Armed forces watches, as their name implies, were developed for the armed forces. The 1st army watches were naval pieces, chronometers that worked OK for their purposes, but as other branches of the army - aviation particularly - made major technical advances round the time of the second World War, correct measurement of the seconds became urgent.

As the old chestnut goes, 'necessity is the mother of invention,' and Navigator ( occasionally called 'Pilot' ) watches were born. In the Navigator watch design, the seconds bezel allowed the pilot to synchronize the second hand with a correct reference time before takeoff, and to make manual corrections to radio time signals while in flight, so shedding any 'chronometer error' and the navigational errors that would result.

During World War I seconds continued to be important in both military technology and military watches. The feature that allowed for synchronization between two timepieces - continued to improve and advance. These watches were worn on the exterior of a flight jacket or on the navigator's thigh.

The Germans also added antimagnetic protection to their chronometers. Inside another major Axis power, Seiko produced an amazing number of armed forces watches for the Japanese Imperial armed forces and Navy. These watches averaged around 49mm in diameter.

As the times of WWII faded into memory and the strained peace of the 'Cold War' became fact, army budgets and armed forces technology boomed. Watchmakers rose to the call by planning an instrument deserving of going into battle with humankind's strongest weapon. Those were the excellent times of the army watch, though no definite design house can claim full credit for the steps made in that time.

Cold War-era military watches were much bigger than the typical US citizen navigators before them. Averaging 36mm in diameter, the making of these watches was moved to Switzerland and the Swiss military watch companies who came to the task with centuries' old reputes for precision.

Like those before them, these Navigators also featured a matte black dial marked with white Arabic numbers 1-12, and with white indices. The new designs failed to have white numbers at cardinal 3, six, 9, and 12. Another new addition was a shatterproof Perspex acrylic crystal, which protected its large twelve ligne movement from magnetic fields.

These hand-wound watches were planned to be water-resistant to twenty feet, including water-resistance under low pressure at operational altitudes, and added a naval dimension to the regular army watch.

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As with many fashion trends in times gone by, the wrist watch was initially made trendy by royalty -- particularly Queen Elizabeth I who was given one in the latter 1500s. The first widely worn watches were designed solely for girls and called wristlets.

Men of the late 19th century and early twentieth century still kept track of time by employing a pocket watch frequently on a chain. They considered the wristlet a fashion trend that would, like every other trend, appear and vanish, and the watch would at this point never be considered by men as anything except a female bauble for ladies. The wrist-watch as a handy way to keep time for men really started as a wartime necessity. The English army in their battle with S. A. in the boar War in the early 1900s strapped pocket watches to their wrist so that they could hold their weapons at the same time.

The earliest wrist-watches for men were promoted to the division for men going into active service. Many of those influential men found the advantage of not fishing in a pocket for their watch essential even after returning from the field. The flexible band pieces that attached to the open-faced watch made it simple to mend a leather strap, which kept the watch safely attached to the wrist.

Now wrist-watches were standard army issue for the associated troops of World War I. In 1915, The Rolex Watch Company, formerly known as Wilsdorf & Davis, was set up. Rolex was recognized as a frontrunner in this research and received the first wrist-watch Chronometer award given out by the high-school of Horology in Bienne.

In the mid-1920s, following the war, men started to associate watches with the brave heroes who fought and no longer viewed them as for girls. Rolex snatched on to this new image and continued through the 1950s to market watches particularly targeting their efforts to enticing men. Masculine-style watches were invented to be worn by men in sundry fields of work, and today are as often found in non-military environments as they're in the armed forces.

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The watch is a useful accessory for day-to-day life. In war and combat however it can be a life savor and provide the wearer with much needed information. The question is why are military watches so desirable by civilians? If they are specifically designed for use in combat, what makes military watches useful to everyday people?

Features Of Military Watches And Why People Like Them

The first feature of military watches that people look for is their quality. These watches have to be tough and have to be able to survive a multitude of environments. Whether it is the coldest snow peaked mountain or the hottest dry desert valley, these watches have to keep on ticking. If they fail to work then the wearer could be in significant trouble.

The approval process and testing for approved military watches is very strict. These are not strictures that a normal jewelry watch needs to comply with. The watches have to work under water, at high altitude and in extremes of temperature. Because of that people like to have military watches so that they can rely on them.

The next feature that people look for from their watch is accuracy. Military watches are renowned for being extremely accurate and they have to be. Much of military coordination from years ago and today relies on this accuracy. The watch must keep solid time to coordinate the movements of troops across the battlefield. The larger the battlefield, the more complicated this gets. With a high quality timepiece however this is much easier. You do not have to rely on complicated radio equipment that can be easily disrupted. As long as movements are coordinated using a solid timepiece they are virtually impossible to disrupt. People in there day-to-day lives will probably never need the hundredth of a second accuracy some military watches provide, but it is comforting to know that you can rely on your watch to keep accurate time.

The last thing people look for in military watches is not really a feature of the watch itself but more of a byproduct of the other features. This feature is style. Military watches have a rugged style about them that fans of this type of watch look for and cannot find in normal jeweled watches. While some try to emulate it, they usually fall short.

So there you have it, some simple features that are key to all military watches that everyday people like to see in their timepiece.