> militaries never seem to have outfit their soldiers with watches

The UK issues these watches

http://www.cwcwatch.com/collections/general-service-watches/...

I only ever saw them when checking stores - Q would never actually let you take it out and use it!

Maybe you were 'issued' them as well, but like ours they're never let out of the stores?

> The one thing that always intrigued me is that militaries never seem to have outfit their soldiers with watches (the only 2 i heard anecdotal evidence that they had were the Russians and the Swiss).

This could be a hold over from habits established before cell phones became common. Back before, say, the '90s, most people in the US (and I assume in most other first world countries) from their teens onward had a watch.

Perhaps militaries assumed that everyone coming in would already have a watch.

Furthermore, watches were often of great sentimental value, and many people would have viewed the military telling them what watch to wear as being as absurd as, say, issuing a standard military wedding ring to married soldiers to replace their civilian wedding ring.

As long as a soldier's watch was accurate and reliable enough for military needs, they probably saw no reason to not let the soldier use his own watch.

Until recently officers usually had to provide most of their own equipment. You can still see leftovers from this in the British military, where for example you are responsible for buying your own dress uniforms from private tailors (but you get a grant to somewhat cover it these days).

That does seem odd. OTOH probably the cheapest way of procuring a watch is to let you order one from Amazon.

Yeah, they're also hugely personal and there is tons of interest for a "real" military watch outside of militaries. Most accounts I've read say that people in the US military like G-Shocks and other cheap simple digital watches like this Casio. There are quite a few G-Shock fans around the world, and my personal favorite is the G-Shock G-056 since it's the thinnest G with solar and an atomic RX.