Introduction

Battleship is a world-famous game originating as a paper-and-pencil game around the time of World War I in the 1930’s before being released in it’s more familar modern form by Martin Bradley in the 60’s.  Most likely, this is a game that you have played more than once when you were younger, though if you are like me then it’s been a while!

In Battleship, opposing players secretly arrange their ships on a grid.  Then the players alternate making guesses of the locations of their opponents ships, attempting to get enough hits to sink the enemy fleet.  Are there good strategies for where to place the ships?  What about strategies for picking locations to fire?  It’s up to you to find out!

Rules

I know, I know, it’s been a while!  Or maybe you’ve never played Battleship before, in which case you’re in for a treat!  Take a moment to review the basic rules of Battleship.

  • Each player should draw two \(10\times 10\) grids. Label the rows with the letters A-J and the columns 1-10, as pictured below.

  • Next, each player should secretly fill in a \(5\times 1\) with C’s for a carrier, a \(4\times 1\) with b’s battleship, a \(3\times 1\) with s’s for submarine, a \(3\times 1\) with c’s for cruiser, and a \(2\times 1\) with d’s for destroyer. You must keep the first grid hidden from your partner the entire game!
  • Next, each player takes turns being the attacking and defending player, respectively. The attacking player guessing spaces by specifying a particular letter/number combination. Their opponent must respond with whether the guess is a ‘hit’ (if there is a ship on the space) or a ‘miss’ if there is not a ship on the space.
  • The attacking player then records the result with an H or an M on their second grid to record the result. Likewise, the defending player should mark the board containing their ships to indicate where the shots have been fired.
  • If the attacking player manages to cover up all spaces for any particular ship, the ship is considered ‘sunk’ and the defender must say that a ship has been sunk.
  • The first player to sink all of their opponents ships wins.