Built with French Navy commandos, and you can tell
By Tom Hargreaves, Falmouth, Cornwall ยท
The FXD was made with the French Navy's Commando Hubert, their combat diver unit. That's not a marketing partnership with a yacht race, that's a brief from people who do this for a living. And the result is one of the more interesting watches in this list.
The FXD bit stands for fixed. The lugs are solid, no spring bars, so the strap threads straight through and can't come loose. That's a real military requirement: if a spring bar pops on a regular watch, you lose the whole thing. With fixed bars there's no spring bar to pop, and a single-pass strap keeps hold of the watch even if one end works loose.
The downside is obvious. You can only use a single-pass strap. No bracelet, no rubber two-piece, nothing that needs spring bars. For me, a dive instructor with a box of straps, that's an annoying limit. For a commando, it's the whole point.
Titanium case, 42 mm, 12.75 mm thick, 22 mm between the bars. 200 m, closed back, no date. The MT5602 gives you 70 hours. Blue dial on a fabric strap. $4,300 to $4,600.
The lume is excellent, the dial is clean, and titanium makes it very light. The fabric strap is properly comfy and dries fast, faster than you'd expect, which matters when you're going in and out of the water five times a day.
It's for someone who wants a pure tool and doesn't mind the strap limits. I'd have one. I'd wear it on the boat every day.
I'd also get a spare strap. They do get grubby, and the van has a smell to it already without adding an old strap to the dashboard.