Battleship Rules: How to Play

By the Iron Tide team · Last reviewed October 9, 2026

Battleship is a two-player guessing game. Each player hides a fleet of five ships on a grid, then the players take turns calling out squares to find and sink the other fleet. The first to sink all five enemy ships wins.

What you need

Each player has two 10×10 grids. Columns are lettered A through J and rows are numbered 1 through 10, so every square has a name like B4 or H9. One grid holds your own ships. The other is where you record your shots at the enemy.

You can play with the board game, with pencil and paper, or online in your browser, where the grids and the record keeping are handled for you.

The fleet

Both players start with the same five ships, 17 squares in all:

Older and newer editions name the ships a little differently. The guide to Battleship ships lists the variations.

Setting up

1. Place all five ships on your own grid without letting your opponent see.
2. Ships go horizontally or vertically, never diagonally.
3. Ships cannot overlap or hang off the edge of the grid.
4. Once the game starts, ships do not move.

The standard rules let ships touch each other. Some families play a house rule that ships need at least one empty square between them. Either works as long as both players agree before the first shot.

Taking a turn

1. Call out one square, for example “D7”.
2. Your opponent checks their grid and answers “hit” if a ship covers that square, or “miss” if it is open water.
3. Mark the result on your tracking grid: traditionally a red peg for a hit and a white peg for a miss.
4. Your opponent marks the same shot on their own grid, and then it is their turn.

In the standard game you fire one shot per turn whether you hit or miss. Answering honestly is the one rule the game cannot work without.

Sinking a ship

A ship sinks when every one of its squares has been hit. The owner has to announce it, and which ship it was. That is where the famous line “You sank my battleship!” comes from. Knowing which ship went down matters: if the two-square ship is gone, you can stop checking gaps that only it could fit in.

Winning

The first player to sink all five of the opponent’s ships wins. A typical game between two people takes 10 to 15 minutes.

The Salvo variation

Salvo is the best-known advanced rule, and it is printed in many editions of the board game. Instead of one shot per turn, you fire one shot for every ship you still have afloat: five shots at the start, fewer as you lose ships. You call all the shots first, and then your opponent reports the results. Salvo makes games faster and makes every lost ship hurt twice.

How the rules work on this site

• Classic follows the standard rules above: a 10×10 grid, five ships, one shot per turn, ships may touch.
• Tactical keeps the same grid and fleet and adds one ability per ship class, paid for with command points. Lose the ship and you lose its ability.

Common questions