The field watches of the modern military
The findings in this post are based on my own experiences in the Finnish military. Your mileage may vary.
Wrist watches are surprisingly still extremely common in the military, but not the kind of watches that you might expect. You'd think that the field watch would be used by soldiers like in the olden days, but that is not the case today. I have looked around at people's wrists here and I have noticed that Casio dominates the market for the average Finnish conscript (although I have seen one Orient). I think that the reason for this is because Casio digitals are reliable and cheap which means that if it breaks it isn't as big of a loss.
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WatchMetal
A Finnish lover of Vostok and other Russian watches.
Tampere, Pirkanmaa, Finland
Member since
Last active: 3 weeks ago
5.39” / 13.70 cm
Tough, dependable, accurate, sounds like a Finnish soldier (ask the Soviets about it).
Tough, dependable, accurate, sounds like a Finnish soldier (ask the Soviets about it).
But most importantly, cheap.
I think it moved this way around the turn of the century. G-Shocks have more functionality, are more robust, lighter, and cheaper. The only possible disadvantage is a worst case scenario 2 year battery life vs a 5 year service interval. Solar and 10 year battery life’s take care of this, and military logistics make it such that if needed, batteries are readily available. It’s a no-brainer.
I think it moved this way around the turn of the century. G-Shocks have more functionality, are more robust, lighter, and cheaper. The only possible disadvantage is a worst case scenario 2 year battery life vs a 5 year service interval. Solar and 10 year battery life’s take care of this, and military logistics make it such that if needed, batteries are readily available. It’s a no-brainer.
I may have written it poorly, but these are not provided by the military. They are purchased by the soldiers themselves which means that the watches need to be cheap and reliable.
I spent roughly 5 years of my life in the army, most of them under terrible conditions and I always wore a watch - I just didn't know that I was supposed to call them military of field watches.
That's the watch I wore in the late 80's and 90's and it's probably a Casio F-91W, most of us wore something similar because they were immensely robust compared to mechanicals, dependable and replaceable.
For us they were just watches.
I can't remember what happened to it but the watch that replaced it was another Casio, this time one of the first ana-digi G-Shocks - the AW-560. Objectively it was pretty terrible, the LCD had no illumination and the date was stuck with the MMDD format, the dial was relatively small, the lume was also abysmally bad and the plastic fantastic strap didn't win any prizes for comfort in the sweltering heat. It was however unkillable and I wore it until my discharge from active reserve service.
I've been the Canadian military for 22 years now, and the most common watches I see are Timex digital watches like Ironman variants,and Expeditions, or G-Shocks.
I have lots of friends who wear luxury watches, but it's mostly Timex I see.
I may have written it poorly, but these are not provided by the military. They are purchased by the soldiers themselves which means that the watches need to be cheap and reliable.
No, it wasn’t your writing that was bad. I simply assumed that batteries might be something that were maintained for general purpose and would be readily available. That might not be true.
Soldiers prefer to wear cheap, plastic digital Casios for the same reason mounting a machinegun on a Toyota Hilux is so devastatingly effective despite there being clearly better, purpose-built but more expensive options. Nobody has the time, energy, or money to spare babying an expensive and comparatively fragile mechanical watch, all for lower accuracy to boot. Imagine accidently magnetising or dropping your watch while in the field!
My experience in 90s as Finnish army conscript is the same. Those days i had F-91W. Unfortunately i dont have it anymore.
Army has nothing to do with watches soldiers use. Watches and batteries are each ones own responsibility.
Your green sweater takes my back in time.👍