WW2 Sniper CES

[Peter Laidler]

Just a few what I consider to be '....erronious' comments in this thread. We used to overhaul and repair all of the mechanical wrist watches you see here (see Big Duk's post). The WWW stands for Watches, Wristlet, Waterproof and the W10 is the VAOS category and VB the stores codification. The Omega was followed by 10033 while the Vertex was 10018. I worked on all of the watches listed in the superb post by Big Duke. These are what we called the 'primary makers' Without doubt, the nicest the 30T2 W10VB 10033 Omega followed by the Longines. Equal to the Longines was the Jaeger le Coutre. I never saw an IWC or a Grana and very few Buren. We had a saying in the Instrument circles. If you are just rich, buy a Rolex. If you are rich and have style, buy an Omega. If you are rich, have style and want everlasting reliability, buy a Longines! I gave my son a G-10 Longines when he was old enough to appreciate it - but kept a pair of consecutively serially numbered Omegas for myself of course!

I'm surprised that the author of Big Dukes article says that mixing up parts was common...... Not in my experience. None of the backs were ever interchangeable (certainly without model engineering and tool room skills at a guess) and the designation and serial number were on the backs. And all of the serial numbers commenced with a different letter. Omega with a Y and Vertex with an A and so on. All the movements were mated to a case so you'd struggle to fit an Omega movement or hands onto/into a Jaeger case to work a fiddle!!!!! And any case, a mechanical wristwatch was deemed to be V&A for Valuable and attractive and to loose one was almost a hanging offence. Unless it was active service with ........ anyway!!!!! The first of the post war replacements that we saw when back in England in the early 70's was the Smiths Industries from Witney wristwatches, made in Wales. Quite nice but still expensive. a few mechanical CWC's (not good!) and then the quarts fat-boy CWC's, slimline CWC's, both with battery bay access and later the one-way-trip Pulsars. They didn't even have battery access. So as soon as the battery died so did the watch! You only had to look inside to see the movement. Then look into a lovely Eterna (another good one) or Omega - and cry!

As for the supplementary issues. Chosenman is 99% sort-of correct. The supplementary kit was not part of the CES - as in the chest. It meant that the actual issue of the CES to the unit would automatically trigger an update in the QM's scales giving him the authority to demand the supplementary issues according to the new issue scale - if that makes sense. So if the Battalion had, say, another 4 snipers allocated for doctrinal or tactical reasons or deployment, then when the QM got the rifles, he could also get the extra compasses, binos, wrist watches etc etc