About Battleship

Battleship is the classic guessing game of naval combat. It began as a pencil-and-paper game played on hand-drawn grids, long before it was sold in a box, and is also widely known as sea battle. Two players each hide a fleet and then try to find and sink the other's ships one square at a time.

This version uses the standard setup: a ten-by-ten sea and five ships, a carrier of five squares, a battleship of four, a cruiser and a submarine of three each, and a destroyer of two. That makes seventeen target squares in total. Your ships are laid out at random at the start of the game. If you do not like the arrangement, the Redeploy button shuffles it, and you can keep using it until the first enemy shot lands on your sea.

Turns are simple. You fire one shot, see whether it is a hit or a miss, and play passes to your opponent. When every square of a ship has been hit, the ship is announced as sunk and its position is revealed. A typical game takes about five minutes, and it works well for children and adults who like a mix of logic and luck.

How to play Battleship

The goal is to sink all five ships in the enemy fleet before your own fleet is sunk.
Both fleets are placed automatically on separate ten-by-ten grids. You see your own ships but not your opponent's.
Before your sea has been fired on, you may press Redeploy to shuffle your ships into a new random layout. This does not use up your turn.
On your turn, click one square on the enemy grid to fire. Each square can only be targeted once.
The shot is marked as a hit or a miss, and the turn then passes to your opponent either way.
A ship sinks when every one of its squares has been hit. Sunk ships are named and shown on the grid.
The first player to hit all seventeen enemy ship squares wins.

Rules checked against the game on 2026-09-01.

Battleship tips and strategy

Search in a checkerboard pattern. The smallest ship covers two squares, so firing at every other square will find every ship in half the shots.
After a hit, try the four neighbouring squares. Once a second hit shows the ship's direction, keep firing along that line until it sinks.
Keep track of which ships are still afloat. If only the carrier remains, ignore any gap that is too small to hold five squares.
Ships in this game are allowed to touch each other. If you get more hits in a cluster than the sunk ship can explain, a second ship is lying alongside.
Use Redeploy if your starting layout bunches ships together. Spread-out fleets take longer to find, because one lucky hit reveals less.

Battleship FAQ

Do I get another shot after a hit?

No. In this version each player fires exactly one shot per turn, whether it hits or misses. This keeps games balanced, since a player who finds a ship cannot sink it in a single turn before the opponent has a chance to reply.

Can I place my own ships?

Ships are positioned at random for you, which lets the game begin immediately. You can press Redeploy as many times as you like to get a different layout, but only until the first enemy shot has landed on your grid.

How many ships are in battleship?

Each fleet has five ships: a carrier that covers five squares, a battleship of four, a cruiser of three, a submarine of three and a destroyer of two. Together they occupy seventeen of the hundred squares on your grid.

Can ships touch each other?

Yes. Ships never overlap, but the random placement allows them to sit side by side or end to end. This is worth remembering while hunting, because two ships lying next to each other can look like one long ship at first.

How long does a game of battleship take?

Most games last around five minutes. Each player can fire at most a hundred shots, and a game normally ends well before that, usually after forty to sixty shots from the winner depending on how quickly the first hits arrive.

How many players do I need for Battleship?

Battleship supports exactly 2 players. If a full table of real people isn't ready when you queue, MultiplayerHub fills the empty seats with bots instantly so the match starts without waiting.

Do I need to download anything or sign up to play Battleship?

No. Battleship runs entirely in your browser tab — no app install, no account, no email required. Pick a name and you're matched within seconds.

Is Battleship really free?

Yes — Battleship and every other game on MultiplayerHub is free to play, supported by ads rather than a paywall or loot boxes.

Can I play Battleship with a specific friend instead of strangers?

Create a private room from the Battleship page to get a shareable room code, or enter a code a friend already sent you to jump straight into their table.