Well, now that the dust has settled after the Basel release of the new Breitling models, its time to think and reflect. Breitling surprised many with the slimming down of their trademark “chunky” Avenger line earlier this year and many picked them up when they hit the market in June. The Super Avenger II and Avenger II Seawolf were slimmed down a bit in specs, while the new Avenger II was slimmed down quite a bit to 43mm. The new Avenger II GMT is also weighing in at 43mm. Breitling is a frontrunner and a trendsetter in the watch industry. While many may disagree with that, there is no doubt that Breitling is one of the pioneers of the big-watch movement, and now they have slimmed down their Avengers… an interesting direction.

super-sea

There have been several discussions on the BreitlingSource Forums regarding the size of the Super Avenger 2 in the past, and how the watch actually wears larger than the previous model, despite the .4mm smaller measurement. The new Super Avenger has a larger crystal, but is substantially thinner, giving the watch a different feel on the wrist. I personally prefer the new size, having tried one on.. which inspired me to talk a bit about the new Avenger II line.

The Avenger II Seawolf, on the other hand I have not had a chance to try on yet. I’ve seen some chatter about the differences but so far I’m prefering my own Avenger Seawolf Steel original. The new Bracelet seems a bit off to me on some of the models while it does appear to work on some of the others. Again, even though this model specs at .4mm smaller, it “looks” bigger. Possibly due to the overall change with the larger Crystal and thinner bezels on the Avenger II line.

avenger-gmt

The Avenger II and Avenger II GMT are almost like completely different watches than the previous Avenger II. There are some great pics posted from one of our users with his Avenger II. Well, the GMT IS a totally new watch to the Avenger II line, and in my opinion Breitling shrunk these down to 43mm in order to fill a void that was left in the brand when they decided to extinguish the Colt Automatics. With the departure of the Colt GMT, cutting the Avenger down to 43mm would make it a in-between for buyers that would be searching for a colt. The Avenger II GMT doesn’t appear to be available yet, at least not here a couple weeks ago.

Overall the line is sitting well with me. I was a bit surprised when I heard about the drop in size initially, but the Super Avenger is still healthy and large… and in fact wears larger in my opinion than its predecessor. I took the time to try them on and quite like them. I think I might need more time to completely digest the Pro III bracelet, however.