Oris BC4 RHFS Limited Edition Watch Review
Wednesday - 15 February 2012
Meet the 4th Régiment d’Hélicoptères des Forces Spécialies, a French Army aviation unit that’s the latest to be enshrined in a high-quality, luxury watch. Very little information is publicly available about this particular unit, but suffice it to say that these specialists are subjected to extreme danger and treacherous conditions.
The equipment that they rely upon must be reliable, rugged, and durable. Everything from their helicopters to their assault weapons are perfectly maintained and held to the highest standard. Why should anything be different when it comes to their timepieces?
Sure, a watch might not be as critical as a piece of night-time vision equipment or a grenade launcher, but it’s still a component in a well-oiled machine. To see how the BC4 RHFS Limited Edition piece would perform out in the field, it was tested by the soldiers. After passing with flying tricolours, one thousand pieces will be produced.
Speaking of the tricolour, the trip of the second hand is subtly done in red, white, and blue. A number of other aesthetic details give the piece flavour. At the 9 o’clock position is the insignia of the unit. Additionally, the case is done in stainless steel gun metal PVD and is fairly large at 42.7mm across. Each piece is also individually numbered.
The inclusion of this watch in the Oris line is indicative of a growing trend in the watch industry: namely, producing pieces for a particular branch or unit of the armed forces. It’s an interesting and growing niche, one that adds some of the prestige of the unit to the individual wearer. It’s also an opportunity for those veterans of the regiment to share in patriotic pride and esprit de corps. Functionally and aesthetically, Oris’ BC4 RHFS Limited Edition watch is designed to perform and to please. The men of the French Army’s prestigious unit special operations agree.
