Short answers, pulled from the story.
The first commercial version of Battleship was Salvo, published in 1931 in the United States by the Starex company. Milton Bradley released the now-classic plastic pegboard version in 1967.
Around 1964, Hasbro employee Ronald A. Brehio created a wooden pegboard prototype and pitched it to company executives, who rejected and confiscated it. Milton Bradley subsequently published a plastic pegboard version in 1967.
The 1990 Milton Bradley rules included five ships: a Carrier (five squares), a Battleship (four squares), a Cruiser (three squares), a Submarine (three squares), and a Destroyer (two squares). In 2002, Hasbro renamed the Cruiser to Destroyer and added a two-square Patrol Boat.
Battleship is said to have been played by Russian officers before World War I, with the Russian poet Ryurik Ivnev recording a game in his 1907 diary. It was published as a pad-and-pencil game in the 1930s and released as a plastic board game by Milton Bradley in 1967.
Milton Bradley released Electronic Battleship in 1977. It was designed by Dennis Wyman and Bing McCoy. A follow-up, Electronic Talking Battleship, was released in 1989.
Battleship was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2025 at The Strong National Museum of Play.