The list of his scientific achievements is impressive: among them, there is the idea of the first icebreaker and its practical implementation, works on unsinkable vessels, works on naval tactics, invention of a device for measuring the speed and direction of the current, and so on, and so forth. A naval commander and oceanographer, he made two round-the-world expeditions and an Arctic voyage on the icebreaker Yermak, which he built. The history of the invention of tips for armor-piercing shells is remarkable and instructive. The so-called “Makarov’s caps” greatly increased the armor penetration of shells. But they did not enter mass production – Makarov failed to break through the armor of the Russian bureaucratic machine, and this was one of the reasons for the defeat of the Russian fleet in the Russo-Japanese War. Stepan Osipovich himself died in this war – the commander of the Pacific Squadron went down with the battleship Petropavlovsk.