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Dad would give us each a sheet of paper and we would play "Battleship". Later in life, I just had to buy the board game, for old time's sake, if nothing else.

Long before a name brand made Battleship a board game, we played battleship. You did not have to buy the game and the play was much better.

Upon each sheet that dad gave us was drawn a grid, 10 spaces long and 10 spaces high. Across the top, the letters "A" through "J" were marked, on letter for each square of the grid. Down the side, the squares numbered one through ten.

Hiding your sheet from everyone else's sheet, (putting your grid- sheet inside a book and using the cover flap to hide it, works best) we would block out grids which would be our individual "ships". Each of us got two PT boats, which were two joined grids, two Submarines, which were three grids in a straight line, and one Battleship four grids in a row.

We tried to be "artsy" and draw a small PT boat in two grids, a submarine in three grids and a Battleship in four grids.

You placed your ships going any direction of the grid. Unlike the board game "Battleship", a submarine could be placed under a PT boat, Battleship or the other submarine. The submarine placed under another ship always had to be at right angle to the ship above. A submarine placed under any other ship (even another submarine), could only share one grid.

We would throw a die for who goes first. The first person would call out a number/letter for any grid on her/his sheet. 1A would always be the top left grid, and so on. If any players had a ship at that grid location, they would say, "Hit". The person calling the grid location did not have to "Hit" if his/her own boat was at that location.

If someone says, "Hit", you write a small letter with her/his initial in that grid. If two people playing have the same initial you use second initials and such (Mom is always "m" and Dad is always "d"). You can even write what initials are who at the top of the sheet so you do not forget. You have to keep track of all players "hits" and you mark complete misses with a large zero.

Unlike the board game, if you have a PT boat or submarine sunk, you did not have to tell anyone. Players had to use more guesses to determine if something, other than your Battleship sunk. If your Battleship sunk, you had to tell and you were out of the game.

"You sunk my Battleship!"

The rest of the players continued until there was only one Battleship left and that was the winner. If two people lost their Battleship on the same number, rare but happens, the game is has no winner or losers. You must start the game over. As if, you were not going to start a new game anyway.

Dad's version of Battleship allows the whole family to play, takes about the same amount of time per round, costs a tablet of grid lined paper and is a bit more exciting.

My store bought Battleship game is very nice and is in pristine condition, used once and then relegated to the "games closet" for Life (which we let The Game of Life out of the closet to play from time to time).

Learn more about this author, Duane Kuehn.
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