Battleship Game: Play Free Against the Computer

Play Battleship free against the computer: a 10 × 10 sea, five ships of 5, 4, 3, 3 and 2 squares, and a computer on Easy or Hard.

How to play Battleship

1. Your fleet is placed at random. Shuffle until you like the layout, then start the battle.
2. Tap a square in the enemy waters to fire. A dot is a miss, a red cross is a hit.
3. When every square of a ship is hit, it sinks, and the water around it is marked for you.
4. You and the computer take turns, one shot each. Sink all five enemy ships before the computer sinks yours.

The fleet

Each side has the same five ships. Together they cover 17 of the 100 squares.

The rules on this board

• Ships are straight, across or down, and never touch each other, not even at a corner.
• Each turn is one shot, hit or miss. Then it is the other side's turn.
• Every shot is called for you: miss, hit, or hit and sunk.

Paper versions differ from house to house: some use more ships, some let ships touch, and in some a hit earns another shot. This board plays the classic way.

How to beat the computer

• Hunt on a checkerboard: the smallest ship covers 2 squares, so firing at every other square is enough to find every ship, with half the shots.
• Finish what you hit: after a hit, try the four squares around it. After two hits in a row, stay on that line until the ship sinks.
• Use the marked water: ships never touch, so the squares around a sunk ship are empty. Don't waste shots there.

Easy fires at random, so it is a gentle game for children and first-timers. Hard plays the way a good player does: it hunts on a checkerboard and finishes every ship it hits.

For the full paper rules and the variants, see Battleship rules.

Battleship is a trademark of Hasbro. This page is not affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro; it is the classic paper game, free in your browser.

Frequently asked questions