What is Salvo?
Salvo changes how many shots you fire in a turn. Instead of a single shot, you fire one shot for each of your own ships that is still afloat: five shots with the classic fleet at the start of the game, ten with the Russian fleet. Placement, the grid and the goal stay the same, and the first player to sink the whole enemy fleet still wins.
You aim the shots of a volley one by one, but nothing lands until the last one is aimed. Then every shot is resolved together, the result of each one is shown, and the turn passes to your opponent. Each ship you lose takes one shot away from your next volley, so the player who falls behind also shoots less, and an early sinking matters far more than in the standard game. A volley never asks for more shots than there are open cells left on the target grid.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Naval Battle | Salvo |
|---|---|---|
| Shots per turn | Standard Naval BattleOne shot, then the turn passes. | SalvoOne shot for each of your ships still afloat: five with the classic fleet, ten with the Russian fleet. |
| Results | Standard Naval BattleEach shot is answered at once with a miss, a hit or a sinking. | SalvoYou aim the whole volley first; the shots land together and the result of each one is shown once the last is aimed. |
| Losing a ship | Standard Naval BattleCosts you nothing but the ship. | SalvoAlso costs you one shot from every volley that follows. |
| Shoot again on a hit | Standard Naval BattleOff. It can be switched on in the setup. | SalvoCan't be combined with Salvo: a volley has no extra shots, so Salvo takes priority and shoot again stays off. |
| Other options | Standard Naval BattleA 10×10 grid, the classic fleet and no mines. | SalvoSalvo works with every grid size, with the classic or the Russian fleet and with mines; each mine hit in a volley costs you one cell of your own fleet. |
History
The pencil-and-paper naval guessing game has been played since at least the early twentieth century, and its first commercial edition, published in the United States in 1931 by the Starex company, was itself called Salvo. In it, players named several squares at a time and all of them were attacked at once.
The modern rules of the plastic pegboard edition, first sold in 1967, list Salvo as a variation for more experienced players, with one shot for each ship a player has left. Other tables play salvos differently: some fire a fixed five shots every turn, and some fire as many shots as the largest undamaged ship is long. Rule sheets also differ on how the results of a volley are announced; this site shows the result of every shot once the whole volley has landed.