Two fleets, two hidden seas, one winner. Secretly arrange your ships, work out where the enemy fleet is hiding and sink it all before your opponent sinks yours. Play by the Russian rules of «Морской бой» or the classic Battleship version.
Goal: Sink every ship of the enemy fleet before your opponent sinks yours.
Each player has a private sea: a 10×10 grid of 100 squares, where the fleet is hidden. You never see the enemy ships — you only learn what happens to the shots you fire at their sea.
Russian variant (Морской бой): 10 ships — one of 4 squares (battleship), two of 3 (cruisers), three of 2 (destroyers) and four of 1 (torpedo boats).
Classic variant (Battleship): 5 ships — carrier (5 squares), battleship (4), cruiser (3), submarine (3) and destroyer (2).
Both players place their fleets at the same time. A ship fills a straight line of squares, horizontally or vertically (never diagonally), entirely inside the grid, and two ships cannot overlap.
In the Russian variant ships may not touch each other anywhere, not even at a corner: every ship is surrounded by free water. In the classic variant ships may lie right next to each other.
You can ask for a random layout, which is always valid. Once you confirm, the fleet cannot be changed; if the time runs out, a random layout is chosen for you. The battle starts when both players are ready.
Players take turns firing at one square of the enemy sea. The answer is always one of three: miss (no ship there), hit (a ship is struck but still afloat) or sunk (the last intact square of a ship has been hit). A sunk ship is revealed on the enemy sea.
One of the two players fires first (in a rematch it is the other one). You cannot fire twice at the same square.
Whoever hits or sinks a ship fires again; the turn passes to the opponent only after a miss. The traditional calls are «мимо» (miss), «ранил» (hit) and «убил» (sunk).
When a ship is sunk, the squares all around it are marked as water automatically — no other ship can touch it — and they can no longer be fired at.
Each turn is a single shot, whatever the result. After every hit the defender says which ship was struck and, when its last square falls, announces that the ship is sunk.
The first player to sink the whole enemy fleet wins. There are no draws. The result shows how many ships each player sank.
Start by firing in a checkerboard pattern: every ship of two or more squares must cover at least one of those squares. After a hit, try the four neighbouring squares, then follow the line until the ship goes down.
In the Russian variant, the squares diagonally next to a hit are always empty. When placing your fleet, avoid habits: keep a few ships away from the centre, but do not push them all against the edges.