For me personally I have a tendency to buy either military watches or something which is not actually military but has a pedigree and the looks of a military watch like my IWC MK XII. Of course no armed forces could afford to issue a watch of this quality and even if they could it would make little sense when the models from CWC, MWC and Marathon are just as suitable for the job and vastly cheaper. The first thing I did with the IWC was put it on a grey NATO strap! Of course for me it’s a simple case that I often like a particular watch and ad it to my collection. I still can’t figure why I have 27 watches when I always wear either the IWC (my latest acquisition) the Marathon Chronograph Marathon Pilots Chronograph or the MWC Stainless Auto Diver with ETA-2824 movement, this big 48mm diver is very robust and a damn site cheaper than the Marathon so I use it day to day. I think my attraction to these watches is because the look is very distinctive and striking, most having black dials and luminescent numerals and hands with either Tritium light sources or Superluminova.

Some of the most collectible military watch are British, German and American issue although many are actually Swiss made. The British army/navy/RAF models from IWC, Record, Cyma, Omega, Jaeger le Coultre, Lemania and Rolex are especially collectable and from the US, Elgin, Waltham and Bulova. Among other watches I have become aware of recently which are in huge demand is the Heuer (now Tag Heuer) German Luftwaffe Chronograph from the 1970s. Something that really caught my eye at an auction in Los Angeles was a Breitling Navitimer which was Iraqi Air Force issue this watch was a 1980’s Navitimer that Saddam Hussein issued to his pilots.  The watch was engraved on the case back with the air force insignia. I thought I had found one on Google when I came across a link to Neil at Chronomaster’s site see Chronomaster this watch can be seen at this link Iraqi Air Force Breitling and Iraqi Air Force Breitling Caseback sold by the time I spotted it! I wonder what it went for?

The history of Military watches, as their name implies lies in the fact they were specifically developed for use by the armed forces. The first military watches were made for use on warships. It was the WWII that really moved things along with various high quality cockpit clocks (Borduhren in German) emerging from companies such as IWC and Junghans this site is worth a look it has cockpit clocks and all sorts of odds and ends  In the case of Navigator watch design timing was critical, the seconds bezel allowed the pilot to synchronize the second hand with correct and exact reference time before takeoff, and to make manual corrections to radio time signals while in flight, thus eliminating any "chronometer error" and the navigational errors that could result.

Split second timing and high degrees of accuracy continued to be vital in both military technology and military watches. The hack feature was developed enabling two or more military watches to be synchronised hence you will often hear the words in military films “synchronise watches”

Strangely the US tended to opt for smaller watches which were often as small as 30mm where Germany went for face sizes of  55mm or more, in fact the current IWC Pilots model The IWC Big Pilot watch is perhaps the ultimate mans sport watch on the market today. In fact to call it a sports watch is an injustice since the Big Pilot Watch is really a genuine Pilots timepiece. IWC first developed Pilot’s Watches in the 1930’s, launching the initial model in 1936. Early aviation pioneers all faced the same problem when it came to measuring the time. Pilots relied on oversized pocket watches to track their flight time and fuel consumption, but these pocket watches were cumbersome and difficult to access meaning they frequenty worked on guesstimates – far from ideal but compare it with today’s nightmare of  finding your cellphone when its ringing in a pocket when you are driving at 100mph (160kph) plus (only where laws allow of course!) and you get the idea.

IWC attacked the problem by taking the pocket watch and designing a version that would fit on the pilot’s wrist over his flight suit. The first version of the Pilot watch was massive as we saw above. IWC designed a 55mm case with a black dial, high-contrast luminous hands, and a rotating glass bezel. This glass bezel had an arrow which the pilot used to measure flight time. Pilots attached the watch to their wrist using an oversized long leather strap.

Today the Big Pilot’s watch is smaller than the original version but still massive compared to other large sport or pilot watches on the market.  Measuring 46.2 mm IWC’s Big Pilot watch is similar to the original in appearance with the original black dial design but they have added a date window at six o’clock and a power reserve indicator at three o’clock. With a seven day power reserve the Big Pilot Watch is in a class of its own.

Interestingly in light of supplies to the RAF it is worth noting that in Japan Seiko produced a huge number of military watches for the Japanese Army, Airforce and Navy in WWII. These watches were also very large especially when you consider the heigt of the average Japanese soldier at the time. These watches averaged around 49mm in diameter.

The Cold War 1945-1990

Toward the end of WWII with the advent of the Jet age accuracy and performance demands grew rapidly. To highlight the extent of this  we need to look at the fact that a Lockheed Starfighter  F- 104G from the 1950s was capable of 2334 km/h (1458mph) the fastest plane to see general service in WWII (excluding the Rocket Powered Messerschmitt Komet at 960km/h (600mph) was the Messerschmitt ME262 Jet Fighter with a top speed of 870 km/h  (543mph) already advances in speed had been significant  only 4 years before aircraft such as the Hawker Hurricane and Messerschmitt 109 were capable of speeds between  520km/h and 570 km/h (325/360mph) depending on the exact version of the aircraft . The increases in aircraft performance over such a short space of time mean’t that Chronographs and other precision instruments were vital.

The Cold War military watches were much larger in size than the average American navigators timepieces  before them. Averaging 36mm in diameter they has reached the same dimensions which are familiar today. These hand-wound watches were expected to be water-resistant to 20 feet, including water-resistance under low-pressure at operational altitudes. Nearly all of these Cold War models were Swiss Made except for exceptions like the British Made Smith’s W10 which has the distinction of being the last mechanical watch actually manufacturer in the United Kingdom for supply to the military. These Smith’s W10’s were everywhere in the early to mid 1990’s at reasonable prices but are now hard to find at a reasonable price.

After these watches the W10 pattern was manufactured by CWC, Hamilton and MWC. Hamilton ceased production in the early 1970’s and production was continued by Cabot Watch Co better know by the initials CWC. The CWC W10 is still made today see CWC W10 and MWC also continue to make the MWC variant of the W10 interestingly this model has evolved and both MWC and CWC how offer automatic variants see MWC Auto W10 and CWC Auto W10.

I find it hard to check prices on the CWC watches site and I always recommend going to the watch range at the link above rather than at www.cwcwatch.com

At this point the story pretty much ends because we now come to the watches we are all familiar with. Albeit in earlier variants but from the late 1970s onwards the watches took on the form we recognise today with some changes such as the introduction of Self Luminous Tritium Vials (GTLS) etc but in appearance they have changed little in the last 30 years. There are of course some non issue models such as G-Shock favoured by serving military which are very contemporary in appearance but the standard G10 looks much as it did in 1980.