How to Play Battleship
Overview
Battleship is a two-player game played on hidden grids. Each player has their own setup with two grids: a horizontal ocean grid where they place their own ships, and a vertical target grid where they track shots fired at the opponent. Players cannot see each other's grids, so the game is one of deduction: fire shots, read the hit/miss feedback, and deduce where the enemy ships are.
Components (classic Hasbro/Milton Bradley edition)
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2 player units, each containing an ocean grid and a target grid (each grid is 10x10, columns A-J, rows 1-10).
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A fleet of ships per player. The widely used standard configuration is five ships:
- Carrier - 5 holes
- Battleship - 4 holes
- Cruiser - 3 holes
- Submarine - 3 holes
- Destroyer - 2 holes
(Edition note: the 2002 Hasbro revision renames the Cruiser to a second Destroyer and adds a 2-hole Patrol Boat; some editions ship 4 ships. The five-ship 5/4/3/3/2 layout is the most commonly cited standard and is used here.)
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Red pegs to mark hits and white pegs to mark misses.
Setup
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Each player stands their unit up so the opponent cannot see the ocean grid.
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Secretly place all of your ships on your ocean grid:
- Ships are placed horizontally or vertically (never diagonally).
- Ships occupy consecutive holes and may not overlap each other.
- Whether ships may touch edge-to-edge is a house decision; standard rules allow adjacency.
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Leave your target grid empty - you will fill it in as you fire.
Turn Structure
Players alternate turns. On your turn:
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Call a shot by naming a single coordinate (e.g. 'B-5').
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Your opponent checks their ocean grid and answers 'Hit' or 'Miss'.
- On a hit, you place a red peg on that square of your target grid, and your opponent places a red peg in the matching hole of the ship on their ocean grid.
- On a miss, you place a white peg on that square of your target grid.
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When all holes of one of your ships have been hit, you must announce that the ship is sunk (and which type it was).
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Play passes to your opponent.
Winning
The first player to sink every ship in the opponent's fleet wins the game. Because both players fire each round but one player always reaches a complete fleet sink first, the game produces a decisive winner and a loser - there are no draws.
Salvo Variant (for experienced players)
In the official Salvo variant, instead of one shot per turn you fire a number of shots equal to the number of your own ships still afloat. Call all your shots first; the opponent then reports the results together. As your ships are sunk, your firepower decreases. The win condition is unchanged: sink the whole enemy fleet first.
