship is sunk only when every square it occupies has been hit.

How to play

Players secretly place their ships on the grid, typically without overlapping and without diagonal placement. On each turn, a player calls a coordinate. The opponent marks the result: a hit (if the square contains part of a ship) or a miss. When all squares of a ship are hit, that ship is announced as sunk. Play continues until one player's entire fleet is destroyed.

Strategy and digital versions

A common search strategy uses a checkerboard or parity pattern to cover the board efficiently, then switches to targeted shots around any hit. Defensively, spreading ships out and avoiding obvious patterns helps. Battleship has been adapted into computer, mobile, and online versions, allowing play against human or computer opponents while preserving the core coordinate-guessing rules.