Battleship (also known as Battleships or Sea Battle) is a

strategy Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art ...

type

guessing game A guess (or an act of guessing) is a swift conclusion drawn from data directly at hand, and held as probable or tentative, while the person making the guess (the guesser) admittedly lacks material for a greater degree of certainty. A guess is als ...

for two players. It is played on ruled grids (paper or board) on which each player's fleet of

warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster a ...

s are marked. The locations of the fleets are concealed from the other player. Players alternate turns calling "shots" at the other player's ships, and the objective of the game is to destroy the opposing player's fleet. ''Battleship'' is known worldwide as a

pencil and paper game Paper-and-pencil games or paper-and-pen games (or some variation on those terms) are games that can be played solely with paper and pencils (or other writing implements), usually without erasing. They may be played to pass the time, as icebre ...

which dates from

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. It was published by various companies as a pad-and-pencil game in the 1930s and was released as a plastic

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a comp ...

Milton Bradley Milton Bradley (November 8, 1836 – May 30, 1911) was an American business magnate, game pioneer and publisher, credited by many with launching the board game industry, with his eponymous enterprise, which was purchased by Hasbro in 1984, and ...

in 1967. The game has spawned electronic versions, video games, smart device apps and a

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

History

The game of ''Battleship'' is thought to have its origins in the French game '' L'Attaque'' played during

, although parallels have also been drawn to E. I. Horsman's 1890 game Basilinda, and the game is said to have been played by Russian officers before World War I. The first commercial version of the game was ''Salvo'', published in 1931 in the United States by the Starex company. Other versions of the game were printed in the 1930s and 1940s, including the Strathmore Company's ''Combat: The Battleship Game'',

's ''Broadsides: A Game of Naval Strategy'' and Maurice L. Freedman's ''Warfare Naval Combat''. Strategy Games Co. produced a version called ''Wings'' which pictured planes flying over the

Los Angeles Coliseum The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (also known as the L.A. Coliseum) is a multi-purpose stadium in the Exposition Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Conceived as a hallmark of civic pride, the Coliseum was commissioned in 1921 as a mem ...

. All of these early editions of the game consisted of pre-printed pads of paper. In 1967 Milton Bradley introduced a version of the game that used plastic boards and pegs. Conceived by Ed Hutchins, play was on pegboards using miniature plastic ships. In 1977, Milton Bradley also released a computerized ''Electronic Battleship'', a pioneering microprocessor-based toy, capable of generating various sounds. ''Electronic Battleship'' was designed by Dennis Wyman and Bing McCoy.