"You sank my battleship!"
Written: Aug 20 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Rules are easy to grasp, and it's somewhat challenging.
Cons: Might bore the Xbox crowd.
The Bottom Line: All right...so the ships don't move and you learn nothing about the Navy, but this game is fun, deserving its status as a classic.
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| alexdg1's Full Review: Battleship |
"You sank my Battleship!"
One of my earliest memories from the 1970s...when I still sort of liked wasting time watching the Saturday morning "kid-vid" bloc of cartoons and cheesy live-action shows such as Land of the Lost...is the famous line from the commercial for Milton Bradley's naval battle themed game, Battleship. I'm not quite sure how old I was, but it must have been in my "tweens" period (that awkward stage between pure childhood and adolescence). And even though I have forgotten the details of the commercial, I still recall the anguished tone of that losing player wailing, "You sank my Battleship..." -- and the look of smugness on the victor's face.
Like many kids who grew up in the '70s, I owned a Battleship game or knew someone who did, and even though I never had a reputation as a younger version of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz or Raymond Spruance -- I'm too impulsive and not too analytical when it comes to strategy games -- I must have played the game at least 100 times between fourth grade and my transition to junior high, by which time my attention was focused on girls, Star Wars, and writing (in that order).
As I grew older, I expected Battleship to slowly but surely lose its appeal, but like its older Milton Bradley (now Hasbro) stablemate Monopoly, the naval-themed game has endured well into the first decade of the new Millennium with only a few cosmetic changes to the game units -- they are a bit smaller and with rounded edges. (There is also a more expensive Electronic Talking Battleship variant, as well as a PC game and a compact travel version designed for long car trips.)
Battleship: The Basics
Number of players: two
Requires: two game units -- each with a target grid, ocean grid, a ship storage compartment, a red peg (for hits) storage compartment, and a white peg (for misses) storage compartment.
Two fleets of five ships each. Each fleet must have a carrier (five holes), a battleship (four holes) a destroyer (three holes), a submarine (three holes), and a patrol boat (two holes).
Setting up the game: Both players sit facing each other with the lids of the game units in the "up" position so neither of them can see the other's ocean grid. Each player then sets up his fleet on the ocean grid by securing the ships' anchoring pegs into two holes on the ocean grid. The trick here is to disperse the fleet (or concentrate it) in such a way that the opponent has a hard time finding and hitting all five ships before losing his or her ships. There are 100 holes on each game unit's ocean grid (and the same number on the target grid), so there are many possible choices for fleet placement.
Ships may be placed vertically or horizontally, but never diagonally.
Ships may not be placed so that they overlap numbers, letters, the grid edge, or even another ship.
Evasive action is not allowed, i.e., players can't sneakily change the location of his/her ships once play has commenced.
To begin, players decide who goes first. Then both players alternate turns, calling out one shot per turn to attempt hitting each other's vessels.
To "fight": a player looks at the target grid and chooses a letter/number coordinate -- say, A-6 -- then says it out loud. If the opponent has no ship on A-6, he/she must say "Miss." If he/she has a ship on A-6, he/she must say "Hit" and the ship type of the damaged vessel. The "attacker" then places the appropriate peg on the target -- white for misses, red for hits. The opponent places a red peg on the matching hole on his/her damaged ship -- no white pegs being required on misses on the ocean grid -- then retaliates by calling out a shot.
The process is repeated until one player sinks all five ships in the opposing fleet.
The Salvo Rule: For veteran players who might want a bit more complexity when playing Battleship, there is the "Salvo Variation." It follows the same basic rules of Battleship except that instead of one shot per turn, the players have five (one per each ship in the fleet); each player calls out the five shots and marks them on the target grid with white pegs. When all five shots have been called out, the opponent indicates which shots resulted in hits. The attacker then changes white pegs to red ones if any hits were scored...and the defender places red pegs on the matching holes on his stricken ship or ships.
The number of shots allowed in each turn depends on the fleet's complement. If a player has lost one ship in the previous turn, the salvo is now four rather than five, and diminishes with further losses.
The Salvo Variation is, by the way, the only one that allows a player to not disclose which of his/her ships has been hit.
As far as this game being educational, it's not. Its rule book doesn't delve into naval history or the combat strengths of each type, and because it's a game in which the ships don't move, it doesn't teach anyone anything about naval strategy or the ins and outs of maneuver and gunnery.
It does, however, teach players a bit about analytical thinking, since one does need to not only figure out how to protect one's fleet from easy elimination, but also to devise shot patterns -- Do I shoot in vertical, horizontal, or diagonal patterns? to "search and destroy" the opponent's fleet.
Experiences and Reflections: As I said earlier, when I was younger and played this often I wasn't exactly a master "admiral." Intellectually I knew what to do and I grasped the rules easier than I did, say, Monopoly, but my impaired dexterity made it hard for me to place the pegs on the target grid quickly. After a while I overcame this, but I was still vexed by this bit of game play and often lost because I was concentrating more on peg placement rather than "strategy."
That having been said, I still had fun and won quite a few games before going into semi-retirement until 2001, when my then-girlfriend and I bought a set to entertain ourselves when weather prevented us from watching TV or using the PC. When we went our separate ways, I "inherited" the game and now use it to keep my charges busy and entertained when I get a babysitting gig with a child who is seven or a bit older. Not all kids seem to go for this -- there are a few who prefer their Xbox consoles and challenge me to play Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (which I am lousy at) -- but those that do play Battleship apparently like it.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 15.99 (2001)
Type of Toy: Game
Age Range of Child: Whole Family
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alexdg1
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Member: Alex Diaz-Granados
Location: Miami, FL USA
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Rest in Peace, Mrs. Barbara Axler Fields. I will miss you lots!
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