Sea Battle
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About This Game
Play Sea Battle free online - the classic ship-sinking strategy game. Place your fleet and out-guess the computer to sink its ships first.
How to play Sea Battle
Objective: Sink all four hidden enemy ships, which cover twelve cells on the 8x8 grid, before the computer sinks yours.
You and the computer each command the same fleet: one 4-cell ship, two 3-cell ships, and one 2-cell ship, spread across an 8x8 grid. When the game opens you are in the placement phase. There is no drag-and-drop here. The board arranges your fleet for you at random, and the only placement control is Shuffle fleet, which rolls a fresh random layout. Study the gray ship cells shown on your waters, then press Set Sail to begin firing.
During battle you fire by tapping any cell on the top grid, labeled Enemy waters. A red cell with a burst mark means you struck a ship; a faint dot means you missed. The turn rule rewards accuracy: every hit lets you fire again immediately, with no limit as long as you keep hitting. The moment you miss, control passes to the computer, which fires back at your fleet after a short pause before returning the shot to you.
Your own fleet sits on the lower grid, Enemy waters above and Your waters below, so you can watch incoming fire land in real time. The counters read sunk 0/4 for enemy ships you have destroyed and lost 0/4 for yours. A ship only counts as sunk when every one of its cells has been struck. Win by sinking all four enemy ships, all twelve cells, and the message turns green; lose all your ships and it turns red.
There are no lives, no score points, no timer, and no difficulty settings. The computer plays one fixed strategy: it fires across a checkerboard pattern until it lands a hit, then it hunts the neighboring cells of any wounded ship, and once it has two hits in a row or column it follows that line to finish the ship off. Restart during play or Play Again after the result to reshuffle both fleets and start over.
Tips and strategy
Fire in a checkerboard
Every ship is at least two cells long, so shooting only cells where row plus column is even still touches every ship. This halves the squares you must search to find your first hit on each enemy vessel.
Chain your hits
A hit grants another shot instantly, with no cap. Once you strike a ship, keep firing its neighbors and follow the line until it sinks. A single lucky opening can clear a whole ship before you ever surrender the turn.
Read the line
After two hits share a row or column, the ship runs straight along it. Fire the two ends of that line rather than side cells, since the 4-cell and 3-cell ships extend further than a single adjacent square in one direction.
Hunt the big ship first
The 4-cell ship is the easiest to stumble onto and the most turns lost if the computer finds yours. Sweep the open water aggressively early; the wider a ship, the more checkerboard cells cross it.
Miss on purpose is fine
You never lose ground by taking a shot, only by ending your turn on a miss. There is no penalty for wide guesses, so probe unexplored regions freely while you still hold the turn from a chain of hits.
Frequently asked questions
Can I place my ships where I want?
No. Despite the opening prompt, the game auto-places your fleet at random and gives you only a Shuffle fleet button to generate a new random layout. Press Shuffle until you like the arrangement, then press Set Sail. There is no manual drag, rotate, or cell-by-cell placement in the code.
How many ships are there and what sizes?
Each side has four ships covering twelve cells total: one ship four cells long, two ships three cells each, and one ship two cells long, on an 8x8 board. The sunk and lost counters both track out of four, and you win only after all twelve enemy cells are struck.
Why do I sometimes take several shots in a row?
Because a hit earns an extra shot. As long as every shot lands on a ship, you keep firing without passing the turn. Only a miss hands control to the computer. The same rule applies to the computer, so a run of hits against you means several enemy shots in sequence.
Is there a difficulty setting or a timer?
No. The game has one computer opponent with a fixed hunt-and-target strategy, no adjustable difficulty, no clock, and no score. The only numbers shown are the sunk and lost ship counters. Games end purely when one fleet is completely destroyed.
How does the computer decide where to fire?
It shoots a checkerboard pattern of unfired cells until it hits a ship. After a hit it targets the surrounding cells, and once it has two hits aligned in a row or column it fires along that line to sink the ship before returning to the checkerboard search.
How do I start a new game?
During battle, use the Restart button to reshuffle both fleets and return to placement. After a win or loss, a Play Again button appears that does the same. Both regenerate random layouts for you and the computer, so no two games start from the same board.