A Modern “Milsub": A Closer Look at the Tudor Pelagos FXD
The third iteration of the Pelagos FXD from Tudor (Ref. M25717N-0001) comes with a matte black dial and is dedicated to the countless dive watches that were issued in the past decades to U.S. Navy Sailors. The 42-mm dive watch is equipped with fixed (“FXD”) strap bars, a satin-brushed titanium case with a water resistance of 200 meters, a COSC-certified in-house movement, a unidirectional elapsedtime rotating bezel, and a black dial featuring a single line of red text with the model’s name.
As early as the mid ‘50s, Tudor diving watches were being tested and evaluated by a number of outfits inside the U.S. Navy, and by 1958, they were officially adopted by the Navy and purchased for the purpose of issuing them to divers operating in various units. A former commander of UDT team 12, who served three tours in Vietnam (and who was given his first Tudor after he had successfully finished Hell Week) recalled the special relationship with his watch during the launch event of the Pelagos FXD in September, “All through my days in the teams, time was so important. We had extractions, we had to be at a certain place where we’d meet with a helicopter pickup, wherever it was, or a submarine pickup, and man, in Vietnam, you know, you’re just on an open field somewhere, you have to rendezvous at zero-six hundred in the morning for a pickup, and you weren’t there, you’re gone. So being on time was critical.” And he added, “I never ever remember a team member going to a bar and saying, ‘Hey, look at this Tudor watch I got.’— It’s a tool. Just like a Ka-Bar knife, a compass, our 9-mm, or our M16 — it was a tool we’d use. And it was reliable, because if it wasn’t reliable, I wouldn’t be standing here.”
The latest Pelagos FXD model is the spiritual successor of those watches, with FXD referring to the robust FiXeD strap bars of the case, first introduced with the M25707B/23-0001 in 2021. Sporting a black dial, the model represents a modern take on the famed “Milsub” (short for Military Submariner) of yesteryear. Visually, it’s perhaps most in line with a late ’60s-era Tudor Oyster Prince Submariner Ref. 7016; it also incorporates elements from the U.S. military specifications for diving watches, such as fixed spring bars, as well as details inspired by other generations of issued Tudors, like pointed crown guards typically found on early Tudor Submariners.
The U.S. Navy–issued Tudor diving watches were used by SEAL teams from their commissioning in 1962 all the way to the late ’80s. They have also served Sailors in all types of underwater roles, including UDTs, Seabees and Navy dive school instructors. Throughout the decades, Tudor has supported the U.S. Navy as a supplier of issued watches. In the 1965 “First Edition” of the Underwater Demolition Team Handbook, for example, a Tudor Oyster Prince Submariner Ref. 7928 is pictured next to the “Diving Watch” paragraph. The handbook was an essential piece of literature for new operators as they studied UDT operational procedures. Later, in 1973, the U.S. Navy Diving manual lists the Tudor Oyster Prince Submariner Refs. 7016 and 7021 as “Navy-approved” diving watches. In 1974, the National Stock Number system was introduced to track the supply system of the U.S. Department of Defense. From 1978, under code 6645-01-068-1088, a supply officer could purchase and issue a Tudor Oyster Prince Submariner Ref. 9411, or later 76100, to an approved sailor or operator in need of a reliable Navy-approved dive watch.
This specific supply catalog entry was only retired in 2004. Watches issued to members of the military are typically engraved with specific inventory codes, but the U.S. Navy–issued Tudor watches didn’t always follow this pattern. There was never a force-wide, consolidated marking system.
Instead, the issued watches were either sterile, or marked at the unit level, with many different coding typologies, most of which were used for inventory purposes. Since many of these watches issued by the U.S. Navy remain unmarked, it makes it quite difficult today to determine the military provenance of a given Tudor, even though official records indicate that very large quantities, in a number of references, were delivered over a span of multiple decades.
The Pelagos FXD’s satin-brushed case (42 mm in diameter, 12.75-mm thick, 52 mm from lug to lug) has fixed strap bars, which are directly machined into the main body of the titanium case, a key to the model’s characteristic silhouette (which also means it can only be worn on this type of strap). Historically, the U.S. Navy determined that divers fit their Tudor watches with fabric straps, typically one-piece ones in black or green, made mostly of nylon. The Pelagos FXD comes with two straps: a one-piece green fabric strap with red central thread and self-gripping fastening system, and an additional dark gray embossed fabric-motif one-piece rubber strap. The 22-mm one-piece fabric strap has become one of the hallmarks of Tudor. It is produced in France on 19th-century Jacquard looms by the Julien Faure company in the St.-Etienne region. The movement is the Caliber MT5602 with a non-magnetic silicon hairspring and certified as a chronometer by the Swiss Official Chronometer Testing Institute (COSC). Another notable feature is the power reserve of about 70 hours when fully wound.
And a characteristic of this variant is the 60-notch rotating bezel, here unidirectional with a luminescent material-filled 60-minute-graduated ceramic insert with a traditional dive scale. And last but not least, while the M25707B/23-0001 made for the combat divers of the French Navy (see WatchTime’s August 2022 issue) comes with a caseback that is engraved with “M.N.” for Marine Nationale, the production year and the anchor emblem, the version here is equipped with a sterile caseback.
To learn more visit Wempe, here.
This article was originally published in the November / December 2023 print issue. To subscribe to WatchTime Magazine, click here.
