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1P vs AI · Classic Naval Strategy
Battleship began as a pencil-and-paper game called "Broadsides" played by soldiers during World War I. The modern version with plastic grids and pegs was first produced by Milton Bradley in 1967 and became a cultural phenomenon. The game simulates naval combat: each player commands a hidden fleet of five ships of different sizes, and the goal is to locate and sink the enemy fleet before they sink yours. The tension comes from incomplete information — you never know for certain where the enemy ships are, only where they are not.
Strategic fleet placement is the first key to winning. Avoid lining ships along the edges — experienced opponents will clear the perimeter early. Do not cluster ships together, because a hit in a dense area might uncover multiple ships at once. The best placements use both horizontal and vertical orientations at irregular intervals across the board. For attacking, the probability density approach is most effective: track which cells are most likely to contain a ship based on remaining ship sizes and positions already eliminated as empty.
Battleship has appeared in popular culture across decades. It was featured in the 1985 film "The Last Starfighter," appeared as a Microsoft Windows game in the 1990s, and inspired a 2012 Hollywood feature film. The game has also been used in academic research on search algorithms and decision theory — the optimal strategy for locating hidden ships is mathematically analogous to search and rescue operations. The standard Battleship fleet consists of one carrier (5 cells), one battleship (4 cells), one cruiser (3 cells), one submarine (3 cells), and one destroyer (2 cells).
Our AI offers three distinct difficulty levels. Easy mode fires randomly — sufficient for casual play but predictable. Medium mode uses hunt-and-target logic: once it scores a hit, it fires at adjacent cells to locate the rest of the ship. Hard mode uses a probability density algorithm that calculates the most likely ship positions on every turn, making it a formidable opponent that systematically reduces uncertainty. Place your fleet manually for full control before the match starts.
The probability targeting algorithm works by simulating every possible placement of every remaining ship on the current board state. For each empty cell, it counts how many valid ship placements would occupy that cell. Cells with higher counts are more likely to contain a ship. The AI then fires at the cell with the highest probability, pinning its search around the intersection of the most likely ship locations. This is the same mathematical approach used in search and rescue operations — when searching for a missing object in a large area, you prioritize cells with the highest probability density. Understanding this algorithm helps you place your fleet more effectively: avoid configurations that create high-probability cells, such as parallel lines or tight clusters.
Place your fleet, fire your shots, and sink the enemy fleet — all in your browser with no sign-up or download. Works on desktop and mobile. For the dedicated vs-AI landing with placement tactics and Hard-mode survival, try Battleship vs AI. If tactical grid games appeal to you, try Connect Four for a very different kind of strategic alignment challenge.
Play Battleship online against AI with three distinct targeting algorithms: random, hunt-and-target, and probability density. Each difficulty level uses a fundamentally different search strategy.
Battleship is a naval strategy game on a 10x10 grid. Place five ships, then hunt the enemy fleet. The game combines information theory (tracking hits to deduce ship locations) with strategic fleet placement. The three AI difficulty levels use fundamentally different search strategies — from random guessing to full probability density analysis.
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