What is a Fleet Hunt?

It is the pencil-and-paper form of solitaire battleships. A known fleet is hidden in the sea, ships never touch each other even at a corner, the numbers beside each row and column count the ship squares in that line, and a few squares are revealed. From that you work out where every ship is.

Is this Fleet Hunt generator free?

Yes. Pick a grade, generate a puzzle and print it with its answer, with no sign-up and no watermark. It is free for classroom, home and personal use.

What do the shapes in the revealed squares mean?

They say which part of a ship you are looking at, which is the information the whole genre turns on. A disc is a one-square submarine. A square is a middle section, so the ship carries on through it both ways. A rounded end faces open water on its curved side and the rest of its ship on its flat side, so it tells you which way the ship runs. A small dot is water.

How do I start solving one?

Cross out the lines numbered zero, which are all water, then fill in any line whose number equals the squares it has left. After that work outward from each revealed square: the four squares diagonally touching any ship square are always water, because ships run straight and never touch. Then place the biggest ship first, since it has the fewest places it can go.

Is the fleet printed on the puzzle?

Yes, under the grid: one silhouette per ship, grouped by size. Knowing which ships are left to find is half the deduction, so a board that leaves it out is not a harder puzzle, it is an unanswerable one.

Does every puzzle have one solution?

Yes, and here it takes real work to guarantee. The numbers alone almost never pin a fleet: measured on a bare eight by eight board, only 9 layouts in 200 were fixed by their counts. The revealed squares are what close that gap, and every puzzle here is checked by the same solver our Publisher Studio uses before it prints.

What size are the pages?

The free tool prints at 8.25 by 11 inches, a popular large-print size. Our Publisher Studio will export the same book at any KDP trim, from 5.06 by 7.81 up to 8.27 by 11.69, as a print-ready 300 DPI interior.

Free tool

Free Fleet Hunt generator, with the answer

Pick a sea and generate a Fleet Hunt puzzle, then print it with its answer and the fleet you are looking for. Every puzzle hides exactly one fleet, with no sign-up and no watermark. It runs on the same engine as our KDP Publisher Studio.

Difficulty

A bigger fleet in a bigger sea is harder, and harder grades reveal less of it. Every puzzle hides exactly one fleet.

10×10 sea, 10 ships. Ships never touch, and the numbers count the ship squares in each row and column. The fleet to find is printed under the grid.

Two pages: the puzzle and its answer. Every puzzle is proved to have exactly one answer by the same engine as our KDP studio.

Want the whole book?

This makes one puzzle. Sign up to turn it into a full Fleet Hunt book for Amazon KDP: hundreds of graded puzzles at any trim, as print-ready PDFs.

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Preview

The puzzle and its answer, as they print.

Fleet Hunt Hard

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Fleet Hunt Hard · Solution

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How to make a Fleet Hunt puzzle

1Pick a difficulty. Choose a sea and a fleet. Harder grades hide more ships in a bigger sea and reveal less of it.
2Generate the puzzle. Press Generate puzzle. You get a fresh sea, proved to hide exactly one fleet.
3Print the two pages. Press Print / save PDF. You get two pages: the puzzle with its fleet key on page one, and its answer on page two.

How to solve a fleet hunt

A whole fleet is hidden in the sea. Ships never touch, not even at a corner, the numbers beside each row and column count the ship cells in that line, and a few squares are revealed to start you off.

The method

1Cross out the zeros, then fill the full lines. A row or column numbered 0 is all water. A line whose number equals the squares it has left is all ship. Both are free information and both usually settle a corner of the board straight away.
2Work outward from every revealed square. A revealed square tells you more about its neighbours than about itself. The four diagonals of any ship square are always water, because a ship runs straight and no two ships touch. A round end points at open water on its curved side and at the rest of its ship on the flat one. A single is surrounded by water on all eight sides.
3Place the biggest ship first. The longest ship has the fewest places it can possibly go, and every square it takes puts a ring of water around it that the smaller ships cannot use. Work down the fleet by size and cross each ship off as you find it.
4Check a line can still reach its number. If a row still wants three ship squares but only two are left that any ship could use, something earlier is wrong. That check catches a mistake several moves before the board visibly contradicts itself.

The one rule people get wrong: Ships never touch, and that includes corner to corner. A square diagonally next to a ship is always water, which is the single most useful fact on the board.
What the answer page shows: The whole fleet, drawn in place on the same grid.
How the grades differ: A bigger fleet in a bigger sea, with less of it revealed. The numbers alone almost never pin a fleet, so the revealed squares are what make the puzzle solvable, and the harder grades give you fewer.
Good for: Anyone who likes working from a few fixed points outward.

Publishing a whole book?

This tool makes one puzzle for home or the classroom. To make a Fleet Hunt book you can sell on Amazon KDP, Publisher Studio generates hundreds of graded puzzles across a difficulty curve, at any KDP trim, as a print-ready interior and solutions PDF.

See the KDP Fleet Hunt maker

Questions

What is a Fleet Hunt?: It is the pencil-and-paper form of solitaire battleships. A known fleet is hidden in the sea, ships never touch each other even at a corner, the numbers beside each row and column count the ship squares in that line, and a few squares are revealed. From that you work out where every ship is.
Is this Fleet Hunt generator free?: Yes. Pick a grade, generate a puzzle and print it with its answer, with no sign-up and no watermark. It is free for classroom, home and personal use.
What do the shapes in the revealed squares mean?: They say which part of a ship you are looking at, which is the information the whole genre turns on. A disc is a one-square submarine. A square is a middle section, so the ship carries on through it both ways. A rounded end faces open water on its curved side and the rest of its ship on its flat side, so it tells you which way the ship runs. A small dot is water.
How do I start solving one?: Cross out the lines numbered zero, which are all water, then fill in any line whose number equals the squares it has left. After that work outward from each revealed square: the four squares diagonally touching any ship square are always water, because ships run straight and never touch. Then place the biggest ship first, since it has the fewest places it can go.
Is the fleet printed on the puzzle?: Yes, under the grid: one silhouette per ship, grouped by size. Knowing which ships are left to find is half the deduction, so a board that leaves it out is not a harder puzzle, it is an unanswerable one.
Does every puzzle have one solution?: Yes, and here it takes real work to guarantee. The numbers alone almost never pin a fleet: measured on a bare eight by eight board, only 9 layouts in 200 were fixed by their counts. The revealed squares are what close that gap, and every puzzle here is checked by the same solver our Publisher Studio uses before it prints.
What size are the pages?: The free tool prints at 8.25 by 11 inches, a popular large-print size. Our Publisher Studio will export the same book at any KDP trim, from 5.06 by 7.81 up to 8.27 by 11.69, as a print-ready 300 DPI interior.

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