Play Battleship online, free, no sign-up
Play Battleship online, free, no sign-up
Each player has a 10×10 grid and a fleet of five ships: a Carrier (5 squares), Battleship (4), Cruiser (3), Submarine (3), and Destroyer (2). Place your ships on the grid — click a ship in the fleet list, then click where you want it. Press R to rotate before placing, or drag it directly onto the grid. Ships cannot overlap or go off the edge.
Once both fleets are placed, players take turns firing at the opponent's hidden grid. Click any unmarked square to fire. A red square is a hit. Grey is a miss. When every square of a ship has been hit, it sinks — the entire ship lights up dark red. Sink all five enemy ships before they sink yours to win.
To play online against a friend, choose Online at the top, share the invite link that appears, and your friend joins automatically — no account needed.
Battleship started as a pencil-and-paper game played in the trenches during World War I, where soldiers would sketch grids on paper and call out coordinates to pass the time. Milton Bradley published the first plastic board game version in 1967, with the peg-and-ship setup that most people picture. The electronic handheld version followed in 1977 and sold millions. Today it is one of the best-known strategy games in the world.
The core mechanic — hidden information, deductive reasoning, and the tension of a near-miss — has kept the game relevant for over a century. The rules have barely changed in that time. The fleet sizes, the 10×10 grid, even the standard ship names are almost exactly as Milton Bradley defined them in the 1960s.
Read the full history of Battleship →
Hunt on a checkerboard pattern. Ships are at least two squares long, which means they must occupy at least one dark square on a checkerboard. Firing only on alternating squares (like the black squares on a chessboard) gives you full coverage with half the shots. Once you have a hit, switch to targeting mode.
When you get a hit, fire along the axis. After a hit, fire one square up, down, left, and right to find the ship's orientation. Once you know the direction, follow the line until the ship sinks — don't scatter your shots.
Place ships away from edges and corners. Most opponents instinctively start firing around the edges, especially corners. Placing your fleet in the middle third of the board gives you a statistical advantage in the early game.
Scatter your fleet. Clustering ships together means a run of hits in one area can reveal multiple targets. Spread them out so a bad streak in one corner does not expose your whole navy.
Don't be predictable. Against human opponents, people often place ships in the same positions out of habit. Varying your layout every game makes you much harder to read.
Five ships per player: a Carrier (5 squares), Battleship (4), Cruiser (3), Submarine (3), and Destroyer (2). That is 17 total squares of ships on a 100-square grid. Knowing how much of the board is occupied helps you calculate how many shots it should take to win.
In the standard rules used here, ships can be placed directly adjacent to each other — they just cannot overlap. Some house-rule variants require a gap of at least one square between ships. If you are playing locally with a friend, agree before you start.
The computer uses a two-phase strategy. During the hunt phase it fires on a checkerboard pattern to efficiently cover the board with as few wasted shots as possible. When it gets a hit it switches to target mode, firing along the axis of the hit ship until it sinks it. This is roughly the optimal strategy a good human player would use.
Choose Online at the top of the page and click Create Room. Share the invite link that appears. Your opponent opens the link and joins automatically — no account needed on either side. Both players then place their ships and the game begins. If either player closes the tab, the game ends.
There is no single best first shot, but starting in the middle of the board rather than the edges gives you more information faster. Firing at coordinates like E5 or F6 early on means any ship running through the centre is more likely to be found sooner. From there, use the checkerboard pattern to cover the board efficiently.
Yes. Battleship on TicToe.org is completely free — no account, no download, no catch. It runs in any modern browser on phone or desktop.