Battleship on paper: grid, rules and printable
Draw the grid, place the fleet, call shots and track hits. Plus a printable sheet and the same game online.
To play Battleship on paper you need two players, a pen each and a sheet of squared or printed paper. Every player draws two 10x10 grids: one to hide their own ships, one to track shots at the opponent. Place five ships in straight lines: Carrier (5 squares), Battleship (4), Cruiser (3), Submarine (3) and Destroyer (2). Take turns calling a square such as "B7". The opponent says "hit" or "miss", and "sunk" when the last square of a ship goes down. Sink all five enemy ships first and you win.
Do not want to draw the grids? Print the ready-made sheet: two grids with letters and numbers, lines for names and a fleet list to cross out. Or skip the paper and play Battleship online. Nothing to install, it opens in the browser.
How to draw the grid
Squared paper works best, but plain paper does too.
- Count ten squares across and ten down, and outline the block with a thicker line.
- Write the letters A to J along the top and the numbers 1 to 10 down the left side. A square is a letter plus a number: B7, J10.
- Draw a second identical grid next to the first or below it. Label them "My ships" and "My shots" so you never mix them up.
On school squared paper a square is about 5 mm, so the grid is roughly 5 cm wide. That is enough to play, but you will be making small dots and crosses.
Ships and how to place them
The usual pen-and-paper fleet matches the boxed game:
| Ship | Squares |
|---|---|
| Carrier | 5 |
| Battleship | 4 |
| Cruiser | 3 |
| Submarine | 3 |
| Destroyer | 2 |
That is five ships and 17 squares out of 100. Sources differ a little on names and sizes (some versions use a 2-square Patrol Boat, others a 1-square submarine), so agree on the fleet before the first shot and write it down.
Place ships horizontally or vertically, never diagonally, and keep them fully inside the grid. Ships may not overlap. Under the standard rules they are allowed to touch, but many players add a house rule that ships may not touch, even at the corners. Pick one and stick to it. Once the first shot is fired, ships stay where they are.
Mark your ships on your own grid by outlining or shading the squares.
Calling shots: hit, miss, sunk
- On your turn call one square: "E5".
- Your opponent checks their ships grid and answers "hit" or "miss". If that shot finishes a ship, they say "sunk". In the boxed game they also name the ship ("you sunk my Cruiser"). Many paper players drop that part to make the game harder.
- You record the answer on your shots grid. A common marking is a dot or O for a miss and a cross for a hit.
- Your opponent marks your shot on their ships grid so they can see where they have been hit.
Standard rules give one shot per turn, hit or not. Some groups let you shoot again after a hit, which is how the Russian version works. Agree on it up front.
Finding ships
Shoot in a checkerboard pattern first, hitting every second square: every ship of two squares or more has to cover at least one of those squares. When you score a hit, fire at the squares directly above, below, left and right until the ship goes down. If ships may touch, keep checking around a sunk ship, because another one could be hiding next to it.
Common disputes
Can ships touch? Boxed rules say yes. If you want to make ships harder to find, ban it.
Do I get another shot after a hit? Not in the boxed game. Decide before you start.
Do I have to say which ship was hit? Boxed rules say you name the ship when it sinks. On paper, many players only say "hit" until the last square.
What if someone lied? You can only check at the end, when both sheets are shown. That is the one real weak spot of the paper game.
A kid wants to play. Use a 6x6 or 8x8 grid with a shorter fleet, for example one ship of three squares, two of two and three of one, and let ships touch.
Printable Battleship grid
We drew our own sheet: black and white, A4 landscape, so it prints cleanly on any home printer. It has two 10x10 grids with the letters A to J and numbers 1 to 10, lines for both players' names and the date, and a fleet list under each grid to cross out sunk ships. Left grid is "My ships", right grid is "My shots".
Download:
Print one sheet per player at 100% scale. On US Letter paper choose "fit to page" in the print dialog. The fleet list shows the five-ship boxed set. If you prefer the Russian fleet, see below.
The Russian paper version
In Russia and nearby countries the paper game is played with ten ships: one of four squares, two of three, three of two and four of one, 20 squares in total. Ships may not touch, not even at corners, and a hit gives you another shot until you miss. Columns use the Russian letters, usually ten of them with one letter skipped. You answer "miss", "wounded" or "killed" instead of "hit" and "sunk". Our Battleship game follows this classic set, with a grid of 8, 10 or 12 squares. The full comparison is in the Battleship rules guide.
A Russian-style printable with the Cyrillic letters is available on the Russian page.
Play it online instead
No paper, no pen, nobody around? Our Battleship lets you play against a bot at three levels, a live opponent online, or in a campaign of five battles. You can place your fleet yourself, rotating ships with the R key or a right click, or let one button do it. It is free and runs in the browser, nothing to install.
