Welcome back SwissWatchExpo. This is taking time with Richard and Jonathan,
and we told you guys last video that we had something special for you — and we do. Today,
we're going to talk about military watches — and we think it's a really cool thing so stick around.
So as promised, we do have something special today I mean, I think you guys have,
you've seen our videos before. We have mentioned that me and Jonathan are vets,
so this is something that's near and dear to our heart. So we're going to talk about military
watches and we got a few — we got four of them up here. Obviously, they're significantly more
watches that have had their name and brand and — American history, other countries'
history — just military history in general. These are the four that we've chosen talk about today.
We got the IWC, the Cartier, the Breitling and the Rolex. And we're going to go into the history a
little bit, talk about like the modernization of it, how we got to where we got and
where they sort of started. And so let's start with Cartier. I guess, right?
Yeah. You actually know a lot more about Cartier than I do at this
point. I mean — which is rare because I don't know anything about watches compared to you.
I mean — I just know that the Santos was the first pilots' wristwatch, so arguably
Arguably, it's the first wristwatch ever — at least that's Cartier's claim. So what happened
is the watch was made for Santos Dumont who was the — who you might consider to be the second
predominant aviator of the time. Some people will claim that he was the
predominant aviator in the time because when the Wright brothers created their machine,
they had to launch it off of a locomotive versus Dumont's machine actually had wheels.
So it can self-propel itself off the ground. So arguably this is the first actual airplane —
And I was in the Air Force. I should know a little bit —
So yeah — so when he was the most predominant figure at that time, being the creator of that,
but what he had was a problem. Because the watches of the time were pocket watches. The machines back
then were so crude and rudimentary, but he needed full control of the machines. They needed both
hands. So I couldn't actually look at the time tracking anything because he had to pull up, he
had to let go of the instruments to pull out his watch. So he was close friends with Louis Cartier
at the time and asked him to make him something. So Louis Cartier created a watch that would go
over the leather flight jacket that he had and arguably the very first wrist watch ever made.
So in terms of aviation, like a lot of the watches that we see now, they have their name
in graved in aviation versus ground trips. I was an Army guy, so I'm a ground troop kind of guy.
I wasn't flying planes, so —
You know, there's not as many pivotal watches that lend themselves to the ground troops,
but definitely aviation. So I think Cartier is the best place to start here. Likewise Cartier
also had a huge influence — like the wars, the mechanization of war
was also something that really played a huge role in Cartier history.
The Cartier Tank was actually based on the tank design of the Renault. The very first man
crafted and driven tank at the time. So if you look down from —.
I think I know what you're talking about.
It was the Tank. So if you look down from bird's eye view, top-down view,
what you see is the exposed tracks. You see the exposed tracks. So Cartier used that design
when they created the Cartier Tank and there's various models of it.
And it's rumored that those watches are created off the Americaine. The different versions of
the Tank were modeled after those various versions of the Tank. It's also rumored that
the track design — if I can show you guys this — the track design is on the inside of the dial.
Here is a representation of the tracks imprints left after a track. The tank goes over the ground.
Likewise the bracelet that typically comes on this is what, again,
rumored to be a design characteristic based on the design of the tracks, because he was
so enamored by the mechanization. Yeah. So it's a really cool piece.
That's crazy. You learn something new everyday. I just got schooled in Cartier.
It was nice. It was nice to learn those things. So that's a nice
thing. Can like Cartier has his name definitely embedded in the military
scene? I think. And I think the next logical choice to go to might be IWC.
This is pretty, I mean, it's got a different history than Cartier, right? I mean, it's
a pilot's watch. It's called the Big Pilot, but it was created for a military unit that
we're not going to go a whole lot of it into because of just the whole political
atmosphere right now and everything — but anyways, it was commissioned by a military unit
specifically for pilots because of the supposed low oxygenation of planes flying. So high being
so cold, your eyes kind of like start to get a little narrowed effect that you can't focus on
multiple things at once and the plane jerks so you need something big, very legible on your wrist,
right? The Big Pilot kind of hearkens back to that original watch. The original watch was actually
like 55 millimeters. I've seen it once. That's humongous. It's a giant watch. It's outrageous,
like even with the leather suit jacket, it's like a big old honking piece of metal even by today's
standards. This is a big watch. It's really cool at first — I don't think that this — the first
series of this watch, but the first series actually is —
The first series was the Uber and I'm probably pronouncing that incorrectly,
but so this is a reincarnation. Well —
No, I mean the first series of the modernization, I
I think it was the early 2000s.
No, I don't think so. In ETA movement something like that. It was like a
chronometer grade ETA movement. Who knew? I don't.
Yeah. So this was a — like you said, the specs on this were very important. IWC was one of
the brands of the five, one of the five brands that they actually use to commission this watch.
So there were five other brands — again, we can't get into all the
companies that had a military influence, but they were one of them. IWC. It was actually
the lesser of the five. They made less pieces than anyone else did and I think they only made
about a thousand units of it. But again, like you were saying out of all the watches that we have,
this is probably the one that was most purpose-built for the military specifically
because the government actually issued these out before missions.
The pilots didn't get to keep them, they had to return them at the end of the mission.
But I would say that this is probably the one that has truly been a device and
used as a tool specifically for pilots. And then there was two different variations of this. Now,
when it came out and it was this one, which was big and bold very, very open, IWC did this one
only. And there was another type, a version of it where it had the smaller sub dial on the inside of
it with the hour. And so this was the IWC — IWC stuck to this movement very specifically, they
never changed it. So that's why we see it in the version that we do now. Where do we go to next?
Rolex. So Rolex, I know a little bit about this because I studied quite a bit of history,
especially Special Operations sort of stuff. I wasn't Special Operations directly,
but I got the privilege of working with many Special Operations units whenever I was in.
Anyways, I did a little bit of history digging whenever I was in the military and
actually the US military issued Rolex's in like the mid sixties all the way through Vietnam.
Cigarettes.
That was World War II.
You got a pack of cigarettes and a Rolex. Imagine a day where they just got handed a Rolex.
But anyways, yeah. . . they had issued Rolex, especially like the likes of Navy Seals, Forces,
Green Berets got Rolexes essentially as a standard issue piece. Now, this is not a, what you call,
a MilSpec Rolex. MilSpec Rolex's are literally a certain Rolex that is built to a certain
specification by the issuing unit. So like Special Forces, Navy Seals had them, they had a fixed
string spring — Okay. Fixed springbars. The spring bars, they had tritium dials, right?
Yeah. You know what I found out about the NATO strap? This is neat. I mean, we're both fans,
so the NATO strap was one of those things that we kind of continue to call nylon or cloth straps
today, NATO straps. But what that meant is back in the day when they first made this, it was an,
it was not a NATO issue strap, but the nomenclature that they use to identify
part numbers were associated with the NSN or NATO serial number system. So
the strap actually had its own part number within the United States military.
Because the original ones were actually parachute chords.
Exactly. Yeah. And so like that was a neat thing to figure out. Cause you know,
it's actually, literally you can look it up and say they have documentation of this thing,
actually having a part number back in the day. So it was neat. Different thing all together.
Rolexes had tons of different things that they've made for various military uses.
I would probably say they have — they've done the air king for different branches. I can't tell
you all the different ones. They've made it for Saudi Arabia. They've made it for Israel. Yeah.
Well it's the stamp. I don't think they made it for them.
And then they have like the Thunderbird, like the Turnograph watch as often referred to
as the Thunderbird was one of those watches they issued for the demonstration Air Force
teams and things like that. So specifically the Thunderbirds is why it got its nickname. So —
Not just that, but Sean Connery rest in peace.
James Bond did where as in the original James Bond movies and he was a secret service essentially for
British military — British government. Anyways, let's move on to Breitling another British brand.
Anyways. Yeah. So this is probably the most modern military watch that we have in our inventory
actually right now. It's literally still being used by Special Operations units worldwide. This
is the aerospace and this is the most do-it-all kind of watch that you can buy. You know, sort
of a mechanical piece that is strictly built time only kind of for like a rough and rugged kind of
situation. This thing, I mean, it's got a compass on it. It's got chronograph function. It's got
date, it's got obviously time, but I mean, it's got GPS location, right? I mean, it's —
This kind got a lot of bang for the buck in this,
I mean Breitling has their name etched in history too, because I mean, in 1930,
I actually know it was 1934. They created the first two pusher chronograph. So before that—.
Was that Willie?
It was. It was exactly. It was Willy Breitling. So he was actually 16 at the time. So he was — when
his father died, rest in peace, he was only 14. And he finally took up the company when he was
16 years old. And then he had the wherewithal to decide that a single pusher chronograph didn't
make much sense in terms of an applicable utilitarian use. So we thought that if being
able to stop and start and then stop and start without having to reset, it made some sense.
So he commissioned that. And so not only that, and he made the first two pusher chronograph in 1934.
He also made the — when he was at the helmets when Breitling created the first onboard chronograph
watch for inside the cockpits of many planes. So that was one of those things that they just, I —
Remember seeing something about that in my Breitling training. And I used to — we
used to work for a Breitling authorized dealer and we had to go through trainings.
And it kind of, honestly, it looked a little bit like a Bell and Ross currently. It's got
the square instrument panel with the circle dial and everything, and it had a sink pusher and then
a restart button. So that's when they went — they were huge in the aviation industry back
in the day because almost everything that they made had one of these watches on it and you know,
huge in the industry. So this is sort of like the culmination of everything you need in a watch. You
got the compass and you've got the analog and the digital separate time zones stopped. I mean, you
can time things, you can send alarms, you can do — there's almost nothing you can't do on this watch.
As long as it's got a battery in it.
Yeah. I mean, so it's just a really cool
to watch. And so let's do the same thing we always do. Which one's your favorite man?
Gotta be the Rolex.
I mean, this is the 1680, so that's really cool, but I don't know — why this one in particular?
It's, well, no it's — I mean, it's one of the subs that hearkens back to like the tool age, and
I need something on my wrist that's going to perform it's going to be
bare bones basic. I don't like an over complicated one.
Right, right. So I'm going to actually — I would go with Breitling. Specifically because it has a
compass on it. So if you're a tactile kind of guy, like I was back in the day, I was,
again, I was a foot soldier, so I stayed on the ground all the time and land navigation
was a very important part of what we did. And so having a compass and being able to associate where
you are and shooting it back as myth or forward as myth, or having the ability to track where
you've been and where you're going was just one of the most important things for me. And the idea of
being able to set something multiple times zones and things like that. You know, if you start —
Can't fumble around with your compass and the map.
I got family in Louisiana. I got family in Georgia,
so I'm cross seas and things like that. Being able to know what time zone they're in
is giving me an opportunity to know exactly when I can call them and that sort of stuff
being across the world and that sort of stuff. So I'd go with the Breitling. Even
though I'm not an aviator, it's just, it has a lot of function for me as a ground troop.
Definitely. Another thing too is obviously this is a military aesthetics kind of tool watch video,
just to give you a kind of idea, but we do want to recognize what's going on in the world right now
and the political environment — and we're both veterans. We've got veterans that work
here with us at SwissWatchExpo, and we just want to say, stay safe out there. All right?
When you get home, your families need, you do what you gotta do to get back
and you know, be heroes. You're already heroes in our eyes. So yeah,
we'll see when you get back in. See you next time at SwissWatchExpo. Like, subscribe, hit the bell,
do all the grand things and we'll catch you next time on taking time.