Best Moves & Strategies for Winning Battleship

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Protect your fleet and sink your opponent’s ships with these tips

Co-authored by Ashton Wu and Aly Rusciano

Last Updated: May 31, 2025 Fact Checked

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Maximizing Hits

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Targeting Hit Ships

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Placing Your Ships

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Video

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Expert Interview

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Q&A

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Tips

Battleship is a simple game, but because you cannot see your opponent's pieces, winning can be difficult. While some random firing is required to make your first hit, you can use a strategy to increase your chances of winning. Keep reading to learn how to maximize your hits, improve your battleship layout, and win!

What’s the best Battleship setup?

The best Battleship setup involves a mix of strategy and spontaneity. Every player’s strategy is different, but some proven winning techniques include placing ships vertically on the board, spacing the ships out by two spaces, and allowing ships to touch but not overlap.

Section 1 of 3:

Maximizing Hits

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Fire at the center of the board. Game expert Ashton Wu leans toward the strategy of aiming toward the center of the board first.^{[1]
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Ashton Wu
Board Game Expert

Expert Interview} Statistically, this gives you more chances of hitting one of your opponent’s ships.^{[2]
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- The four-by-four squares in the middle of the board are likely to contain a carrier ship or battleship.
- Need a breakdown of Battleship’s rules? Check out our playing guide!
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Use parity (whether ships have odd or even holes) to up your chances. Imagine the board as a checkerboard, where half the squares are dark and half are light. Each ship covers at least two squares, meaning every ship must touch a dark square. Therefore, if you fire randomly at only even squares or only odd squares, you will minimize the number of turns you need to hit every ship.^{[3]
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- Once you have a hit, cease firing randomly and commence targeting the ship in question.
- To keep track of the light and dark squares, look at your own board and imagine that the diagonal line of squares from the top left corner to the bottom right corner is dark. Imagine the squares from the top right corner to the bottom left corner are light. You can count out from there to ensure each square you're targeting is the right color.
- This strategy is also referred to as the “Hunt.”^{[4]
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If you strike out twice when firing, try firing into a different segment of the board. The chances that you just missed a ship are lower than the chances that you missed by a wide margin.^{[5]
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EXPERT TIP

Ashton Wu
Board Game Expert
Ashton Wu is a Board Game expert at Shelfside. After delving into the Yugioh tournament community while growing up, Ashton launched himself into the board gaming community in 2014 and went into reviewing board games as a career full-time in 2019. His YouTube channel Shelfside has over 50K subscribers and over 4 million views, assisted by written reviews on the Shelfside website and BoardGameGeek.com. He also consults with gaming companies to build high-quality gaming products. Ashton is a tournament commentator, board game playthrough director, and host of the Shelfside Podcast, where he talks about board games with his business partner, Daniel. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in addition to the Technology Management Certificate.

Ashton Wu
Board Game Expert

Aim for the 4x4 center squares early in the game for a quicker path to victory. It's most effective to balance your fire between attacking the center and the edges during the game. This way, you can gather intel on the enemy ship's placement, increasing your chances of landing a hit and forcing your opponent to reveal their defenses.

Section 2 of 3:

Targeting Hit Ships

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Reduce the target area after you make a hit. After you make your first hit, work on minimizing your target area or where the rest of the ship likely is. Keep your focus on the target area rather than the entire board. This helps you narrow down a specific ship.
- Since ships in Battleship range from 2 to 5 spaces long, it may take you several turns to sink the ship you have hit.^{[6]
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Fire around the area of your hit. Begin by striking above, below, or to one side of the space you have hit to discover and hit more of the ship. If one of your strikes is a miss, try the area on the opposite side of the space that was a hit. Keep striking until you have taken your opponent's battleship.^{[7]
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- You’ll know when you have taken your opponent's ship because players are required to announce when a ship has been sunk.
After you have sunk the first of your opponent's ships, resume firing randomly (or in the center of the board) to find another ship. Then repeat the process of firing around the hit space until you have sunk another ship. Playing the game this way reduces the number of turns that it takes to sink all of your opponent's battleships, and it can also increase your chances of winning.^{[8]
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Section 3 of 3:

Placing Your Own Ships for Minimal Damage

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If your battleships are touching, there’s a chance your opponent will sink two ships back to back. To reduce your opponent's chances of finding a second battleship after hitting one, some players suggest spacing your battleships out so that they don’t touch. Try to keep one or two spaces between each of your battleships to reduce the chances of your opponent finding one of your battleships.^{[9]
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Try placing ships so that they touch, but don’t overlap. Even though having your battleships right next to each other is seen as a weakness by some, other players see this as a potential strategy. By placing two ships so that they are touching, but not overlapping, you may be able to confuse your opponent about the type of ship they’ve sunk.^{[10]
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- Keep in mind that placing ships close together can work in your favor, but it can also be a risky strategy, as it may lead to your opponent discovering one or more of your other ships.
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Place your ships vertically. The more vertical ships you have, the better. Horizontal ships take up more space on the board and could, in turn, be easier to target. To avoid this, place most of your ships vertically so they take up multiple columns instead of one.^{[11]
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- Many players say they scan the board left to right rather than up to down. Because of this, they may be less likely to hit vertical ships.
- For example, place a ship on A1, B1, and C1 rather than A1, A2, and A3.
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Use multiple techniques at once. By playing multiple strategies at once, you can throw off your opponent. You get five ships per game, so place them wisely.^{[12]
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Research source} Keep three closer together and two farther apart, or four vertically and one horizontally.
- The more versatile your ship placement is, the harder it’ll be for an opponent to find.
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Pay attention to your opponent's moves. If you play with the same opponent often, another way you can improve your chances of winning is to place ships where your opponent rarely strikes. Keep a mental record of the spaces your opponent strikes most often and avoid these zones.^{[13]
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- For example, does your opponent tend to start their strikes on the right side of the board, to the center, or in the lower left corner? Identify your opponent's most common strike areas and avoid placing your ships in these zones.
- The most common places of attack, according to players, are columns 1, 5, and 10.

Community Q&A

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Is it a good idea to place my smallest ship in isolation so it's harder to find it?

Community Answer

Yes. Try spreading all your ships out, not just the smallest one.

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Is it effective to move my ships from one area to another while I am playing the game?

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Moving your ships during the game is against the rules, so no, this wouldn't be effective.

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Can I stack ships on top of each other?

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No, you cannot.

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People often aim for the center in Battleship. Try to avoid placing your ships here.

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Once you have found your opponent's smallest ships, expand the checkerboard pattern to shoot at locations where only a larger ship could be located. Don't shoot at a place only a two-hole ship would fit if they have no two-hole ships.

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Vary your attacking strategy by changing the starting square each time you play. For example, start with A-3, then B-4, C-5, etc.

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Tips from our Readers

The advice in this section is based on the lived experiences of wikiHow readers like you. If you have a helpful tip you’d like to share on wikiHow, please submit it in the field below.

Use this trick only once: Put all the ships on the edges of the game board. Then, your enemy will have trouble guessing where your ships are.
Try putting all of your ships on one half of the board. When I do this, my opponent always try to find a ship on the empty side.
Try putting your ships around the perimeter of the board diagonally.

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