Battleship Game: How It Plays and Which Edition to Get

What the Battleship game is

Battleship is a hidden-information game for two players. Each of you secretly places five ships on your own grid. Then you take turns calling out a square on the other player's grid by letter and number. Your opponent tells you whether you hit a ship or missed. You mark the result, they mark it too, and the first player to sink all five enemy ships wins.

There's no dice and no cards in the classic game. The only luck is where your opponent decided to hide things, and the only skill is how you hunt once you find something. That's why it holds up. A 7-year-old and a grandparent play on even terms.

The box facts, from Hasbro's Battleship Classic rulebook (product code F4527):

• Players: 2
• Ages: 7+
• Contents: 2 portable battle cases, 10 plastic ships, 73 red hit pegs, 168 miss pegs and the instructions
• Ships per player: 5
• Co-op or competitive: competitive, one against one
• Assembly: Hasbro's page notes adult assembly is required

One small detail: Hasbro's product text calls the miss pegs white, and the contents list in the same page calls them green. Your box will settle it. The rules work the same with either color.

How Battleship plays

The rules below are in my own words, from Hasbro's Battleship Classic rulebook, F4527 (the 2022 edition of the sheet). Older boxes in the table may differ in small ways, so follow your own box's sheet if it has one.

The two grids

Each battle case has two grids. The flat one in the base is your ocean grid. That's where your ships sit. The upright one in the lid is your target grid. That's where you record your shots at the other player. Letters run down one side and numbers along the other, so every hole has a name like D-4.

Sit facing each other with the lids up. The lids are walls. Nobody sees the other ocean.

Your fleet

Each player gets one of each ship:

1. Carrier: 5 holes
2. Battleship: 4 holes
3. Destroyer: 3 holes
4. Submarine: 3 holes
5. Patrol boat: 2 holes

Here's the math-teacher part. Add the holes and you get 17. That's how many hits it takes to win, every game, no matter what. Everything else you call is a miss. I like a game where the finish line is a fixed number. It turns every hit into a fraction you can watch shrink.

Placing ships

Before the first shot, each player sets their five ships on the ocean grid in secret. Each ship has two small pegs underneath that fit into two holes on the grid.

• Ships go across or up and down, never diagonally.
• No part of a ship may hang over the letters or numbers at the edge.

The first time you play, the rulebook has you split the 10 ships so each case holds one of each type, and split the hit and miss pegs evenly into each case's storage tray. After that, they live in the case.

A turn

Decide who goes first. Then you take turns, one shot each.

1. Pick a hole on your target grid and call it out: letter, then number.
2. Your opponent checks their ocean grid.
3. If there's no ship there, they say "miss." You put a miss peg in that hole on your target grid so you don't call it again. Your opponent doesn't have to mark your misses on their side.
4. If a ship is there, they say "hit" and name the ship. You put a red peg in that hole on your target grid, and they put a red peg into the hole on the ship you hit.

Marisol's take: "A coordinate is the one map reading nobody argues with. Letter first, number second, every time." She checked our garage table's grid once. It was square.

Sinking and winning

When every hole on a ship has a red peg, that ship is sunk. Its owner announces which ship went down.

Sink all five of your opponent's ships before they sink yours, and you win.

The Salvo game

The rulebook has a variant for experienced players, called Salvo. Everything above stays the same, except:

• On your turn, you fire one shot for each of your ships still afloat. Everyone starts with five.
• You call the shots one at a time, and your opponent answers each one with hit or miss.
• Each time one of your ships sinks, your next salvo has one fewer shot.

For a harder Salvo game, the rulebook suggests not saying which ship was hit. You only learn "hit." Then you work out what you hit from the pattern. That version is a puzzle, and a slow one.

An addition of ours, not Hasbro's: when a new player is learning, the experienced player plays Salvo while the new player plays the standard one-shot game. It's a handicap that keeps the game close without either player going easy.

How the Battleship Card Game plays

The Battleship Card Game is a different game with the same goal. These notes come from Hasbro's Battleship Card Game rulebook, E7971.

• Each player takes a fleet color, red or blue, and that color's cards.
• You lay your 12 Coordinate cards face down in a 3-by-4 grid. Five are ships and seven are misses.
• You shuffle your 26 Battle cards and keep a hand of five.
• On your turn you play one card, then draw back up to five.

White Peg cards flip one of your opponent's face-down Coordinate cards. If it's a ship, it stays face up for the rest of the game. Red Peg cards slide under a revealed ship, and each peg on the card counts as a hit. Each Ship card shows how many hits sink it. Power cards add a shield, let you play two cards, repair a ship or draw extra cards. Each ship also has its own power while it's revealed and afloat.

Sink all five of your opponent's ships and you win. The rulebook has the younger player go first and includes beginner rules for younger players. If your family likes the pegs-and-grids game but wants something that packs flat, this is the version to look at.

Battleship editions on Amazon US right now

Our data for this page lists 8 Battleship editions and versions on Amazon US as of October 2026. The table above shows the players, age and play time each listing states, with a dash where a listing leaves a field out.

The classic peg-and-grid game

• Hasbro Battleship Classic. Listed as the classic edition, ages 7+, 2 players, strategy. This is the game described above.
• Hasbro Battleship. Also ages 7+ and 2 players. The listing in our data doesn't name an edition or a component list, so compare the photos before you choose between the two Hasbro boxes.
• Hasbro Battleship with Planes. Ages 7+, 2 players. The name says planes join the fleet. The listing in our data doesn't explain how they change the rules, so I won't guess.

The card game

• Hasbro Battleship Card Game. Ages 7+, 2 players, listed as a card game. See the section above for how it plays.

Electronic versions

• Hasbro Electronic Battleship Reloaded. Listed for ages 8+, 1 to 2 players, with a solo mode and electronic play. It's the only edition in our data with a starting age above 7 and the only one you can play alone.
• Milton Bradley Battleship Electronic Handheld (1995). Listed as an electronic game. Our data has no players, age or play time for it.

Older and reissued boxes

• Milton Bradley Battleship 1984 Edition. Listed for 2 players and marked as resale stock.
• WS Game Company Battleship. Listed for ages 7+ and 2 players, with 2 folding battle cases, 10 plastic ships, red hit pegs and white miss pegs. It's also marked as resale stock.

The Battleship name has moved from Milton Bradley to Hasbro over the years, which is why both makers appear in the table. If you're replacing a box from your own childhood, the 1984 Edition is the one with a year on it.

Which Battleship fits your table

My opinion, and the only one on this page: buy for the group you actually have. Every non-electronic Battleship in our data says 2 players, and the rules are built around two people facing each other across two lids. If your game night is usually four people, Battleship isn't the game for the whole table. It's the game for the two people who finished the snacks first.

Quick matches, from the listings:

• The game as most people remember it: Hasbro Battleship Classic
• Something small for a bag or a car trip: the Battleship Card Game
• One player who wants to play alone: Electronic Battleship Reloaded, listed with a solo mode
• A kid who is 7: any of the 7+ listings. Electronic Battleship Reloaded is 8+, so wait a year for that one.
• A box with a year on it: the 1984 Edition or the 1995 Handheld

Check the age label on the listing. Toys with small parts are a choking hazard for children under 3. Hasbro's classic rulebook carries the same warning, and a few hundred loose pegs are exactly that kind of small part.

Who should skip Battleship

Skip it if you need a game for three or more. There's no way to seat a third player in the classic game except as a referee, and a referee in Battleship has nothing to rule on.

Skip it if your players hate long silences. A lot of Battleship is thinking about where to shoot next, out loud or not. Some kids love that. Some want to roll something. A dice game moves faster.

Skip the classic box too if setup will be a problem. Ten small ships and a few hundred pegs need a case that closes and a person who closes it. The card game has fewer pieces to lose.

If you like Battleship, look at these

Picked for what they have in common with Battleship: two players, hidden information and deduction.

• Stratego: hidden pieces on a shared board, two players
• Guess Who: yes-or-no questions instead of coordinates
• Mastermind: crack a hidden code with pegs and feedback
• Connect 4: two players, a grid and no luck at all
• Othello: another two-player grid game that's quick to teach
• Travel games: small boxes for the road, card games included

For the rest of each maker's lineup, see the Hasbro and Milton Bradley brand pages.

Seventeen hits. Start counting.