This game was donated to the Museum in 1989. This is the bilingual edition produced by Parker Brothers International Inc. The box is 28cm x 24cm x 8cm, and the lid features a picture of the game equipment set-up. The game is for two players and features a battery operated sound feature used in the play of the game.
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The horizontal game board is a combination of two attached plastic peg boards each with storage spaces for game pieces. The game pieces are of different shapes of ships, that is: aircraft carriers, battleships, submarines, destroyers, and patrol boats. In addition, there are white pegs used to mark the placement of a ship, and red pegs used to indicate a ship has been "hit".
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Two vertical "tactical stations" are attached to the basic game board. This is the area where the actual play of the game occurs. The vertical section prevents the opposing player from seeing the section of the horizontal board of the other player. After setting up the ships on the horizontal playing board, players alternately place a white peg in a hole in the vertical section to "target" their opponent's ships which they expect to destroy.
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The photograph on the right is the view that one player would have while playing the game. The rows and columns of both the vertical and horizontal board are labeled like a chess matrix, so that if a white peg is placed in the vertical board in say "C4" and the opponent has placed one of the ship pieces on the horizontal board in "C4", the opponent would press a button on the side. This would sound a buzzer indicating a "hit". 4 AA batteries fit under the horizontal section and there are a series of wires to a button on each side of horizontal board. If the buzzer sounds, the player who got the "hit" removes the white peg from the vertical board and inserts a red peg in the same hole to indicate the "hit".
The "target" ships are of different sizes and each type of ship requires a different number of "hits" before it can be sunk. For example a patrol boat only requires two "hits", while a battleship requires five "hits". Submarines would require three "hits" and destroyers would require four "hits". The game before this type of battery adaptation was usually played with a pencil and two sheets of grid marked paper. At first, it is really a guessing game, but as more red pegs appear on the vertical board, a player can begin to determine where an opponent has placed which ships, and then play accordingly.
Last update March 17, 2010