How to play Battleship: a visual guide
Hide five ships on your own grid, then take turns calling shots at your opponent's grid until one fleet is gone. This guide covers the fleet, placement, a turn, sinking ships and how to hunt well.
The grid and the fleet
Battleship is a game for two players. Each player has an ocean grid of ten rows and ten columns, 100 squares in all, and hides a fleet of five ships on it. Your opponent never sees your grid, only the results of the shots they fire at it.
| Ship | Squares |
|---|---|
| Carrier | 5 |
| Battleship | 4 |
| Cruiser | 3 |
| Submarine | 3 |
| Destroyer | 2 |
The fleet covers 17 of your 100 squares. Both players get exactly the same five ships, so the only difference between the fleets is where they are hidden.
Placing your ships
Before any shots are fired, both players place their fleets in secret. Each ship lies in a straight line across consecutive squares, either horizontally or vertically.
- Every square of a ship must be inside the grid.
- Ships can't overlap or share a square.
- Ships may touch each other, side by side or end to end.
- All five ships must be placed before you can mark your fleet ready.
When you play Battleship online, you drag each ship onto your grid and rotate it, or use Auto Place to lay out the whole fleet at random. Once your fleet is ready you can still take it back and move ships, until your opponent is ready too. Firing starts the moment both fleets are ready.
Taking turns
Once both fleets are ready, the game picks the first shooter at random. After that the players alternate, one shot per turn.
- Pick a square Choose any square on your opponent's grid that you haven't fired at yet.
- Fire The game tells you at once whether the shot is a hit or a miss and marks it on your target grid.
- Pass the turn Your opponent fires back at your grid. The turn passes after every shot, so a hit doesn't earn you another one.
Hits, misses and sinking
A shot that lands on any square of a ship is a hit. A shot into empty water is a miss. Your target grid keeps every result, and your own grid shows where your opponent has fired, so both of you can see how the battle stands.
A ship sinks when every one of its squares has been hit. A hit on its own doesn't say which ship you struck. When a ship goes down, the enemy fleet panel marks that ship as sunk, so you know which ships are still afloat and how long they are.
How to win
The first player to sink all five of the opponent's ships wins, and the game ends on that shot. Nothing else scores, so the game is a race to find all 17 of your opponent's ship squares first.
When the game ends, both fleets are revealed, so you can see where the ships you never found were hiding.
Legal and illegal moves
The online board enforces the rules for you, but these are the limits to remember if you also play on paper.
Allowed
- Placing ships horizontally or vertically anywhere they fit on the grid.
- Placing ships so they touch each other.
- Firing at any square on your opponent's grid you haven't tried yet.
- Using your hits and misses to choose the next square.
Not allowed
- Placing a ship diagonally.
- Letting a ship hang off the edge of the grid or overlap another ship.
- Firing at the same square twice.
- Firing more than once per turn, even after a hit.
- Moving ships once firing has started.
Hunting tips for your first games
Every ship covers at least two squares in a row. If you fire only at squares of one colour on a checkerboard pattern, you will hit every ship at least once without wasting shots on the other half of the grid.
Ships can touch, so a long line of hits may belong to two ships. If the enemy fleet panel shows a shorter ship sunk than your line of hits, the extra hits belong to another ship, and it is still worth searching beside them.
Late in the game, think about the ships that are left. If only the carrier is afloat, a gap of open water shorter than five squares can't hold it, so you can skip it. When you place your own fleet, avoid obvious patterns such as lining every ship along the edges.
Try a quick demo game
A live solo game against the AI, right here on the page. Place your fleet, call your shots and sink every enemy ship.
Battleship
You know the rules. Hide your fleet.
Private rooms with friends and optional video chat, a quick public match, or a practice game against the AI. No download, no sign-up.
