Creating a grid

Question

Ok I am just starting a C# class and it's my first real programming class so I am more than a bit of a noob when it comes to this. We have a project to create a game in this class and I was given a battleship game to create. I have seen an example of someone using buttons to create their ocean/grid, but I was wondering if there is a "cleaner" way to go about making a grid to start the layout of my game? Any help on this will be greatly appreciated.