The Breitling Watch Blog

As some of you might have already known, I had purchased a U-Boat Flightdeck CAS 50mm watch, which many on the forum kept saying was “Cheaply made” and they felt that the metal was cheap and that the crystal was cheap. I had a totally different experience and felt that the case machining was on par with anything in the price range, and that the only part that was neglected was the finish of the movement. I’ll elaborate a bit more here.

There is a general shot of the U-Boat, atop the U-Boat box. As you can see, the lines on the bezel are crisp and sharp, an indication of high-end finishing techniques, usually executed partially by hand. The strap on the other hand, while made in Italy by hand, is ugly. The preforated inserts on the strap serve to cheapen the overall look of the watch, and I immediately put it on a StrapLuxe grey leather strap with white stitching which matches the watch perfect in my opinion.

A close up of the dial, and you can see the crisp lines of the bezel in this photo as well. The dial lume is applied meticulously and precisely. While this watch is made in Italy, I have no doubt that the quality of the painting on the dial is up to the standards of similarly priced swiss watches. While the overall style of the watch probably does not ooze class, it is a well made watch in my opinion. The crystals are Sapphire, and the case steel is 316L, the same type as most high-quality Swiss watches.

It was told to me that the quality of this watch was no better than the Nixon watches out there. While I might agree with this statement if it were applied to Hamilton watches or Swiss Army Victorinox case finishing, I would not agree in repect to U-Boat. I would put U-Boat solidly along the lines of Tag Heuer’s Carrera line for quality of finish.

The movement finish on the other hand is sorely lacking, and not up to the quality standards of even Tag Heuer. The U-Boat movements are definately in the same quality range as Hamilton. The extra canteen hardware is very well machined and made as well, given a quality feel when unscrewing and using the canteen cover.

The Plain Jane Valjoux/ETA 7750 is visible on the caseback as can be seen, and is mounted reversed for a left-crown configuration, an obvious necessity given the size of crown and 50mm case diameter. The watch is quite heavy and does not feel light for its size in my opinion.

Not seen in the photos is the U-BOAT deeply engraved on the side of the case, which is deeply sunken and bead basted in the deep parts, given the case an extra level of finish. I purchased this watch from a friend, after I had handled it and felt that the quality of the finish was at an acceptable level. I have since sold this watch, mostly because I found the 50mm size a bit inconvenient. It makes the watch somewhat impractical for daily wear, and sometimes the size makes it look a bit tacky IMO. This is the “mid-sized” U-boat, with a larger 55mm size and smaller 43mm version available.

There’s the proverbial wrist shot, mounted on the stock strap and shown on my 6 3/4″ wrist. While it is large, and somewhat saucer-like in appearance, it is not entirely out of the question, and much more manageable than I would have thought 50mm would be. Now, the 55mm version would be totally out of the question for me, but I could see a guy with an 8″ wrist pull a 55mm U-Boat off no problem…