Cover art for Battleship

Battleship

1931 · BGG
Avg rating
4.73
Bayes rating
4.77
Weight
1.20 (Light)
Players
2
Playtime
30 min
Ratings count
11,330

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Description

Battleship was originally a pencil-and-paper public domain game known by different names, but Milton Bradley made it into the well known board game in 1967. The pencil and paper grids were changed to plastic grids with holes that could hold plastic pegs used to record the guesses.

Each player deploys his ships (of lengths varying from 2 to 5 squares) secretly on a square grid. Then each player shoots at the other's grid by calling a location. The defender responds by "Hit!" or "Miss!". You try to deduce where the enemy ships are and sink them. First to do so wins.

The Salvo variant listed in the rules allows each player to call out from 1 to 5 shots at a time depending on the amount of ships the player has left (IE: players each start off with 5 ships, so they start off with 5 shots. As ships are sunk, the players gets fewer shots). This version of the game is closer to the original pencil-and-paper public domain game. Many versions of the pencil-and-paper game have different amounts of shots based on the ship (IE: Battleship: 5 shots. Destroyer: 3 Shots, Etc.).

In 2008, Hasbro "reinvented" the game into Battleship (Revised).

Some history of the published versions of the game:
1931: Starex Novelty Co. of NY publishes Salvo.
1933: The Strathmore Co. publishes Combat, The Battleship Game.
1943: Milton Bradley publishes the pad-and-pencil game Broadsides, The Game of Naval Strategy.
1943: Also published in 1943 Sink it by the L R Gebert Co. for distribution by G. Krueger Brewing Co.
1940's: Maurice L. Freedman Co. of RI publishes Warfare Naval Combat.
1961: Ideal publishes Salvo.

Other titles over the years have included Swiss Navy, Sunk (Parker Bros.), Convoy (Transogram), Wings (Strategy Games Co. of California), and Naval Battle (3M Paper and Pencil Version) .



Mechanics

Deduction Paper-and-Pencil Secret Unit Deployment

Themes

Nautical

Publishers

(Unknown) 3M AG Müller (AGMüller) ASS Altenburger Spielkarten Action Games and Toys Ltd Alexander Alga Aristoplay BCF Berliner Spielkarten Bookmark Verlag Brimtoy CBN Razor Company AB CEFA (Celulosa Fabril S. A.) CHH Games Carlit Chad Valley Co Ltd. Clementoni Dal Negro Dourios Edition Michael Fischer GmbH (EMF Verlag) El Greco Enigma (Bergsala Enigma) Exclusive Toy Corp. Falomir Juegos Fratelli Fabbri Editori (Fabbri Editore) Games International BV Gegu Spielwaren GmbH Gherzi Goldmerk Grow Jogos e Brinquedos Guau HEMA Hasbro House of Games House of Marbles Ideal Inovac Rima SA Invicta Games Jouets Mont-Blanc Kaywood Corp. King International Klee Korea Boardgames Lakeside MB Giochi MB Jeux MB Juegos MB Spellen MB Spiele Magic Box Int. Maple Toys Marc Piqué Reg. Max Dähnert & Söhne Merit Milton Bradley Montitoys Mulder Nilco S.A. Noris Spiele Novedades Montecarlo Nu-Bef Pais e Filhos Palet spil Papita Parker Brothers Paul Lamond Games Ltd Peri Spiele Peter Pan Playthings Piatnik Playkar Poptoy Ruibal Hermanos S.A. Saitek Sala Schmidt Spiele Selecta Spielzeug Smethport Specialty Co. Spear's Games Stellar Games Super Impulse Tactic Tesco The American Belt Company The Purple Cow Top That! Publishing PLC ToyCo Transogram Trixy Games Unikatoy Vilpa Whitman Wilco Publishing Winning Solutions (WS Game Company) danspil

Designers

Clifford Von Wickler