G10

1980 marked a turning point in the history of British military watches: after about two and a half centuries of exclusively mechanical supply, the Ministry of Defence adopted a quartz-movement watch for the first time, and it was CWC that supplied it. The name "G10" comes directly from the official nomenclature under which the watch was registered and issued to servicemen — "Watches, Wrist, Electronic, General Service" — and soon became, in the everyday language of the units, the name by which the model is still known today.

The first examples, made between 1980 and 1982, have a thick, squared-off case that collectors have informally nicknamed "Fatboy": it carries an early ESA quartz movement, a steel case with a bead-blasted finish to reduce glare, and water resistance of 5 atmospheres. It is precisely these first-generation examples that were in service during the 1982 Falklands War, a detail that makes them among the most sought-after pieces for military watch collectors today.

From the mid-1980s the case was slimmed down into what is known as the "Medium Fatboy" version, with an ETA movement and the same essential layout — matte black dial, Arabic numerals, a triangle at 12 o'clock and tritium lume. The G10 has been supplied in the tens of thousands of units a year to the Royal Navy (unit code 0552), the Royal Marines (code 0555) and, in a date-equipped version, to the Royal Air Force as the "Navigator". An estimated total of about 200,000 units were delivered between 1980 and 2006, the year the MoD scaled back large-scale orders; the G10 nonetheless remains in production today and is probably the most recognizable model in the entire CWC catalogue.