Panerai Flips the Crown and Adds a GMT to the Submersible Marina Militare

Panerai has spent more than a century making instruments for the Italian Navy, a partnership the Maison dates to the 1910s. That history now continues in two new steel divers, the Panerai Submersible Marina Militare Destro PAM01757 and the Submersible Marina Militare GMT PAM01758, both water-resistant to 500 meters.

Both watches are finished in brushed steel, with the crown-protecting bridge that has long marked a Panerai and a unidirectional steel bezel fitted with a matte black ceramic disc. Beige Super-LumiNova covers the hands, the indices, and the bezel dot. Each watch arrives on a gold-brown calf leather strap, with a black rubber strap included.

The Destro, at 44mm and 146 grams, places that bridge at 9 o’clock so the watch can be worn on the right wrist, leaving the left hand free for a compass or a depth gauge, as archival examples were meant to do. Since Panerai opened to the civilian market, only a few Submersible Destro references have preceded it. The black matte dial has no date, a choice the Maison ties to its earliest purpose-built instruments, and the small seconds sit at 3 o’clock.

Inside is the automatic P.980, the same 3-day caliber used in the Submersible Navy SEALs PAM01738. It is 4.2mm thick, with 169 components and 23 jewels, a traversing balance bridge, a stop-seconds function, and six-position testing. Panerai rates PAM01757 to 50 bar, about 500 meters, and tests each watch in a vacuum, immerses it at the stated pressure plus a 25 percent safety factor, then checks for condensation.

The GMT is the smaller of the two, at 42mm and 134 grams, and adds a second time zone. The automatic P.900/GMT24H, 5.46mm thick and built from 175 components, tracks that zone on a 24-hour scale so day and night can be read at a glance.

An orange-tipped GMT hand, a date at 3 o’clock, and small seconds at 9 o’clock sit on a black grained matte dial, and a stop-seconds function allows precise setting. It shares the 500-meter rating, at 50 bar, and a 3-day reserve from a single barrel, wound by a bidirectional rotor.

The beige lume is a deliberate echo. Super-LumiNova in this tone is meant to recall the way historical Panerai luminous material, originally white, could turn beige with age, light, moisture, and oxygen, and the gold-brown calf strap points to the leather of early diving watches. The screwed steel caseback of each watch is engraved with the Slow Speed Torpedo, the underwater vehicle Italian naval units in the 1940s called “the pig.”

In 2025, the Maison marked the same naval partnership with a pair of Submersible Marina Militare watches inspired by Aviazione Navale, in steel and Carbotech, and rated to 300 meters. These new steel references return the line to a 500-meter tool watch: a Destro that keeps the left hand free, and a 42mm GMT that can read a second time zone in the dark. After more than a century with the Marina Militare, Panerai is still designing for the work those first instruments were asked to do.

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Adrienne Faurote

Editor in Chief · Haute Time

As a former New Yorker, now a “Miamian,” Adrienne Faurote joined Haute Living in August of 2021. She currently serves as the Haute Media Group Editor-in-Chief, overseeing all editorial platforms within the Haute Media Group while also maintaining her role as Fashion, Jewelry & Watch Director. Prior to her position at Haute Living, Faurote was the Market Editor at Marie Claire Magazine US, amassing over ten years in the industry, becoming an authoritative voice in all things fashion, jewelry, and watches.