''Battleship'' (also known as ''Battleships'') is a

strategy Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "troop leadership; 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 " a ...

type guessing game 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 used for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the navy branch of the armed forces of a nation, though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations. As well as b ...

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 which dates from

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

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

board game A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

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

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

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. In 1907 the game playing was mentioned in the diary of Russian poet Ryurik Ivnev. 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'', Milton Bradley'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. All of these early editions of the game consisted of pre-printed pads of paper. Battleship game board

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.