What is a Battleship puzzle?
A Battleship puzzle is a single-player logic game inspired by the classic naval game, but there is no guessing and no opponent. You are given row and column totals plus a fleet list, then you must find exactly where every hidden ship sits on the grid.
Each ship is a straight horizontal or vertical line of ship segments. Ships cannot touch each other, even diagonally, so every cruiser, submarine and patrol boat must be separated by water.
- Use the numbers around the grid to count ship segments in each row and column.
- Place every ship from the fleet exactly once.
- Ships may be horizontal or vertical, never bent.
- Ships cannot touch orthogonally or diagonally.
- A finished Battleship puzzle has one complete fleet and one unique solution.
How to play Battleship puzzle online
Click a cell once to mark a ship segment, click again to mark water, and click a third time to clear the cell. Fixed clues are already known and cannot be changed.
The row and column numbers tell you how many ship segments belong in that line. The fleet display shows the ship lengths you need to place, from the longest ship down to one-cell submarines.
- Start by scanning rows or columns with a 0 clue because every cell in that line is water.
- Use high clues to find places where long ships must fit.
- Mark water around any confirmed ship segment because ships cannot touch.
- Compare the remaining open spaces with the fleet lengths.
- Use Check when you want to catch row, column, fleet or touching mistakes.
Battleship puzzle rules
The goal is to place the full fleet without breaking the row clues, column clues or no-touching rule. A row clue of 3 means exactly three ship segments appear somewhere in that row, not necessarily as one ship.
Water marks are not always required, but they are useful. Good Battleship solvers use water to close impossible cells, protect confirmed ships and make the remaining fleet easier to count.
- A ship of length 4 occupies four consecutive cells.
- A ship of length 1 occupies one cell and must still be surrounded by water or the edge of the grid.
- Two ships cannot share an edge or a corner.
- Row and column totals count ship segments, not ship names.
- All ships in the fleet must be placed before the puzzle is solved.
Battleship puzzle strategies
Look for forced water first. A row or column with a 0 clue is completely water, and a line whose clue already has enough ship segments cannot take any more. These small exclusions often create the first real deductions.
Next, think about ship lengths. If the battleship of length 4 has only one possible home, place it. If a one-cell gap is too short for any remaining ship, mark it as water. Hard puzzles usually come down to matching the remaining fleet with the remaining spaces.
- Use 0 clues and completed lines to place water.
- Block diagonals around every confirmed ship segment.
- Test where the longest remaining ship can still fit.
- Count how many segments a row or column still needs.
- Avoid guessing by eliminating placements that would leave the fleet impossible.
Grid sizes, difficulty levels and unique puzzles
This Battleship puzzle game includes 6x6, 8x8 and 10x10 grids. Smaller grids are friendly for learning the rules, while the 10x10 grid gives you a fuller fleet and more room for deeper deduction.
Difficulty changes how much of the starting grid is revealed and how tightly the fleet is constrained. Easy puzzles provide more starting information. Hard puzzles reveal less, so you need to combine row totals, column totals, ship lengths and water placement.
Before a puzzle appears, the generator counts valid fleet placements using the row clues, column clues, fixed clues and fleet list. Only puzzles with exactly one solution are accepted.
- 6x6: quick Battleship puzzles for beginners.
- 8x8: balanced logic puzzles with a medium fleet.
- 10x10: larger Battleship solitaire puzzles with longer deductions.
- Easy: more fixed ship and water clues.
- Hard: fewer givens and more reliance on strategy.