New Panerai Submersible Chrono Marina Militare Experience Edition has one feature I wish more watches had

When most of us buy a watch, it's a fairly simple experience. You walk into your retailer of choice, check out a few pieces and then pick one and buy it. Case closed.

When you buy a certain subset of Panerai watches, though, things are very different. Dubbed the Experience Edition watches, these include a unique experience designed to showcase the piece within its intended environment for a very exclusive group of customers.

That's exactly what the brand has just launched with the new Panerai Submersible Chrono Marina Militare Experience Edition. At first glance, the £48,200 (approx. $64,100 / AU$100,000) price tag might cause you to wince, but that includes a three-day trip with the Italian armed forces.

Those lucky enough to snag one – just 35 pieces will be made – will be taken to Puglia, Italy, where they will participate in military training activities and tactical simulations. It's a really rare opportunity to get behind the curtain in this environment.

Still, it's not just the trip which is impressive. The watch itself packs in a good amount of functionality, ensuring you've always got exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.

Sitting within a 47mm case crafted from Grade 5 Titanium, users will find a flyback chronograph, a time-to-target countdown, a second reset function and more. In fact, one of my favourite features on this watch is called Quick Change of Time.

In essence, that takes the hour movements you'll know from some GMT watches – where the hour hand jumps forward in increments of one hour without moving the minutes hand. It's a really neat way of maintaining precision while setting your watch, and I love it.

As part of the Submersible collection, the watch is also water resistant to a whopping 500m depth. That's a rating you can trust, too – Panerai test all of their watches to 25% beyond the stated resistance rating.

All of that attaches to a green canvas strap, which matches neatly with the grained, matt green dial. Even in dive watch terms, this is something of a behemoth, but throw in the chronograph and other functions? This one is a really special piece.