Plate 004 — Wargames
REF: BF-GME-004Battleships General Quarters II
Battleships General Quarters II pitted a player against the computer across two separate grids, with a five-ship fleet of Minesweeper, Submarine, Frigate, Battleship and Aircraft Carrier rather than the standard Battleship roster.
Battleships General Quarters II was a human-versus-computer strategic naval battle game built around the same hidden-fleet concept as classic Battleship, played over two separate grids rather than one.
Fleets and Boards
Each side commanded a fleet of five ships, though not the same five used in the standard Milton Bradley rules:
| Ship | Size (units) |
|---|---|
| Minesweeper | 2 |
| Submarine | 3 |
| Frigate | 3 |
| Battleship | 4 |
| Aircraft Carrier | 5 |
Play took place across two boards instead of the usual single grid: a defensive grid, shown at top left and labeled "COMPUTER," which displayed a player's own fleet and any results the opponent had scored against it, and an offensive grid, shown at bottom right and labeled "PLAYER," representing the sea area where the opponent's fleet was hidden. Since a player could not see the opponent's ships, the offensive grid showed no ship icons at all until they were found.
Turn Structure
A turn began by selecting a coordinate on the offensive grid to fire on. A miss produced a water-splash effect and ended the turn, handing control to the computer, shown by highlighted text above the defensive grid. A hit produced an explosion effect and let the same player fire again, continuing until a miss occurred; the same rule applied when the computer was firing. Because a player could not see the opponent's fleet directly, the type of ship being hit was never announced during play, only once it had been completely destroyed, at which point the game named the sunk ship so its owner could adjust further shots accordingly. That hit-streak rule rewarded accurate guessing directly: a well-placed opening shot that happened to land on a ship could, in principle, let a player clear several ships in a single uninterrupted turn before ever handing control back to the computer.
A Different Fleet From the Standard Rules
Compared with the Milton Bradley fleet of Carrier, Battleship, Cruiser, Submarine and Destroyer, General Quarters II kept the same spread of five ship lengths, from two to five squares, but renamed two of the five ships: the three-square Cruiser became a Frigate, and the two-square Destroyer became a Minesweeper. The Aircraft Carrier, Battleship and Submarine kept both their names and their lengths, so a player already familiar with the standard rules only had to learn two new names rather than a whole new fleet.
A Different Extension of the Same Idea
General Quarters II expanded classic Battleship with a second grid and a hit-streak turn rule, but kept every ship in a fixed position for the whole match. BattleFleet: Pacific War instead let every unit move, on a map far larger than the two 10x10 grids used here.
That movement is shown here: 
, organized around four playable navies.
