Mk. II Watches

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We Field-Tested Two Military Watches in the Army and This is What We Found

I’ll be frank: much of the watch-reviewing I get to do happens while I’m sitting at my desk, in a very comfortable office, somewhere in Manhattan. It’s a nice desk. There is coffee. As much coffee as I want…

And yet.

When the opportunity presents itself to actually review a watch in the environment in which it was meant to be worn, I jump on it without thinking twice. Field tests! In an actual field! What could be more appropriate?

Recently, after a few days at the Baselworld Fair, I had the opportunity to test two military field watches (a Marathon Navigator and a Mk II Paradive Gen. 3) during some training with my reserve paratrooper battalion in the IDF. While there was unfortunately no paratrooping to be done, there was plenty of marching in the rain, a healthy amount of live gunfire, and a distinct lack of sleep.

Review

Day 1: At about 11pm on Day 1 of training I found myself standing in the a steady rain, soaked to the core, waiting for a forced march of unknown length to begin. I was glad that I was wearing the Mk. II Paradive, which is water-resistant to 200m and features a screw-down crown and case back. The NATO strap I was wearing it on, a Crown & Buckle Supreme NATO, was thoroughly drenched, but thankfully the watch wasn’t fogging up. The Paradive is a 44.5mm stainless steel diver/field watch modeled after the famed Benrus Type I and II military watches of the 1970s. It features an asymmetric case, sapphire crystal, screw-down crown and case back and multiple bezel options. The version I used was equipped with an aluminum 12-hour bezel and no date.

The second watch I carried was a Navigator from Marathon Watch Co, which I leant to a buddy for testing purposes. Though this model is water-resistant to 6 BAR (roughly 60m), I was admittedly more nervous about it, given its non-threaded crown and snap-on case back. However, after a thoroughly wet night of marching and maneuvers, it proved just as water-resistant as the Paradive, though the Phoenix NATO it was strapped to was definitely waterlogged. Unlike the Paradive, the Navigator features tritium tube illumination on the hands and indices, a Hesalite crystal, a fibershell case and, in my case, a date function. Several different dial and case color options are available.

Day 2: I tried to catch a few winks of sleep after the previous night’s maneuvers, but alas — all my clothing was soaked and I didn’t have spare socks or a uniform top on me, none of which made it easy to catch any Z’s. Plus, sleeping on the floor of a concrete building used for urban warfare simulation is hardly comfortable, especially when said building has no doors or windows to help block out the wind. I found myself checking the Paradive frequently for the time, which advanced ever. so. slowly.

My one gripe with the Paradive is this: the bezel action is much looser than I’d like. I often wear a military-style fleece over my uniform top when it’s in the 50s or 60s outside, and this fleece has built-in lycra-type material that slips over your wrists like a sort of glove for added warmth. If I elect not to slip my thumb through the hole built into this sleeve for said purpose, I can use it as a window through which to view my watch — the only problem being that when I sslide the jacket on and off, this elastic material snags on the watch and is enough to turn the bezel. This would never happen on, say, my Submariner, and I admit that it annoys me. The watch is an utter tank otherwise, and if not for this one gripe, would be all but perfect, to my mind.

The afternoon brings some CQB training (close quarters battle) — for all intents and purposes, urban combat training. The occasional smoke grenade or flashbang goes off, and there is a special operations unit practicing not far from us with what sounds like live fire. For the most part, this part of the day is moderately subdued, and doesn’t involve rolling in thorn bushes or smacking my watch hand into a rock. More of that tomorrow.

Day 3: Finally, some sunshine. It’s still muddy everywhere and my boots are caked in it, making them heavy, but at least it’s moderately warm and bright outside — as it should be in Israel, damnit. I take a look at the Navigator on my buddy’s wrist — he’s a Negev light machine gunner and has to carry around this 17-lb. weapon everywhere he goes, in addition to ammunition. There’s lots of potential for beating the crap out of one’s watch when crawling around with the Negev, and I’m wondering if it’s endured any damage.

I do notice that the Hesalite crystal seems to have gotten a tiny nick in it, but that’s the magic of acrylic — you can buff scratches right out with some Polywatch and a cleaning cloth. There are definitely some tiny nicks in the fibershell case, too, but it’s functioning just fine. After all, with a hi-torque quartz movement and a design specifically meant to function at ultra-high altitudes and during rapid changes in pressure, it’s no surprise that the Navigator deals with some crawling and water without a hitch.

The watch’s 12-hour bezel is bi-directional, and the action just slightly tighter than that of the Paradive. I aligned the 5 o’clock marker on the bezel of both watches with 12 o’clock on the dial, thereby calculating the 7-hour offset with the East Coast of the U.S. for keeping track of time back in NYC.

Overall, though these watches have a very similar design (asymmetric case with 12-hour bezel, analog dial, etc.), the feel on the wrist couldn’t be more different. If you want a tactical timepiece with some heft, the Paradive is the watch for you — there’s no mistaking that this thing is on your wrist, and despite subjecting it to some abuse over a four-day period, the case wasn’t so much as smudged.

The Navigator, on the other hand, is so light that you barely feel it on your wrist. The crystal and case scratch more easily, but the watch also costs $195 (discounted from an MSP of $300, as new models with steel crowns and sapphire crystals are just now debuting) — what more do you want at this price point? The easy-scratching fibershell case and acrylic crystal are worth the lightness on-wrist.

Day 4: In the interest of finishing strong, this day involved more urban combat training (this time with the entire battalion), followed by two exercises in a beautiful, green valley, one of which was “dry” (no live fire), and the second of which was “wet,” and involved lots of booms. Leading up to the CQB training, there was a fun jaunt through the woods — I elected to carry too much gear on me in this instance and found myself smacking into rocks and thorn bushes, as I didn’t have use of both of my hands to steady myself.

As it’s part of our combat doctrine to have sleeves rolled down any time one has a combat vest on (i.e. anytime one would actually be operational), there was always something covering the Paradive’s dial from harm. However, it’s also (theoretically) required to cover one’s watch with a dedicated watch cover. These serve a dual-purpose: a cover protects the watch, of course, but more importantly, it prevents a dial from reflecting and giving away one’s position. Most of the time I kept the Paradive’s dial covered by a small piece of elastic band, so between the watch cover and my sleeve, it was reasonably well protected from damage.

However, just because the watch had a cover over it didn’t mean that I didn’t fall several times in the woods leading up to our urban combat training — at one point I lost my footing and the muzzle of my assault rifle smacked right into the watch, which was thankfully covered and protected (I checked it anyway just to make sure — there’s nothing like banging up a watch that doesn’t belong to you). Phew.

For the final event, an old-fashioned assault on a hill, in two parts (“dry” and “wet”). These “wet” iteration of these exercises are always simultaneously fun and nerve-wracking, as they involve a heavy weapons platoon absolutely lighting up the area just ahead of where you’re about to assault: Mortars, machine guns, sniper rifles…all of these things are involved. The trick is to try not to end up on the receiving end of any of these weapons. The second trick is trying not to end up on the receiving end of any of the small arms carried by the guys next to you — in an ideal scenario, you and your buddies are all shooting in the same direction.

I checked the Marathon Navigator on my buddy’s wrist before the exercise, which he didn’t have covered by a watch cover, and it was still in good shape (despite a few scratches). Toward the end of the “wet” exercise, a commander in the field decided that he had been “injured,” which means that we had to evacuate him to a Hummer by carrying him and all his gear (no stretchers were available). He disappeared for an hour or so while the medics stuck him with needles and fluids, and wasn’t thrilled by the time he came returned. Looking at the Navigator, it didn’t seem to have sustained any more damage during the exercise, despite all of the gunfire, rolling, crawling, and occasional falls that we all took.

The four days of exercises ended with lunch, a box of Cuban cigars and some closing remarks from our company commander. Looking over the Paradive, I was thoroughly surprised that I hadn’t managed to put so much as a discernible nick anywhere on the watch, which I had explained to Bill Yao, founder and owner of Mk II watches, might happen. Admittedly I was almost disappointed in this respect — I feel like I could wear this watch for years of service and there was a solid possibility that it would show no signs of its history.

The Navigator, despite similar aesthetics, is built very differently from the Paradive, with a fibershell case, acrylic crystal and steel snap-on case back with integrated battery hatch. It was noticeably beat up after the week’s exercises — with a small scratch to the acrylic, some nicks to the case, and dirt embedded in small crevices (most visibly on one of the 12-hour bezel’s numbers), but it was nothing that hampered the watch’s utility, and I sort of appreciate the watch more for its new scars.

I would say that both watches performed roughly as I’d hoped, and both are solid choices for different reasons. If it’s a solid, heavy, tough-as-nails military watch that you’re after, I’d go with the Paradive, so long as you don’t mind bezel action that’s a little looser than on, say, a Submariner, and the price tag that goes with a watch of this quality ($895 — which is still quite reasonable, in my opinion).

If you want something you’ll barely notice on wrist and that you can beat the living shit out of, and you don’t mind the fact that it’s quartz or the fact that it’ll show scratches and dings more easily, then the Navigator is the move ($195). The newer Navigator, which has since become available on Marathon’s site, features a steel crown and a sapphire crystal for improved visibility and durability, and sells for $300, so this is also an option to keep in mind.

Ultimately, a dedicated analog military watch is admittedly somewhat superfluous today. A G-Shock will do anything you need it to do (I used one myself during my service), and you can pretty much run one over with a main battle tank and it’ll be fine (I haven’t yet tested this theory, but confidence is high).

However, for we watch fans and those of us who enjoy military history, there’s something undeniably attractive about a modern timepiece that echoes those types of watches that our fathers and grandfathers might have used (my own father used an automatic Timex in the army — go figure). They recall another era, and that feeling of nostalgia is sometimes enough to drive away inclinations toward practicality, for better or for worse.

What Others Are Saying:

• “On the wrist, the Navigator wears very well. Aesthetically, it’s simply very cool. The classic military elements mixed with the vintage feel of the domed crystal, finished off with the modern resin case come together for a unique watch.” — Zach Weiss, Worn & Wound

• “All in all, the Gen. 3 Paradive from MK II’s ready-to-wear series is a winner, and it’s an excellent follow-up to the already successful Hawkinge range. So, if you love the watch and the watch it pays homage to, and if you want something that you can comfortably wear around and even bang up, then the Paradive is certainly worth your attention.” — Ilya Ryvin, Worn & Wound

Key Specs — Navigator

Movement: ETA F04 High-Torque Quartz
Case Material: Fibershell
Case Width: 42mm
Water Resistance: 60m
Notable Functions: Multiple dial options; 12-hour bezel; date or no date

Key Specs — Paradive

Movement: Seiko NE15
Case Material: Stainless steel
Case Width: 44.45mm
Water Resistance: 200m
Notable Functions: Multiple bezel options; date or no-date

Marathon and Mk II provided these products for review.

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April 23, 2019 / Comments Off

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Meet the Man Behind Some of the Best Modern Military-Inspired Watches

Bill Yao sits at his watchmaking bench, nudging a bezel insert into place on one of his watches, trying to get it exactly right. He’s listing things that can go wrong.

If the machining isn’t right, or the bezel construction is wrong, or the dial placement is wrong, the bezel and the dial won’t line up, he says. And there’s worse. An expensive vendor might deliver a box of bad parts. A global recession might happen smack dab in the middle of a nightmare production run.

He gets the bezel just so, and moves on to a water resistance test on a $20,000 machine that, technically, is not necessary. It’s already been checked by the manufacturer.

Yao checks it again.

There are loads of microbrand watchmakers in America nowadays, but few are like MKII. The brand’s watches are strictly tool watches, often military-inspired, all designed and quality-control tested by Yao. MKII watches rank among the highest build quality and cleanest finishing of those of any American maker, and Yao’s design choices have proven absolutely exquisite again and again. The brand has gained a cult-like following among American watch fans. This is particularly impressive given that Yao works solely in the world of homage watches — two words watch nerds tend to view with suspicion, disgust, or both. MKII is the exception.

The Kingston, the watch that put MKII on the map, is a microcosm of the brand, Yao, and his following. “That watch almost destroyed us even as it saved us,” he says. The Kingston was a re-creation of the Rolex Submariner 6538 that Sean Connery wore in Dr. No as James Bond, and it was an ambitious watch: Yao was determined to build a watch with a gilt dial and gold hands, and do it affordably, for $1,095. Pre-orders for other MKII watches had taken a few months to take off, but Yao filled 100 orders for the Kingston in a week.

Then things went awry. It was 2009, and the world had plunged into a financial crises. Yao had trouble finding the right vendor to make his gilt dials and gold hands; once he did, production and assembly ran into major delays and quality control issues. “I had to rework every watch that they sent back,” he says. Yao made his first delivery in 2010, but many of the orders remained delayed. Two years turned into four. Yao was still determined to make the watch, and make it right, to his standards. Most customers were understanding; some weren’t. “People were saying this was a pyramid scheme. People were writing they were going to come over and punch me in the face,” he says.

He delivered the last Kingston five years after it was announced. Then something incredible happened: even after the absurd wait, people were blown away by the watch. Kingstons started showing up on the secondhand market for 2 to 3 times the retail price. Tudor, Rolex’s affordable sibling, announced a new watch, the Black Bay, that looked suspiciously like an homage of Yao’s homage. On the forums, watch nerds berated anyone who deemed to compare the two. Many thought that the Kingston was the better watch — it was just a matter of if you could get it. Yao’s watches since have carried the same stigma: well, if you can stand the wait, you’ll get something special, at a great price.

Yao’s watchmaking legend was born. Nobody beats Rolex when it comes to prestige and brand power — nobody. But Yao, the one-man watchmaker working out of a little shop in Wayne, Pennsylvania, gave them a run for their money.

Yao hasn’t slowed down since. Today, he has two branches of watchmaking: “Benchcrafted,” or special editions in small batches that still take a long damn time to get, and “Ready to Wear” watches made in Japan, and which you can actually get your hands on in a week’s time or so. He’s continued to pump out excellent homage watches, lately with an intensified aim of capturing the distilled design language and human experience of historic American military timepieces. He continues to focus in inordinate amount of time on QC. He says he might just be able to stop working weekends soon, to stop having to check and double-check quality control, to iterate and reiterate on design language until his production folks get things right. Well, maybe not this year — but there’s always next year.

Q&A

Q: What was the last watch you bought?
A: I stopped paying attention as much to the new releases. I’m more selective. I bought a Glycine Airman because they were going under and they were selling them for some stupid price. That was like two years ago. But actually, that’s not the last watch I bought. The last watch I bought was the Brew Chronograph. I really like that. That kind of watch actually really excites me.

Q: Did you keep up with any of the latest SIHH news? Anything there excite you?
A: To speak candidly, and to put it politely, I know the manufactures that I know and respect, and everything else is just white noise. I tend to tune it out. I’m not really interested in the newest tourbillon. These things are all great, but they’re just not interesting to me anymore. When I first started collecting, I was like, “Oh, Chronoswiss and skeletonized movements, column wheel chronos vs. clutch chronos.” Now I’m just like, eh – if it doesn’t look good and perform well, I kinda don’t care. I’ve heard too many stories after the fact — well, the watches don’t really work. Well, they have to go back to get fixed after a week on the wrist, but don’t worry, they’re at least expensive.

Q: Even though your first job was on Wall Street, it seems like you must have always been a design-minded person. Have you naturally focused on design since you were a kid?
A: No. The funny thing about this whole thing is, my wife is a graphic designer. A lot of my methodology is informed by her. I always had an interest in it, but I wouldn’t say I’m very design-minded. You should see the way I dressed back in 1998. It was embarrassing.

The first watches I designed — fortunately it doesn’t appear that I’m alone, because after everyone does their first watch, you can usually go back and say, “Oh, that was your first watch, wasn’t it?” Yeah, I know you can tell. The only brand that I’ve seen that’s avoided that so far is probably Baltic. They did a chronograph that looks like it’s really tight the first time around. But most of the companies i’ve seen, their first watch was just like mine: “Oh, so you’ve never designed a watch either?”

A lot of it just developed over time. When I started doing [watchmaking] in grad school, I thought, this is going to be a really easy way to make a living. This is not so bad! But as I got into more of the details — holy shit, there’s a lot of stuff to learn and to know. I got into the design part because it was clear that no matter how hard I tried I would never be a watchmaker in that sense. I would not be one of those people cutting gears. I have terrible hand-eye coordination.

It’s a weird mix. You see watchmakers coming out and doing their own thing, but very seldomly do they do everything right. Because there are usually really good watchmakers or really good designers, but almost never are they good at both. Even the ones who are doing good design are almost always getting some kind of outside help.

“There are usually really good watchmakers or really good designers, but almost never are they good at both. Even the ones who are doing good design are almost always getting some kind of outside help.” -Bill Yao, Founder, Mk II Watches

Q: So where would you say you fall, between good watchmaker and good designer?
A: As a watchmaker, I’m a passable — what we’d call a “technician. People don’t like it when I say that, but that’s really what I am. I’ve done all the assembly, and fortunately I’ve had watchmaker friends who show me what I’m doing wrong. So now I can assemble a watch well. But if you ask me to repair it, I’ll say, that’s why I have a guy in Missouri doing the repair work. I probably could figure it out, but what would the point be? It would take forever. And it’s just another skill set I have to have.

I’m more of a designer. When I go to Basel or these watch fairs, I’m actually only really looking at the watches. I’m not really interested in the mechanics of it. To me it’s just kinda like a V8 engine or a V12 engine. OK, well, now we’re going to slot that into a really nice car and design a car around it.

Q: So how did you learn about watch design?
A: I only really got into the design primarily because I always had a nascent interest in it. I’ve gradually learned about it, and only because I’m looking at these watches I’m trying to re-create, and realizing wow, this is really hard. Why does it look so good? What makes it so attractive? What makes it so evocative, that design work? And by that process of wanting to do better each time I’ve gradually developed a capability in design work.

A lot of it’s just experience-based. You can see all the books I’ve collected. [Yao has a bookshelf full of books about design, watches, and history in his office.] I’ve just studied a lot of watch design in the past, and because I’m so passionate about wanting the watch to turn out well.

Q: Tell me about that first watch you designed, the one that didn’t go so well.
A: When I first got into this, there was a really cool Blancpain-style watch. But all the details were wrong. The brand name was kind of eh…It looked like a watch made for CES made to just give away. The bezel insert looked nice but there was no luminous marker on it and it was supposed to be a dive watch. It only had 50 meters of water resistance, it didn’t have a screw-down crown, but it looked like a Fifty Fathoms. So I’m just asking myself, like, why did you make this thing in the first place? In principle it’s a good idea, but everything is wrong with it — literally every little thing.

But that’s how I got into it. And I’d show it to my wife and ask, how does this look? She’d say, this is off and I would adjust it, and I gradually learned through that. Mostly because I just wanted a really cool thing to come out of the product. And then gradually I came to appreciate the design, branding more. All of these things are not what I learned in school.

Q: Tell me more about learning design from studying the great examples that came before you.
A: I’ve never seen a lot of these watches in person, because they’re too rare. A lot of it is just photographs that I’m seeing. I think lots of collectors form an opinion of what the watch should look like, based on those photographs. To a certain extent now you’re just trying to capture a feeling from the photograph, not actually what the watch is exactly like.

You’ll see it in wrist shots and things like that. I try to take wrist shots for Instagram. Even if the photograph is not exactly what the watch looks like, it informs you as to what you think it looks like. I’ve bought vintage watches before and gotten them in person before and been like, huh…this looked good in the photographs.

I lusted over a Tudor 7920. It had the Fleurier Cal. 390. It was back when Rolex made all the cases for Tudor, so at the time, a big difference between a Rolex and a Tudor was that one said Rolex and One said Tudor.

In the photos, the watch was amazing, it had great patina. I had it serviced. Everything was right about it. And then I got it, and I was like, hmm, that’s odd. I would see myself in the mirror in the morning, and realize the watch looked really good from four feet away. But why does it look so terrible from 15 inches away? Why is the magic gone when you do that? And for whatever reason, it wasn’t just with that Rolex, it was with every Rolex I’d ever owned. So my in-laws, one year they decided that all their sons-in-law had to have the same watch. So they bought five Rolexes and just stuck them in a safety deposit box. I was really excited to get at that. Then I got it, and the same thing happened again. It looked really good in the pictures, but now I’m wearing it, I’m like “eh.” It’s very well-executed and very well made, but there’s some magical piece of it is missing.

And then I started realizing that a lot of the stuff I was making, it didn’t matter what the original looked like, it mattered more about if you were able to capture that kind of intangible quality that made it special to people in the photographs in a sense. That’s who you’re marketing to.

Take the Project 300 (Omega Seamaster 300 homage) for example. If you go through all the different years of different Omega cases, maybe a lot of it was done by hand, and the cases vary widely in small details — the thicknesses and polishes and even the rough shape of it is different across different periods of time they manufactured it. But only certain ones will capture that kind of feel of, “Oh that’s a really cool-looking watch.” And other ones just won’t. So what I did for the Project 300 was say, I really like the way this lug looks in this picture, how do I translate that so it looks like that in real life?

Q: Was there an “Aha!” moment when you realized evolutionary design was your specialty?
A: I think most of it was just that I really liked vintage watches. They’re really, really cool, but the reality is they’re an enormous pain in the ass. There’s stuff I want to do, and I don’t want to have to worry about my watch. If I was one of those people that enjoyed sitting around making phone calls all the time, then that’s great and I’d have time to fuss with my watch, and I’d be able to tell funny stories about it — and if that’s the way you wanna live, that’s great. But that’s not me.

Then I just got into the design aspect because I was so interested in doing it right that I just kept asking why. That’s an innate part of my personality. I’m philosophically minded, but in an almost…pointless way. If I were to pinpoint something that gives me a reason for doing something better, it’s just that there’s something about my brain that just won’t let that go.

“And then I started realizing that a lot of the stuff I was making, it didn’t matter what the original looked like, it mattered more about if you were able to capture that kind of intangible quality that made it special to people in the photographs in a sense. That’s who you’re marketing to.”

Q: It’s clear to me that you’re understanding design language at a different level than most of us are. It’s almost like you’re seeing with X-ray vision.
A: Someone asked me at Windup Watch Fair, what would an original MKII look like? To be honest, I’m not sure. I might only be good at what I’m doing now. Just to go through the exercise of creating a completely original design — maybe it looks like shit. Maybe I’m only a good evolutionary designer, and maybe that’s where my special skill set is. I want to do one, but it’s one of those things where, if you’re in a situation where, if you were at Rolex in 1953, Pan Am’s here and they need a watch that can tell time in a second time zone, what can you do? If I were handed a task like that, then I’d go through all the design elements people had done in the past, and see what would work and what needed to be done that was new. And then come up with something. But the idea of coming up something just for the sake of coming up with something, I don’t think is really me.

I think a lot of people in the microbrand world, if they wanna be artists, that’s fine. They wanna work in metal and make a moving sculpture. That’s great. But that’s not what I wanna do. I’m not trying to produce something new for the sake of producing something new. I want it to have a purpose, and to have a reason for existing as opposed to just the sheer ego of it all. And I’m not saying people that do that are egotistical, I’m just saying that that’s not me.

February 13, 2019 / Comments Off

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