Naval Bombardment should be described as a sophisticated version of the old favourite, Battleships.

The objective of each player is to destroy the opponent's fleet.

Each player provides himself with two grids of 20 x 20 squares, lettered A to T down the side and numbered 1 to 20 across the top. One of these is used for disposing the player's own navy (the 'home' chart), the other for recording salvos on his opponent's chart (the 'away' chart). In addition to these, at the foot of each chart there should be a diagram similar to that shown in Fig. 1 for the purpose of recording hits. This fulfills the dual aim of showing at a glance the combinations of salvo numbers required for locating ships and the amount of fire-power left to each player at any time. Both players should locate themselves in such a way that their charts cannot be seen by the opponent.

Each fleet is composed of thirteen ships. The following table shows the names, sizes and fire-power of each vessel
1 Flagship (FS) . . .8 squares. . .3 guns (3-3-2)
1 Battleship (BS) . . .7 squares . . .3 guns (3-2-2)
2 Heavy Cruisers (HC) . . .6 squares . . .2 guns each (3-3)
2 Light Cruisers (LC) . . .5 squares . . .2 guns each (3-2)
3 Destroyers (Dy) .. .4 squares . . .2 guns each (2-2)
4 Corvettes (Cv) . . .3 squares . . .1 gun each
The figures in parentheses above indicate the way in which guns are destroyed by successful bombardment. For instance, the flagship's first gun is knocked out of action after any three of its squares have been hit, the second gun after any six squares have been hit, and the third when it has been totally sunk. It will be seen that initially each player has a salvo of 24 shots.

In addition to his fleet, each player is provided with twelve mines. Four of these are high-explosive type, the rest ordinary, and their functions are explained later.

Ships may run vertically, horizontally or diagonally, but must of course be in a straight line. No ship or mine can be contiguous either laterally or diagonally with any other ship or mine — there must always be at least one separating square in each case.

When both players have placed all their ships and mines, a coin is tossed to decide who starts. The winner of the toss then proceeds to enumerate the 24 shots of his first salvo. As he calls out the squares both he and his opponent mark the appropriate charts — i.e. his 'away' and the opponent's 'home' respectively - putting a figure ‘1’ in each square as it is called. It is advisable, in order to avoid mistakes, for the opponent to repeat the squares after each one is called or at the end of the salvo.

The salvo having been completed and marked, the opponent then indicates what damage, if any, has been sustained. The information that he gives is restricted to the type of ships hit and the number of squares in each case — not the location. For instance, he might say: Two hits on the flagship, one on a destroyer and one on a corvette'. The only time that any further identification is given is when two or more ships of the same type have already sustained damage, as described later. It then becomes the turn of the second player to fire off his salvo, and the same procedure is observed, both players marking the squares called with the figure '1' again, but this time in the other charts. Naturally, before the second player starts his turn both will have checked to see whether he is still entitled to the full original twenty-four shots or whether any of his fire-power has been reduced. Play continues in this way, the next set of salvos from each player being record¬ed with the figure '2', and so on.

When a hit or hits are registered on one of two or more ships of the same type which have already suffered damage, the ship must be differentiated by salvo numbers. For example, player A has hit both of player B's Light Cruisers, one with salvo 2 and the other with salvos 3 and 4; if on salvo 5 he again hits one of these two ships, player B must say whether it is the '2' ship of the '3-4' ship. One way of arranging this differentiation neatly is to assign names or letters to those ships which have more than one in their class, e.g. Destroyers A, B and C, Heavy Cruisers A and B, etc.

The only square to be identified immediately is one containing a mine. When a player's shot lands on one of these his salvo comes to an abrupt end and he loses the rest of his shots in that salvo. In the case of a high-explosive mine he not only loses the remainder of the current salvo but the whole of the next one as well.

Fig. 1 shows a typical layout at the start of a game, while Fig. 2 shows the same chart but with all the "used" squares filled in — i.e. the squares actually occupied by vessels and mines plus all the surrounding squares which are unusable through the application of the ship placement rules. This is done to illustrate the importance of correct location of opponents' destroyed ships; note that although the occupied squares number only 73, there is a total of 323 'used' squares plus a further 8 in which no ship could possibly be, (designated in the diagram with an 'x').

It is noticeable when playing with beginners that they tend to pepper an identified target area instead of limiting the follow-up shots to a few well-placed attempts. This blitzkrieg approach may well knock out a gun somewhat more quickly than the more patient player, but it has two distinct drawbacks: (a) it will waste most of the salvo doing so instead of exploring other areas and (b) more seriously, the player will probably end up not knowing where the destroyed ship is and consequently not knowing which of his opponent's squares are unusable, which, especially towards the end of the game, can be a strong disadvantage when salvos are small and every wasted shot a severe liability.