Bulova Celebrates 150 years with New MIL-SHIPS Dive Watches

Bulova celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2025, and to kick things off the brand is releasing a pair of new MIL-SHIPS divers in bronze cases. Bulova brought the MIL-SHIPS platform to life for the first time commercially back in 2021, honoring its history of creating watches for the military. In modern guise, Bulova sticks to the original MIL-SHIPS-W-2181 standard established by the U.S. Navy in 1955, which brings plenty of Old World charm to these latest releases, perfectly accentuated by the use of a bronze case. The history it brings with it is just as interesting, and puts a spotlight on the early development of issued dive watches as a whole.

The mid-1950s represents the birth of the dive watch genre as we know it, and it’s a landscape that quickly evolved to include a myriad of watches that are still around today. The militaries of the world actually played a role in the development of the kinds of standards that would be applied to commercially released references, and as a result helped to shape the modern dive watch. Standards such as MIL-SHIPS-W-2181 (which would eventually become MilSpec MIL-W-22176A) would set the template for dive watches being produced, and the result is watches such as the original Bulova prototype, as well as the eventual formation of Tornek-Rayville and the TR-900.

The original Bulova MIL-SHIPS watch was never put into commercial production; however, there is evidence that at least some prototype watches were issued and used by the U.S. Navy’s Explosive Ordinance Disposal divers in the late ‘50s. As the Navy further evaluated dive watch options, and due to the fact that Bulova never delivered further samples to the Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU) as requested in 1959, it would be Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms that would eventually win the contract. However, thanks to the Buy American Act of 1933, the importer, Allen V. Tornek, created a new brand with the help of Blancpain — using his own last name, and “Rayville,” which is a phonetic anagram of “Villeret,” where Blancpain watches were first produced.

There’s a lot more to that story, but suffice to say that Bulova’s involvement in the early phases is how the MIL-SHIPS watches we see here came to fruition. There is a military tie-in, but maybe not quite the level you’d imagine. Nevertheless, the watches are novel and interesting in their own right, and represent what might be the most accessible historically significant dive watches on the market today. 

The newest MIL-SHIPS watches feature CuSn8 bronze cases (that’s an alloy of copper with 8 percent tin), which is itself a nod to a very significant material in diving history. Bulova is offering both olive green and navy blue dial colors with these watches, each with a matching aluminum bezel insert. (That bezel, by the way, is bi-directional.) On the dial itself you’ll find the original moisture indicator at 6 o’clock, which appears to be more than just set dressing. The case itself remains 41mm in diameter, though one welcome change is the move to an 18mm lug span, from the original 16mm span, which created a rather disproportionate look and feel. 

Bulova is calling these watches ‘special editions’ so there’s no word on their availability just yet; however they will each be priced at $1,195.