About BattleshipBattleship is the classic strategy board game you probably played on paper as a kid. Now available as a free online browser game: position your secret fleet on a grid, try to guess where the enemy ships are hiding, and sink them all before they sink you. Three CPU difficulty levels to keep every session challenging.
How to playEach player has two 10x10 grids: one where you place your fleet (aircraft carrier, destroyers, submarines and other ships of different lengths) and one where you track your guesses against the enemy. During the placement phase, drag or click to position each ship — you can choose horizontal or vertical orientation.
In the battle phase, turns alternate: you pick a coordinate on the enemy grid (for example, C5) and the system reveals 'miss' if you're wrong, or 'hit' and 'sunk' when you strike a ship. The first player to sink the entire enemy fleet wins. Against the CPU, three difficulty levels are available: easy (random shots), medium (explores adjacent cells after a hit), and hard (uses probability logic).
ControlsEverything is handled with click or tap. During placement, click a ship to select it and click the grid to place it; a rotate button flips orientation. During battle, simply click or tap the cell on the enemy grid where you want to fire.
The game works equally well on desktop and mobile, with no download or installation required — just open it in your browser and play for free.
Tips and strategiesStart with the corners and the center to quickly map out empty zones — large ships can't fit too close to edges, so the middle area and diagonals tend to hide the bigger vessels. When you score a hit, immediately explore the four adjacent cells (up, down, left, right) to determine orientation and complete the sinking.
Avoid random shots after a hit — prioritize finishing the ship you already located. Keep a mental map of used shots to avoid wasting turns. On hard difficulty the CPU uses probability patterns, so spreading your ships across the grid (avoiding clusters) makes you harder to find. Smaller submarines tend to be the last survivors — tuck them into corners for maximum staying power.
Origin of the genreThe pen-and-paper version of Battleship is attributed to the Russian Navy in the years before World War I, when officers reportedly played it in notebooks during voyages. The grid-with-alphanumeric-coordinates format spread across Europe in the following decades.
Milton Bradley published the commercial boxed version in the United States in 1967, turning Battleship into a global bestseller. Digital versions began appearing in the 1980s on home computers like the Apple II and Commodore 64. Since then Battleship has migrated through consoles, handhelds, and now lives in the browser as a free online game — faithful to the original board rules and accessible on any device without download.