Lock, Stocks and Barrel

The year isn’t 2025, but 1905. Two great powers, after some circling about, had finally gone to war the year before setting off one of the greatest naval wars in history, the details of which are still taught at military academies the world over. In the war’s second year, the final episode of the conflict plays out: the Battle of Tsushima.

It was no cakewalk, but resulted in a clear, unambiguous victory for Imperial Japan over the Russian Czarist Empire. The loss of almost every warship in the Baltic fleet had prompted the Russians to sue for peace. Not to imply they had much of a choice. The Japanese, on their end, lost no heavy ship, despite some casualties, and even those weren’t a fraction of the Russian casualties.

The war had significant geopolitical consequences, but the militaries of even those countries that were far away, who had little skin in the game, were watching, keenly awaiting reports, taking down notes.

You see, this was the first war between major conventional militaries after a bout of mechanisation and technological development had taken place. Here, the world was going to see some new technology actually being used in battle, like rapid-firing artillery and machine guns, as well as more accurate rifles, which were first tested on a mass scale. They were seeing how it would provide a template for the next great war. And it did. For a war that was, in fact, literally called The Great War (later on referred to, as World War One.)