Battleships
Find the whole hidden fleet from the row and column counts alone.
How to play Battleships
A fleet of ships is hidden in the grid, and your job is to find every one of them. The number beside each row and above each column tells you exactly how many ship cells lie in that line. Ships are straight (either horizontal or vertical) and no two ships ever touch, not even at a corner, so each ship always sits in open water. Click a cell to cycle it: first tap marks it as water, second tap marks it as a ship segment, and a third tap clears it back to unknown. Some cells start revealed to get you going, and the panel keeps a running tally of which ships you still need to place. Match every row and column count with the correct fleet and no touching ships to solve the board, and race to beat your best time.
Every ship swims alone
The rule that does the heavy lifting in Solitaire Battleships is the one about spacing: no two ships touch, not even at a corner. So the moment you know a cell is part of a ship, you also know all of its diagonal neighbours are water. Always, no exceptions. Around any ship segment the four corner cells are dead. Marking that water is free progress, and it's usually where a stuck board starts moving again.
The number beside each row and above each column is the count of ship cells in that line. Play the extremes first: a line numbered 0 is all water, and a line whose number equals its length is packed solid with ship. From those certainties the diagonals-are-water rule spreads outward fast. Click a cell to cycle it (water, then ship segment, then back to unknown) and use the given cells the puzzle starts you with as anchors.
Reading the fleet
- Water surrounds every ship completely. Once a ship is finished, ring it with water on all sides and corners before you look anywhere else.
- A revealed segment tells you more than it looks. A middle piece has ship on two opposite sides; an end piece has water on three sides and ship on one.
- Watch the ships-remaining tally. If the only ship left to place is the big one, there's often just a single line long enough and empty enough to hold it.
- Subtract as you go. When a row already has all its ship cells found, every other cell in that row must be water.
Counting wins the middlegame
Past the opening, Battleships becomes honest arithmetic. Add up the row numbers and you get the exact number of ship cells on the whole board, which must match what the fleet tally promises. Keep a running difference for every line: a row marked 3 with two segments found needs exactly one more, and once the no-touch rule kills the cells beside finished ships, sometimes only one legal cell remains. That's not a guess. That's the puzzle handing you a move.
The other counting trick is to hunt homes for the biggest ship still missing. Before fussing over single cells, scan every row and column for open stretches long enough to hold it. Water and finished ships break the board into short gaps, and it's common to find just one stretch that still fits a four-cell battleship. If only one home exists, the ship lives there, and placing it floods half a dozen new water cells around it. Work from biggest ship to smallest: the one-cell submarines are easy to place last and nearly impossible to reason about first.
A worked line: suppose a column marked 4 has its empty cells split into a run of three and one separate lone cell. All four missing segments must fit, so the run of three fills completely and the lone cell does too. Better still, that run of three is walled in by water at both ends, so it's a complete three-cell cruiser, and the lone cell is a submarine. Check the tally, cross both off, and ring everything with water. Little forced reads like that are the whole middlegame.
When two placements both look possible, don't pick one. Mark only the cells you are sure about, water included, and come back later. Boards that collapse into guessing were almost always short a few water marks, not a few ship marks, because water is the quiet half of the solve that most players skip.
Bimaru, and one hidden fleet
This one-player version goes by several names (Solitaire Battleship, Battleship Puzzle, or Bimaru) and it has a proper pedigree. It was invented in Argentina, first appearing in a Buenos Aires puzzle magazine in 1982, and it went international when the first World Puzzle Championship featured it in New York in 1992. It has been a championship staple ever since. The classic fleet is one battleship of four cells, two cruisers of three, three destroyers of two, and four single-cell submarines: ten ships, twenty cells, though the side panel always shows the exact fleet your board uses. Unlike the two-player guessing game it borrows its theme from, there's no opponent and no luck. The counts and the no-touching rule pin down one exact fleet position, and the only thing racing you is your best time.
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Battleships: frequently asked questions
What is Solitaire Battleship (Bimaru)?
It is a one-player logic puzzle, not the two-player guessing game. A fixed fleet of ships is hidden in a grid and you deduce their exact positions using only the ship-count clues on each row and column, plus a few given cells.
What do the numbers around the grid mean?
Each number is the total count of ship segments in that row or column. When the ships you have placed in a line add up to its number, that line is complete.
Can two ships touch?
No. Ships never touch each other, not side by side and not diagonally. Every ship is completely surrounded by water, which is often the key to solving the puzzle.
Is every Battleships puzzle solvable?
Yes. Every board is generated and checked by a solver so it has exactly one valid solution that you can always reach by pure logic, with no guessing required.
Why are the diagonal cells around a ship always water?
Because no two ships ever touch, not even at a corner. Every ship sits in open water, so the four diagonal cells next to any ship segment are guaranteed empty. Mark them and keep moving.
What do the row and column numbers mean?
Each number is the exact count of ship cells in that row or column. Add up the ship segments you've placed and the remaining cells must account for the difference, which is often all water.
How do I tell a ship's middle from its end?
A middle segment has ship cells on two opposite sides and water on the other two. An end segment has water on three sides and a single ship cell continuing on the fourth.
What does a standard fleet look like?
The classic set is one four-cell battleship, two three-cell cruisers, three two-cell destroyers and four single-cell submarines: ten ships covering twenty cells. The side panel tracks which of them you still owe the grid, so check it before guessing a ship's length.
How does clicking a cell work?
Each click cycles the cell: first tap marks water, second marks a ship segment, and a third clears it back to unknown. Some cells are revealed at the start to get you going.
Is this the same as the two-player Battleship game?
No. There's no opponent and no guessing. It's a solitaire deduction puzzle, sometimes called Bimaru, where the counts and the no-touching rule fix one exact fleet position.
Is Battleships free to play?
Yes. Battleships is completely free on Inkplay, with no download, no sign-up, and no in-game purchases. Open the page and play instantly on desktop or mobile.
Can I play Battleships unblocked?
Yes. Battleships runs entirely in your browser with no download, install, or plugins, so it loads instantly and keeps working even on school or work networks where bigger game sites get blocked.
More games to play
In the mood for more? Try 2048, Memory Match, Lights Out, Minesweeper, or browse all puzzle games and the full games list on Inkplay. Battleships also appears in Logic Puzzles.