Printable Easy Sea Battle Puzzles (Free PDF)

Here are six printable easy Sea Battle puzzles in a free PDF, with the solutions at the end. Every grid is 6 x 6 and hides the same small fleet, so you can learn the puzzle on the first grid and use what you learn on the next five. If you have not played before, the rules take one minute: read the Sea Battle puzzle rules, then come back here.

What is in the pack

• Six Easy grids of 6 x 6 squares. The fleet is six ships: one of three squares, two of two and three single squares.
• Two puzzles per page on pages 1 to 3 (US Letter, 8.5 x 11 inches). The fleet is drawn under each grid, so you can cross off ships as you place them.
• Pages 4 and 5 hold the solutions, three to a page, with the ships drawn in dark grey.

Download the printable PDF (5 pages).

How to print it

Print at 100 % (actual size) on US Letter paper so that the squares keep their size. Use a pencil. Our suggestion, not a rule: use two marks, a dot for water and a filled square for ship, so that you can see at a glance what is still unknown. Print the solution pages separately if you want to avoid looking by mistake.

The first four grids

The other two grids are in the PDF.

Solving grid 1

Rows are counted from the top and columns from the left.

Start with the given pieces

The round square in row 1, column 1 is a single ship, so the squares next to it, including the corner in row 2 column 2, are water. In row 4 there is the left end of a ship in column 2 and the right end of a ship in column 4: they are the two ends of one ship, so the square between them, column 3, is also ship. That is the ship of three. The round square in row 6, column 4 is another single ship. The top end in row 2, column 6 tells you that its ship continues down into row 3.

Then use the numbers

Row 5 shows 0, so it is water. Row 1 shows 1 and already has its ship square, so the rest of row 1 is water. Column 1 shows 2 and has one ship square (row 1), and every other square in the column is water except row 6: that is the second one. Column 2 shows 2 in the same way, with row 4 and row 6. So row 6, columns 1 and 2, form a ship of two.

Finish with the counts

Column 4 shows 3. It has row 4 and row 6, and only one open square, row 2. That is the last single ship. The fleet is complete: three squares in row 4, two in column 6, two in row 6, and three singles in row 1 column 1, row 2 column 4 and row 6 column 4.

How an Easy grid is built

The generator places the six ships at random so that none touches another, even at a corner, and works out the numbers of every row and column. It then adds given squares until the grid can be solved without guessing, and removes any given square that is not needed. In the Easy level it adds three extra given squares, and each time it has to give a square it chooses a piece of ship four times out of five, because a piece of ship helps the solver more than water. In these six grids, all the given squares are pieces of ship. That is why the grids of this pack show 5 or 6 given squares each: grids 1, 2, 3 and 6 show 5, and grids 4 and 5 show 6.

Checking your answer

1. Add up each row and each column: the ship squares must match the number.
2. Check the fleet: one ship of three, two of two, three singles. No more, no fewer.
3. Check that no two ships touch, even at a corner.

If a check fails, the error is nearly always in the squares around a single ship, where it is easy to forget the diagonal.

After the pack

The Medium level moves to an 8 x 8 grid with nine ships, and Hard and Expert use a 10 x 10 grid with ten. To learn the habits one at a time, read how to solve a Sea Battle puzzle. A younger player can start here too: see Sea Battle for kids.

Questions